Creationism and Schools: Youngstown, Ohio Opts for Science Only
News articles published between September 8th and 10th, 2016 noted that Crish Mohip, the Youngstown Schools Chief Executive Officer has stated that schools are obligated to follow the 344-page science standards developed by the Ohio Department of Education, which present the evolutionary view of biological development. Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, “any reference to intelligent design, creationism, or any like concepts are eliminated from the science curriculum,” Mohip stated.[1] The memo that Mohip sent out was prompted by the use of a video in a science class that claims to present evidence for creationism based on the proliferation of species starting 500 million years ago. Complicating the issue is the fact that the video was produced by a Turkish Islamic televangelist named Adnan Oktar who is reportedly a Holocaust denier and the leader of a sex cult.[2]
The teacher who showed the video in class stated that he was presenting different views and that students should be able to clearly identify and weigh the merits of various arguments.[3] This, however, contradicts Ohio state policy. Creationism is the theory that the universe was intelligently, or purposefully, designed by God as described in the Abrahamic tradition of religions. Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Bible as well as the Quran describe existence as having been formed by God. Modern science presents the theory that the universe was compressed into a small bit of matter surrounded by nothingness and, for reasons unknown, that pinpoint of matter suddenly exploded and began to expand into all of existence as we know it today.
The fight over the teaching of creationism in schools has been taking place for decades, with the common consensus shifting from creationism to evolutionary and scientific theories. In the American context that fight has revolved primarily around the Christian, literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story. In 1925, John Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law making it illegal to teach evolution in a state-funded school. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana law making it illegal to teach evolution in public schools without also teaching creationism.[4] In more recent years, the tide has turned in favor of the teaching of evolution over creationism. The recent decision of the Youngstown Schools Chief Executive Officer is just the most recent event in this ongoing trend and serves to show that a text compiled approximately 2200 to 2900 years ago still has meaning and significance in to modern societies.
A short essay I wrote for an undergraduate class called “Jesus the Jew” about a year ago.
Understanding who Jesus was is dependent on understanding the social context he was born into. What were the problems the Jewish people faced? What was the religious composition of the country? Was Jesus unique? Or were there others like him? After decades of Roman occupation, would Jesus’ message have been viewed favorably by his contemporaries?
When Jesus was born, Judea was occupied by the Romans. The invasion of the Romans was the last of many such occupations of Jewish lands by foreign powers that gradually diminished Jewish territorial control and sovereignty. Rome’s involvement with Judea began as an opportunistic intervention into a struggle over succession between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompey the Great, a Roman proconsul, backed Hyrcanus and restored him to the throne because he believed that Hyrcanus would be more likely to comply with Roman desires. The illusion of self-rule came to an end in 6 CE, when Judea was incorporated into the Roman empire as the province of Iudea and placed under direct Roman rule. By the time Jesus was born, there was widespread belief that the appearance of a messiah who would destroy the Romans and restore Jewish sovereignty was imminent. There were, in fact, many people wandering the desert claiming to be just such a person, and most of them were crucified by the Roman government.
Contemporary Jewish religion was very diverse, from established denominations to temporary movements built around charismatic individuals. The vast majority of the Jewish people were what today might be called mainstream practitioners. They were not heavily invested in the finer points of theology, but rather followed tradition and relied on instruction from those in their community with religious authority. This figure was usually a Pharisee. In contrast to the Sadducees, a group of priests who performed the required sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, the Pharisees were accessible to the people. Sadducees were educated, but status as a Sadducee was inherited and could only be inherited. Pharisees were also educated, but could be anyone: your neighbor, your son, or your uncle, and they lived nearby and could answer your questions. Another popular denomination was the Essene community, which lived a celibate and missionary lifestyle. There were also Zealots, or Fourth Philosophy groups, and groups like the one at Qumran, which may have produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. There were also charismatic individuals, typically wandering the country or living in the desert. They usually inspired followers or students, like Bannus, a hermit that Josephus sought wisdom from, and John the Baptist. There was no sense of normative Judaism. Jewish religion covered a broad spectrum of beliefs centered on the acceptance of the Hebrew Bible as scripture.
Jesus, as a man that preached a messianic message about the imminent establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, would not likely have been a surprise to his contemporaries, since he was but one of many such men traveling the country preaching a similar message. He also would not have been seen as a heretic, necessarily. Years later, Josephus defended the Christians because they were viewed as another group of Jews. There is no contemporary record of Jesus’ life, so it is impossible to know for sure how he was received, but he would have been seen as acting within the limits of Jewishness and, chafing under Roman rule, a message that advocated the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty probably would have been welcomed by the average person, or at least not a surprise.
This is a paper I wrote for an undergraduate course about a year ago called “Jesus the Jew”.
In The Historical Figure of Jesus, E. P. Sanders presents a very detailed examination of the evidence available for Jesus’ life. Of the three sources used for this paper, it is the most complete and the most scholarly in nature. F. E. Peters’ unpublished chapters on Jesus are very similar to Sanders’ work, though written in a more conversational way and with more emphasis on Jesus as the Gospels portray him, and on how Jesus viewed himself. Reza Aslan’s book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, is written for a mainstream audience and relegates complex arguments about sources to the endnotes, but it also presents a scholarly view of Jesus with an emphasis on social unrest.
Sanders is very clear about the evidence relating to Jesus. He writes that “the more or less contemporary documents, apart from those in the New Testament, shed virtually no light on Jesus’ life or death, though they reveal a lot about the social and political climate.”[1] He is probably referring to Philo, who did not mention Jesus, and Josephus, who was born after Jesus was crucified. Sanders explains that using the New Testament as a source is problematic because it was not written as a history; it was intended to be a theological document and though historians can glean information from it, as Sanders, Peters and Aslan all do, it is impossible to know whether the information is accurate or not.
A good example of this is the contradictory reasons given to explain why Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee rather than in Bethlehem.[2] The device used to reconcile this apparent scriptural contradiction is a census that required people to travel to the hometown of their ancestor of forty-two generations. Sanders describes this method as being the result of a difference between how history is thought of today and salvation history, which required Jesus to be placed in a narrative that met traditional models or types based on scriptural precedents. Aslan also points out the obvious inaccuracy of the census but explains it as the inability of writers at the time to think of history scientifically because they were attempting to reveal truths, rather than facts.[3] Regardless, the point is that the New Testament is not a document that is meant to convey factual history; it is a theological document.
Sanders relies heavily on Josephus and also references Philo as a source of information to describe the historic and social setting that Jesus acted in. Sanders writes in detail about the problems of using the New Testament and explains how it was formed, starting out orally and evolving into pericopes that could be rearranged into stories depending on the author’s needs. Because of these issues, he believes that understanding Jesus can best be done by understanding the social and historical setting of first century Palestine. Aslan is also heavily invested in exploring the social setting of Palestine to try to understand how it may have influenced Jesus as a man. He also uses Philo as source for information about Judaism and Palestine, but does not mention him within the text of the book itself. Rather, he uses extensive endnotes to mention his sources. He seems to rely more heavily on Josephus and does not engage in the sort of literary critique of the New Testament that Sanders does, perhaps because his book was written for a less scholarly audience. Peters uses the same sources, but also references post-Biblical literature like the Book of Enoch.
The limited number of resources available results in all three authors having very similar arguments and conclusions about Jesus. Sanders presents Jesus as a man who had very little impact in his own society based on Jesus’ lack of a major following and Rome’s inaction in terms of suppressing him and his movement. Aslan mentions that the authorities were highly sensitive to any hint of sedition, but Sanders points out that, despite Josephus’ narrative of steadily increasing social unrest, this was just a plot device he used to build up to the revolt in 66 CE. Aslan’s interpretation implies that Jesus’ activities were more notable than Sanders believes they were, though Aslan also acknowledges the routine nature of Jesus’ crucifixion. All three authors agree that Jesus was crucified for political ideas that undermined Rome’s position, though Peters seems to place more blame on the Jews than either Aslan or Sanders.
Both Aslan and Sanders express similar ideas about the purpose of Jesus’ mission. Aslan writes that Jesus was not interested in gentiles, at least not during his ministry. He was solely concerned with the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24).[4] Sanders is more specific and explains that Jesus was also concerned with Jews of a specific social class: poor, rural Jews like himself. He also examines the symbolism of Jesus’ use of terminology like “the Twelve” and “the kingdom” to try to discover what Jesus thought he was going to accomplish. We’re left with an image of a devout Jew that felt he was attempting to bring about a new Jewish kingdom of God on Earth that would appear soon after his death. According to Sanders and Aslan, Jesus was not trying to establish a heavenly kingdom and he did not anticipate the dissolution of the physical universe. He was attempting to recreate the golden age of Jewish sovereignty, which may be why he symbolically referred to his primary disciples as “the Twelve,” referencing the twelve tribes of Israel. Peters’ work seems to imply a more apocalyptic meaning (in the Christian sense) in Jesus’ message, but that may simply be due to the unfinished nature of his unpublished work.
Sanders spends the majority of his book whittling away at source material to try to find a believable middle-ground that describes who Jesus might have been and what he might have thought about his role in society. Aslan, on the other hand, spends more time focusing on the social conflict between the Jews and Rome and between different Jewish groups. Peters puts more emphasis on the content of the Synoptic Gospels and Jesus’ role as a messiah with a scriptural basis, but all provide similar images of a historical figure based on the limited sources available. Who Jesus was as a person is likely lost forever, buried in layers of theology, revision, addition, and interpretation by later writers. Most of what can be known about Jesus, barring a new discovery, is already available and all that is left to academia is creative interpretation.
Bibliography
Aslan, Reza. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Kindle Edition. New York: Random House, 2013.
Peters, F. E. “Chapters 1-5 concerning Jesus.” Unpublished Work. New York, 2012.
Sanders, E. P. The Historical Figure of Jesus. Kindle Edition. New York: Penguin, 1995.
[1] E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 1995), 3.
Saint Augustine’s Confessions is a book about the early life and conversion to Christianity of Augustine of Hippo, one of the most famous Christian scholars of antiquity. The book starts off with a description of childhood, then moves on to describe Augustine’s quest for knowledge both among the Manichees and through study of the traditional liberal arts, including oratory and rhetorical skills. An intensely personal account by design, Augustine reveals his internal struggle as he reminisces about the loss of his childhood friend, whose name he does not reveal, as well as his struggles with sexuality and his doubts about the nature of God. Essentially, the book is meant to show Augustine’s path from a confused childhood to a position of solid conviction in the Catholic faith, but Confessions can also be used as a source of historical information. This essay will examine the first seven chapters of Confessions to discover what it implies about the late 4th and early 5th century Roman society that shaped Augustine’s life.
One of the more interesting things that can be discerned from the book is the potential for mobility available in Roman society, both in terms of physical and social movement. Of course, Augustine’s case is not indicative of the norm, but he was able to advance from being the son of a modest family in Tagaste (in modern day Algeria) to being a well-respected and socially connected professor of rhetoric in Milan, before his conversion, which is related in chapters outside the scope of this essay. Augustine’s reasons for leaving his home village were originally related to study opportunities and a need to leave a place that reminded him strongly of the death of a childhood friend. His ability to travel within the empire for education purposes is interesting because it implies that there was a system in place that allowed for the boarding and education of students during his time. His ability to rise through the ranks of society based on his intellectual abilities shows that class distinctions were not set in stone and he specifically mentions that many Roman offices were available to anyone with the right amount of money. In a modern context, this has a negative connotation, and perhaps it did in Augustine’s time as well, because in his writing he felt the need to explain that as a system it allowed the state access to needed revenues and acted as a pathway to success for those born to lower classes.
In his writing, Augustine mentioned that not all families were willing to support their children’s education outside of their local towns, even when they were better-off economically than Augustine’s own family. Augustine did not go into detail about this point, but it leaves the reader wondering what motivations a family might have for not wanting to promote the education of their children at all costs, as Augustine’s did, when it might lead the family to greater success. If the story about Alypius and the responsibility of a “house” for a crime is any indication, the Roman family unit probably shared equally in success as well as culpability for crimes and failures.[1] Was it a cultural expectation that children would follow in the footsteps of their parents, leading to a lackadaisical attitude towards aggressive social advancement, or was the lack of interest in education outside of Tagaste something specific to that locality?
Much of Augustine’s writing in Confessions deals with education, because he wrote about both his time as a pupil and as an educator. His writing makes it clear that corporal punishment was a well-used form of discipline that acted as a motivator for children to pay attention to their studies. The fact that Augustine and, presumably, other children endured caning as a punishment and prayed for respite instead of abandoning school indicates that there was some measure of compulsion in attendance, either from families or from the state. Also, unless the phrase was added by the translator, the inclusion of the “three Rs” as a figure of speech (reading, writing, and arithmetic) shows that areas of study for primary school students in the late 4th century were fairly consistent with modern education standards.[2] His later education reveals a break with modern ideals about the purpose of studying the liberal arts, however. According to Augustine, forming logical arguments that revealed the truth about a matter were of secondary importance to style and delivery. Eloquence and the ability to convey a sense of conviction were more important than being able to logically argue a truth.
Similarly related to education, student culture in Roman society is revealed through Augustine’s writings. Bullying was alive and well in the 4th century. Schoolyard gangs even had nicknames, like “The Wreckers”, who would find “shy and unknown freshmen… to persecute…by mockery…to feed their own malevolent amusement.”[3] Augustine dealt with this group as a student by staying on friendly terms with them, but refused to participate in their mockery and acts of vandalism. Augustine wrote that in Carthage, students would burst into a classroom and purposely disrupt it with “mad behavior.”[4] Later, as an adult, Augustine complained of a practice common among Roman students, who would sit with a teacher for a number of classes and then transfer en masse to another instructor to avoid making payment.[5]
Augustine’s writing reveals quite a bit about religion during the late 4th and early 5th centuries in the Roman Empire, most obviously because the book is about his journey to conversion to Catholocism, but the first seven chapters of the book also discuss the Manichees and give an example of religious syncretism among professed Catholics. Augustine wrote that he spent nine years as a follower of the Manichee religion and through his writings, we can see that it was institutionally similar to the Catholic Church, including having Bishops, but professed very different concepts of God. The instance of religious syncretism that Augustine took time to mention was his mother’s practice of tomb veneration through the offering of plates of fruit and the ritual sipping of wine at the burial sites of Catholic martyrs. Augustine mentioned that his mother was not alone during these ceremonies, so the practice must have been widespread. I also make this conjecture based on the fact that in later centuries, and continuing up to the present, Islamic scholars in the Middle East have been condeming the same practice among Muslims regarding veneration of the tombs of saints, martyrs and especially Sufi pirs.
This brief selection of information from the first seven chapters of Saint Augustine’s Confessions shows how historical information about an author’s society can be revealed by analyzing that author’s work, even when recording historical information is not the main purpose of the work. This essay examines the chapters on their own, but by comparing what Augustine wrote to other available information, one could further the process of reconstructing Roman society and elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Augustine’s life and conversion to Catholocism.
[1] Saint Augustine, Confessions (Oxford University Press, 2009), 101.
Tono Brtko, from The Shop on Main Street*, and Oskar Schindler, from Schindler’s List, are both main characters in Holocaust films that, while similar, have very different impacts on the Jewish communities they interact with. The Shop on Main Street takes place in a small town in Slovakia during 1942, at a time when the fascist government is cracking down on Jewish residents. Schindler’s List** takes place in the latter years of World War II in and around Kraków, Poland. Both characters are non-Jews that are placed in positions of power over Jewish people, one as a shop manager and the other as a factory owner. The roles are similar, but because of the different motivations that guide Tono and Schindler’s actions, their relationships with Jews lead to very different results.
Antonin “Tono” Brtko and Mrs. Rozalia Lautmannová
The more complicated of the two characters by far is Tono Brtko. The Shop on Main Street is a highly symbolic film and endless meaning can be read into Tono’s actions, but it is fairly safe to say that Tono represents the Slovakian nation. He is “Mr. Everyman Slovakia” and his behavior in the film can be seen as a critique of how the average Slovakian citizen treated his or her Jewish neighbors. In the film, all of those Jewish neighbors are represented by Mrs. Lautmann, a widow that runs a bankrupt button shop on Main Street.
Tono’s relationship with Mrs. Lautmann is essentially predatory. Throughout the film, he acts only in his own interest. Tono’s only purpose in interacting with Mrs. Lautmann is to satisfy his greed. As part of the Aryanization process in Slovakia, Jewish people were required to turn over their businesses to Aryan managers. This is depicted in the film and, because of his brother-in-law’s position, Tono is appointed Arisator of Mrs. Lautmann’s button shop. The idea of stealing the wealth of another person and not having to work for it put Tono in good spirits, which were dashed when he realized Mrs. Lautmann’s store was bankrupt and had nothing to offer him. The only reason he continued to have anything to do with her was because the Jewish community offered him a salary to look after Mrs. Lautmann and her shop. So, Tono was only interested in Mrs. Lautmann when there was an apparent means of profiting from her situation.
Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List
Oskar Schindler, in Schindler’s List, is easier to understand. He is the hero of the story and a hero of the Jewish people. His development as a character follows a path similar to Tono’s, but there is a key difference. Unlike Schindler, Tono never has a change of heart. He never wants to help Jewish people because it is the right thing to do. Instead, he is only interested in profit. Schindler is depicted as being far more altruistic. At the beginning of the movie, Schindler is a cold, calculating business man who sees an opportunity to make massive profit off of cheap Jewish slave-labor during wartime conditions. This is similar to Tono’s desire to become wealthy through the acquisition of Mrs. Lautmann’s shop. In both cases, they are stealing the labor of others and converting it into personal profit, but when Schindler comes to understand the brutality of the Nazis, he empathizes with the Jews and expends all of his wealth in an effort to save as many of them as he can.
At the end of The Shop on Main Street, Tono attempts to hide Mrs. Lautmann from fascist soldiers approaching the button shop. It is possible that he does this because, in that moment of crisis, he realizes he actually cares about Mrs. Lautmann and feels guilty about what is going on, but it is more likely that Tono acted out of self-interested fear for his own well-being and a desire to avoid being considered a “Jew-lover.” In contrast, Schindler takes much greater risks than Tono in an effort to save people.
At the end of the two movies, both Tono and Schindler are broke, but while Tono ultimately has nothing to show for his efforts except a town empty of Jews, Schindler has saved over a thousand lives. If Tono had come to the same conclusion as Schindler, he could have saved Mrs. Lautmann, but because he was only thinking of how to profit from her, he caused her death. In the end, Tono and Schindler really aren’t that alike after all. They start out in similar circumstances, profiting from the labor of others, but their motivations and desires set them widely apart.
*For more on The Shop on Main Street, see this post:
(For more on Schindler’s List, also check out this additional post that summarizes common criticism’s of the movie.)
Schindler’s Listis a movie by Steven Spielberg that was released in 1993. The movie is based loosely on a book written by Thomas Keneally, which is also called Schindler’s List. The book, in turn, is based on the eyewitness testimony of Holocaust survivors who were saved by the actions of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who used his position and influence to turn his enamelware manufacturing labor camp into a refuge for Jews. The movie attempts to track the course of these events while also showing Schindler’s inner transformation from a cold, calculating businessman into a savior. The events depicted in the movie take place near the end of World War II in Kraków and later in the Płaszów labor/concentration camp, both of which are in Poland.
Various methods were used to turn this semi-historical information into an entertaining movie. Spielberg’s choice of coloring in the film was very intentional. Schindler’s List was designed in a way to make the audience feel as though they were viewing something historically accurate and making the film (mostly) black and white, rather than color, was a deliberate and effective means of making that connection. This was probably done to connect emotionally with the viewer and pull him or her along as the story progresses. Spielberg also set up his characters in an oppositional way that is simple and easy to understand, probably to appeal to a wider audience, and reinforced this image of good vs. evil through the use of light and dark imagery.
Schindler’s List is almost entirely shot in black and white, but there are scenes that are in color for added effect. The opening scene of the movie is in full color and shows a Jewish family lighting the Shabbat candles on a Friday evening. As the candles burn down and the flame goes out, the film transitions to full black and white. The point of this switch to black and white is to give the movie a documentary-style feel, to impress upon the viewer the historical reality of what is being depicted and more easily elicit an emotional response. I won’t go into the problem of presenting fictionalized material in a way that makes it appear to be completely historically accurate here. Essentially, what Spielberg has done is make it easier for the audience to empathize with people they know are real. The climax of this effective use of color is in the final scenes, when the characters in black and white transition to the actual living survivors when the film was shot. They are shown moving across a field and then moving forward in a line to lay flowers on the grave of Oskar Schindler. That scene completes the emotional connection and reinforces the power of what the audience just saw in the rest of the film.
The most famous use of color in the film is the “girl in the red coat” in the Kraków ghetto liquidation scene. In this scene, everything is black and white except for the coat a little girl is wearing. The camera follows her as she walks down a street and adults are gunned down behind her and in front of her. This is meant to draw the audience’s attention and probably to emphasize the innocence of the children who suffered through this event. The next time the audience sees the red coat the little girl was wearing is when it is in a pile in a wheelbarrow. The audience is left to draw the conclusion that she no longer needs it anymore, because she is dead. Another instance of coloring in the film is during the Friday Shabbat candle lighting ceremony in Schindler’s factory. Schindler not only gives permission to, but insists that the rabbi in the factory welcome the Sabbath. During this scene, the flames of the candle are in color again, like they were in the opening scene of the movie. This may indicate a restoration of the Jewish people, through Schindler’s respect for them as human beings.
Color also plays an important role in the depiction of characters in the film, primarily in the use of shadows on their faces. This ties in with the essentially oppositional nature of the main characters in the film: Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth. To make this film more easily understood by a wider audience, Spielberg created a good vs. evil paradigm that posits Schindler as the hero and Goeth as the bad guy. Schindler is the troubled hero who starts out selfish and uninterested in others, much like Spiderman. Like Peter Parker, Schindler has to experience a traumatic event before he changes his mind about the Jewish people and uses his power for good. Like Parker’s uncle Ben, Schindler has the one-armed man and the girl in the red coat, among others. Schindler’s path to heroism is painted in a very easily understood way. Goeth is presented as an ultimate evil, a man that is beyond the bounds of sanity. He even has an evil sounding accent and an army of evil henchmen (the camp guards). To take the comic-book reference a bit further, we can think of Helen Hirsch as the damsel in distress that the hero, Schindler, rescues from the bad guy, Goeth.
This set-up of hero and villain is reinforced throughout the film by facial lighting effects. When Schindler is introduced, he is dark and mysterious and his face isn’t shown in full. When he is doing something negative, his face is in shadows. For example, when a Jewish woman shows up at his office to ask for his help, he is shown at the top of a staircase, in the distance and completely in shadows. Why? Because this scene shows him bowing to his dark impulses. In this case, he is acting on his lust for attractive women and because this woman is dressed conservatively, he sends her away. When she comes back dressed in a sexually appealing way, he agrees to meet her. When Schindler does something good, his face is shown fully lighted. An example is when he gives a chocolate bar to Helen Hirsch when questioning her in the basement, to reveal his good will toward her.
Fascism is not really addressed in this film, because it focuses more on Oskar Schindler and his transformation from Nazi party-man to Jewish savior. Oddly enough, the same can be said about the role of Jewish people in the film. There are many opportunities for character development, but the only Jew that really gets any serious screen-time is Yitzchak Stern. The Jewish people in Schindler’s List are essentially part of the backdrop of the Holocaust and act as supporting players to tell Schindler’s story. Not to belittle Schindler’s efforts, but it is odd that a film dedicated to the memory of six million dead Jews gives them so little time to tell their own stories, or act in any meaningful way.
Despite any flaws the movie has, Schindler’s List is an important part of the film industry’s portrayal of the Holocaust. It is the top rated Holocaust movie according to IMDB.com and has and will expose more people to the Jewish tragedy of World War II than any history book is likely to do, as sad as that may be. The use of color and the portrayal of the characters is very effective in drawing in and holding the attention of the viewer, allowing them to experience the film without having to think too hard about it.
(For more on Life is Beautiful, also take a look at this paper I did on general criticisms of the movie.)
Life is Beautiful DVD Cover
Life is Beautiful, an Italian movie that was originally released in 1997 under the title “La vita è bella,” is a drama and romantic comedy. The story takes place in 1930s Arezzo, Italy and focuses on the life of a Jewish man named Guido Orefice, who arrives in town with plans to open a bookshop. Almost immediately after arriving in town, he becomes interested in a woman named Dora that he keeps running into (sometimes quite literally) around town. He begins to pursue her romantically, eventually winning her away from her fiancé and starting a family with her. Years later, Guido and Giosué are rounded up and deported to a death camp during World War II. Dora, who is not Jewish, demands to be placed on the train along with her husband and son, because she can’t stand to be apart from them. Ironically, she ends up as a prisoner in an adjacent death camp for women and is still separated from her family. For the remainder of the movie, Guido spends all of his time trying to convince his son that the entire experience is part of an elaborate game where the winner takes home a brand new tank.
Life is Beautiful is a complicated movie to analyze or compare with anything else because of how unusual the genre is for the subject. Comedy is not usually part of the Holocaust discussion, because there’s really nothing funny about it, in terms of the scope, the scale and the end result. When I think of the scene from Night and Fog where the camera pans out and then up, showing a mountain of hair, I think about how many people had to have died for that pile of hair to be created. It is both powerful and subtle and clearly indicates the nature and scale of the tragedy and it does so in a manner that I find wholly more appropriate to the subject. Nonetheless, comedy is used as an important plot driver in Life is Beautiful. Specifically, the main character, Guido, engages in slapstick comedy antics throughout the movie. In the first half of the movie, when Guido is attempting to woo Dora away from her fiancé, Guido’s antics seem to serve no real purpose, other than to entertain and endear himself to the audience. In the second half of the movie, the use of comedy is more questionable given the subject matter, but it is used to better effect as part of the plot. Guido uses comedy as a tool, along with distraction and elaborate stories, to distract his son from what’s going on in the camp. The problem with this use of comedy is that Guido sometimes ignores the well-being of himself, his son and everyone around him in an attempt to keep his son entertained, causing the situation to become unbelievable.
Comedy aside, one of the important themes in Life is Beautiful is the effect of the Holocaust on families. The first part of the movie builds up an almost fantasy-like love story where the “hero” gets the girl and settles down to raise his son and run his own business. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it? Then, the fascists arrive, and everything Guido has managed to accomplish, the fairy-tale existence that is meant to appeal emotionally to the audience, is suddenly destroyed, simply because Guido and his son are Jewish. To maximize the emotional effect on the audience, Dora is presented as being willing to sacrifice herself to remain close to her family. During his time in the death camp, Guido puts himself and his son at risk to find opportunities to let his wife know that they are still alive. The idea that anyone could have actually pulled off the stunts portrayed by Guido in the movie is ridiculous, but the inclusion of these scenes in the movie is probably meant to call attention to the fact that families were ripped apart during the Holocaust in a way that would be emotionally appealing to the audience. The moment that truly symbolizes this loss, however contrived the plot, is when Guido dies while attempting to find and save his wife from the guards’ final extermination efforts before abandoning the camp.
The presentation of Jews in this movie is two-sided. On the one hand, “the Jews” in the movie are a faceless mass that acts in a supporting role to the main story of Guido and his son. They are shown as docile followers of orders in a rather two-dimensional way. On the other hand is Guido, who is the main character. The story of Life is Beautiful could almost be said to be Guido-driven, rather than character or plot driven. He is a one man show that overwhelms the narrative with monologue. He manipulates people, takes risks and actively engages in his survival and the survival of his son and wife. So, this movie presents both popular narratives of Jewish people during the Holocaust: passive sheep allowing themselves to be led to the slaughter and active resisters in any way possible.
Because of its use of comedy, Life is Beautiful is difficult to take seriously and, in light of the seriousness of the historical events the movie uses as a backdrop, many people find it offensive. More than that, some people find it insulting to the victims of the Holocaust. Not everything in the movie is emotional fluff, however. There are still worthwhile messages and themes that can be pulled from the movie, though it’s probably not something I will watch again.
Jean Bonnet (aka Jean Kippelstein, left) and Julien Quentin (right).
Au Revoir Les Enfants is a 1987 film directed by Louis Malle. The film is a biographical war drama that focuses on events at a French boarding school run by priests during World War II. The film follows the developing relationship between two students, Julien Quentin and Jean Bonnet, who is actually named Jean Kippelstein. Father Jean, the school’s principal, has been hiding Jewish children in the school to save their lives. As the story develops, Julien realizes that Jean isn’t like everyone else. To hide his identity and excuse the fact that he doesn’t know the Catholic prayers, Jean Bonnet claims to be Protestant, but Julien discovers the truth. Instead of driving a wedge between them, this shared secret brings them closer together.
Based on a true story, this film demonstrates the level of common knowledge of Jews in France and how they were seen by their French neighbors. The relationship in France between Jews and non-Jews is presented as being complex, rather than black and white. This can best be seen in the restaurant scene, where an older man is sitting alone and Vichy government officials come in and ask him for his papers. When the official discovers the old man is a Jew the official begins to harass him. Some of the restaurant’s patrons express feelings similar to the official’s, but the majority believe the official’s actions are a disgrace and an affront to human dignity, including Julien’s mother.
But, how much did the average French person really know about Jews? When Julien asks his brother to explain what makes a person Jewish, his response is that a Jew is a person who doesn’t eat pork. When Julien asks why everyone hates the Jews, his brother tells him it is because Jewish people are smarter than non-Jews, and because they killed Christ, which Julien dismisses as an obvious lie, since the Romans were responsible for crucifying Christ. Perhaps this scene is meant to convey the idea that there really aren’t any significant differences between Jews and non-Jews, since Julien continues his friendship with Jean. It is interesting that Jean was at the top of his class, along with Julien, and they manage to develop a strong friendship, while their less intelligent peers are still spouting stereotypes and comparing Jews to Communists and Germans. Perhaps the message here is that a little intelligence and thought leads to peaceful coexistence.
Jean spends most of the film trying to blend in with his classmates, for obvious reasons, but throughout the film he’s shown as being slightly different. He stands out, not necessarily because he looks different, but because of his demeanor. He carries himself differently from the other students. In many scenes he appears to be hunched over slightly, or he walks differently. It almost looks like he’s physically struggling with the mental burden of staying hidden. He does tell Julien that he is afraid all the time. Jean’s desperate need to fit in causes him to attempt to take communion, perhaps to prove to his friend that he is not so different from him, or perhaps because he feared that since Julien noticed that he is Jewish, he should redouble his efforts to appear Protestant. That could also explain why he hid during choir practice, to avoid revealing his unfamiliarity with Christian hymns.
The scene I found most interesting in the film was when Jean was removed from the classroom, because of how his classmates reacted. After the schoolyard repetition of stereotypes and expressions of dislike for Jews, the students did not react violently when they discovered that Jean was Jewish. When the priest came in and asked the boys to say a prayer for their classmates, there wasn’t any rowdiness. In other scenes that involve prayer, there is rough-housing, mocking or laughter. But in this scene, there is solidarity, and later, the non-Jewish students are proud that Negus was able to avoid capture, implying that familiarity dispels ignorance and breeds acceptance and friendship. I wonder if, when producing this scene, the director was specifically thinking of laïcité, the French conception of secularism, which states that religion doesn’t matter because the French are French first.
Au Revoir Les Enfants is an interesting film that depicts the French response to German occupation and fascist doctrine regarding the Jewish community. Some collaborated, some resisted, some were apathetic and some profited from exposing Jews in hiding. But, the film also shows that understanding and familiarity are important tools to overcoming stereotypes. The acting in the film is excellent and the director’s portrayal of Jean Bonnet and his classmates expresses the emotions and ideas buried in the story of Julien of Jean’s friendship excellently.
The Pianist, released in the United States in 2003, is a biographical, historical drama about the struggle of a Polish Jew to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. The movie is based on the autobiographical book of the same name, written by Wladyslaw Szpilman about his own experiences surviving the Holocaust in Warsaw. The film also incorporates some of the childhood memories of the director, Roman Polanski, who also survived the Holocaust. In the film, Szpilman is a brilliant pianist living in Warsaw who, along with his family, suffers the increasing restrictions placed on Jews under Nazi occupation. Eventually, he is forced into the Warsaw ghetto along with his family and the rest of the Jewish community. Later, during the liquidation of the ghetto, he manages to evade deportation, but his family isn’t as lucky. He briefly survives as part of a work detail and then escapes and remains in hiding in various places in the city until the war is over. //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
Szpilman, near the end of The Pianist, caveman-like and dehumanized.
One of the main themes in the film is the degradation and dehumanization of the Jewish people who suffered through the Holocaust. Szpilman, who begins the film as an accomplished pianist, epitomizes the gradual slide into a state of inhumanity as the film progresses. The first restriction of his status as a human being is the implementation of the racial laws that restrict Jewish people from entering or using public facilities, which sets Jews apart from and below the non-Jewish residents. The next step down occurs during the ghettoization of the Warsaw Jews, restricting their ability to interact with “normal” people. Jewish businesses are seized. Jews are placed in a situation where they have to fight over food and living space like animals competing for territory.
The closing scene of The Pianist, where Szpilman’s return to humanity is shown through his performance.
When the Jewish population in the ghetto is rounded up to be exterminated, Szpilman is attached to a work crew that is, presumably, left alive to deconstruct the Warsaw ghetto. At this point, he has been completely devalued except insofar as he is able to labor, a long fall from where he began as a cultured and talented pianist. Ironically, after he escapes the ghetto, he becomes caged up in an apartment, first out of fear of leaving and then because he is literally locked in, like a caged animal. When that situation falls apart, the last vestiges of humanity slip away and he is depicted as an animal scavenging for food wherever he can find it, first in the abandoned hospital and then in the bombed out wrecks of houses. It is only after the war that the restoration of his humanity occurs, which is demonstrated by the closing scene of Szpilman playing in concert to a crowded room.
Szpilman, on a street in the Kraków Ghetto, after Nazi liquidation of the Jewish community.
An interesting recurring theme in the film is the depiction of city streets. The streets in this film are definitely used as a visual tool to indicate status or mood. The increasing violence against Jewish people after the Nazi invasion is shown through the scene where the old man is struck by the Nazi patrolman and is made to walk in the gutter. In the Warsaw ghetto, the dehumanization of the Jews is shown through the crossing guards that make random Jews dance with each other in the street, while waiting to cross over the road for non-Jews. The worsening situation is shown through the constant appearance of bodies in the street in different stages of decay. After Szpilman escapes the deportation, a long shot is shown of him walking, alone, down a street littered with luggage, clothing and furniture, perhaps to emphasize the scale of the deportation and how alone he is.
When Szpilman is on the work detail, the plight of the Jews is emphasized by the abundance of food and vibrant life in the Warsaw street market. Even the colors seem brighter in that scene, as if to emphasize the vitality of local life compared to the gray drudgery of what Szpilman endures. This isn’t the only scene where color is important. As Szpilman’s situation worsens, the colors in the film get progressively darker, until the war ends and golden light floods the scene when Szpilman and his colleague go back to the farm to try to find the Nazi officer that helped Szpilman survive.
After escaping the work detail, in both apartments and when he is in the hospital, Szpilman’s view of the world is restricted to what he can see on the streets outside his window. The last dramatic view of the streets in the film is when Szpilman is escaping the hospital and the camera pans up to give us a top-down, long shot of bombed-out buildings. When compared to the long shot of the street full of luggage and empty buildings after the deportation, this scene of bombed out buildings is probably meant to indicate the difference of degree in Szpilman’s isolation. Now, there really is no one around, not other Jews and not even Poles. //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
One of the great ironies of the story is that Szpilman found his greatest security when he was literally sitting on top of the Nazi headquarters. As the film progresses, Szpilman receives help from various people. In the beginning, he is helped by his family. In the ghetto, he is helped by other Jews. When he escapes the deportation, he is helped by a Jewish collaborator. When he escapes the work detail, he is helped by ordinary Poles and then the Polish resistance. At the end of that road, he was given the food that kept him alive until the end of the war by a Nazi military officer. What does it mean? Being a true story, it probably doesn’t mean anything, but it’s an interesting coincidence and a window onto the complexity of the situation. Schindler wasn’t the only Nazi with a kind heart, though it may be argued, especially because of the scene where the Nazi captain is in the Russian POW camp, that he may have been kind to Szpilman specifically because he realized he was a man with influence that could possibly help him if he were captured.
In The Pianist, Jews are portrayed as victims of an outside ideology. In the beginning of the film, Szpilman seems to fit in quite well with non-Jewish members of his community and was in the process of developing a relationship with a non-Jewish woman. Though I’m unfamiliar with World War II history in Poland, the Poles in the film do not generally seem to be favorably disposed towards fascism and an underground resistance movement is shown as active and willing to help Jews escape into hiding. The Pianist is an outstanding film that helps explain the horrors and dehumanization of the Holocaust. //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
Schindler’s List, a movie directed by Steven Spielberg,was released in 1993 in the United States. The movie is loosely based on a book of the same title by Thomas Keneally, which in turn is based on the testimony of the true events surrounding Oskar Schindler. In Schindler’s List, Schindler is a German industrialist who uses World War II as an opportunity to reap massive profits. To accomplish this, he develops relationships with German military officers that he later exploits to secure a cheap Jewish labor force from the nearby Kraków ghetto, and later, when they are moved, from the Płaszów labor/concentration camp. About halfway through the movie, Schindler begins to care about the lives of Jews, especially those that work at his factory, so he uses his status as a Nazi industrialist to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews, eventually bankrupting himself to save the lives of approximately 1,100 Jewish people.[1]
Schindler’s List is number eight of the top two hundred and fifty movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database. In 1994, Schindler’s List won seven Oscar’s, including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Cinematography; Best Director; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Score; Best Picture; and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. The film won seventy other awards and was nominated for an additional twenty-four.[2] The film has been heaped with praise and positive reviews, but not everyone is pleased with the movie. It has also received a fair share of criticism and having researched negative reviews for recurring themes and patterns, this paper will present and explore the most commonly cited reasons why people did not enjoy the movie. Complaints about Schindler’s List are not as varied as those for Life is Beautiful. People are primarily disappointed by the directorial style, bad acting and the way characters and groups of people are portrayed in the movie. All of these issues are interconnected and perhaps the real issue behind all of the complaints is that this movie is presented in a way that pretends to be historically accurate instead of entertainment, which is misleading and manipulative.[3] //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
The most common refrain among negative reviews is that Steven Spielberg, director of popular entertainment flicks like Jurassic Park, The Goonies and Back to the Future, should have stuck to directing “kid’s movies”, because he was out of his depth when it came to creating a proper film about the Holocaust.[4] Many reviewers did not elaborate, simply calling the movie shallow, simple and predictable, but others cited specific complaints regarding Spielberg’s style.
The girl in the red dress from Schindler’s List
The first complaint was that Spielberg’s use of black and white to mimic historical footage is problematic in two ways: first, it creates an association in the viewer’s mind with historical documentary footage, in an attempt to more easily elicit emotional responses to violence portrayed in the movie; and second, it gives the viewer the impression that what they’re watching is historically accurate, which isn’t necessarily the case. Also regarding color choice, Spielberg was criticized for what is one of the most memorable scenes in the film: the girl with the red dress. Some reviewers found this use of color as symbolism to be too heavy handed an approach and wondered why Spielberg couldn’t be more subtle and allow the viewer to make these connections in a different way, instead of “bludgeoning” the audience into getting his message.[5]
Other aspects of the movie were also considered to be manipulative and contrived. For example, in the scene where Stern is mistakenly put on the train, what was the point of the train starting to move out of the station while they were still searching? In a realistic situation, wouldn’t the Nazi military official run directly to the front of the train and tell the conductor to wait while they find Stern? Instead, the train is stopped at the last moment, after they find Stern, artificially building suspense to get a quick reaction from the audience, rather than to progress the storyline. Other reviewers complained that the music is used in a manipulative way as well, starting before the action, to let you know how you should feel about what is about to happen. Essentially, Spielberg presents his material in a highly dramatized way that is intended to take the audience for an emotional journey, rather than an intellectual one, and tricks the viewer into thinking they’ve learned something historical, when in reality they’ve simply watched a fictional recreation of a fictional recreation of historical events.[6]
Left: Evil (aka Amon Goeth); Right: Good (aka Oskar Schindler).
Also problematic is the way the characters are depicted in the film, which ties in with complaints about Spielberg oversimplifying a complicated topic and manipulating his audience. In his presentation of the story, Spielberg takes a complex, morally ambiguous Schindler and turns him into an absolute hero. He then props up Goeth as an ultimate evil, giving the audience an easy good-guy/bad-guy dichotomy so they can enjoy the movie without having to strain themselves intellectually and ponder the deeper questions that a story like Schindler’s poses. For example, how is it that a man many would call morally bankrupt was able to pull off something as grand as saving the lives of over one-thousand people while other people one would label “good” sat back and did nothing? Or worse, contributed to the Nazi extermination effort? What causes a man like Goeth to be compassionate to his friends and perhaps his family, while being casually violent and indifferent to the suffering of the Jews? What causes that sort of emotional and mental disconnect? None of these questions are adequately addressed. There is no gray area in this movie, just black and white, like the choice of filming color.[7] //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
By presenting Schindler as an absolute saint and Goeth as an absolute evil, Spielberg deprives the audience of the ability to understand the Holocaust. Goeth was a bad guy, but he wasn’t the ultimate evil, and he wasn’t the only evil. He didn’t do bad things because that’s what Nazis do and the Holocaust wasn’t caused by someone who, as Goeth is depicted in this film, went mad. It was a bureaucratized, systematized, planned and scheduled genocidal extermination of an entire population of people, characterized by dehumanization and casual violence. At the outbreak of World War II, Germany was the most educated and cultured country in Europe, so what is it about Jews that makes Goeth so angry he discharges his weapon into a pile of dead bodies? Why does he casually shoot at Jews from his balcony in Plaszow? These are issues that should have been addressed in a movie that Spielberg presents as epitomizing the Holocaust by sending the movie to schools around the country, as if it were documentary and instructional rather than entertainment.[8]
Also, why does Schindler’s List have so little to say about the Jews themselves? Isn’t this movie about the Holocaust and the destruction of 6 million Jews? Why are the roles afforded to Jews in the movie so passive and two-dimensional? The only significantly complex Jewish character in the film is Stern, and he serves only a supporting role to Schindler’s character development. By denying the Jewish victims of the Holocaust an active role in their own survival, it instead becomes a story about Schindler’s redemption, a sort of good guy vs. bad guy fairy tale.[9]
The last major complaint about the movie ties into the simplified portrayal of Schindler and Goeth: it just wasn’t historically accurate. All of the other problems are tied to this complaint about historical accuracy, and that’s probably because the Holocaust was such a defining moment in history, especially for the Jewish people. It should be translated into film in a way that respects the actual events, and like I previously mentioned, the conversion of Schindler into a savior figure and the role of Goeth as the evil arch-nemesis reduces this complicated event into a fable. Schindler was a much more ambiguous person and he wasn’t exactly a saint. When asked why he felt the need to help the Jewish people, he didn’t say it was because he suddenly realized that all people are equal, he said that if you see a dog that is going to be crushed by a car, wouldn’t you help it?[10] Schindler still considered the Jews to be something less than human.
Schindler’s List is certainly an outstanding achievement that is not without value as an entertaining film that can potentially introduce people to the subject of the Holocaust that otherwise would never have known anything about it, but it has deep flaws. What some people consider to be the greatest Holocaust movie of all time, others feel is a shallow movie that turns a real tragedy into a fairy tale between good and evil, black and white. But perhaps the most serious problem with this film is that it poses as a historically accurate educational tool, making the defining movie about the Holocaust a Hero story about a Nazi instead of a film depicting the dehumanization, suffering and death of millions of Jews. And that’s not even counting the disservice it does to the millions of non-Jews who died in the Holocaust that it doesn’t even mention. //pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
Bradley Farless 