I liked Saving Private Ryan up until the very end. "Am I a good man?"

"Oh, shut up and get in the car."

Of course, the guy I was with was bawling his eyes out. He's said he was totally aware he was being manipulated, but it was still sucking him in.

Well, that was me.

Me, three.

I can't remember much discussion of the Holocaust in regular school until high school. It was discussed a lot in Hebrew school, though. (Particularly during fifth grade, when we had a teacher who really didn't know how to teach, and I'm pretty sure he didn't know much more Hebrew than we did, and he spent a lot of time telling up about what happened to him during the Holocaust.)

I remember a teacher reading The Diary of Anne Frank to us in grade five, but I was aware of it way before then.

Schindler's List made me angry. The more emotionally manipulative and anvilicious it got, the angrier I got. I couldn't believe that Steven Speilberg was turning the Holocaust into entertainment. I am not a Steven Speilberg fan, and I probably should never have gone in the first place.

Sue and I are sympatico on all this. But I should mention that I was completely aghast at Judgment At Nuremberg, which I've since decided was just as manipulative. I've never watched Shoah, but I have a hard time trying to imagine how a movie, especially a Hollywood movie, could capture the horror of the Holocaust without trying to inject a dose of entertainment into it. In fact, besides Schindler's List, the major studio movies I can think of are Life Is Beautiful and Jakob The Liar, both of which are practically crimes against humanity. I can think of a handful of decent movies about the Holocaust, but they are more about the effect of the Holocaust on regular citizens: Au Revoir Les Enfants, The Sorrow And The Pity, Night And Fog.

Holocaust literature tends to be shocking and bleak, too, although I think literature has an easier time capturing horror than narrative film. You have a narrator, so you don't need another point of identification as a way into the story.

Does THE PIANIST count?

The Pianist made me bark with laughter at the coat scene.

Schindler's List made me angry. The more emotionally manipulative and anvilicious it got, the angrier I got.

The weird thing is, this is how I felt the first time I saw it. But the second time, I got all involved the the story of the two men, Schindler and whstever the hec the name of Ralph Fiennes character was, and it was after I read the book upon which it was based. And I found their story and their essential sameness interesting (see above), but I am not sure how much of that was the influance of reading the book.

I...admired (like is SO not the word) Schindler's List up until Schindler's breakdown at the end (and the coda), when it felt like it was trying too hard. The red coated girl didn't ping me the same way, but that's probably because she gave me flashbacks to DON'T LOOK NOW, which I'm pretty sure was NOT Spielberg's intention.

I'm the same way with SPR (much as MM said above). But as far as Spielberg goes, EMPIRE OF THE SUN blows them both away.

But as far as Spielberg goes, EMPIRE OF THE SUN blows them both away.

Speaking of which, I just read Ballard's follow-up memoir The Kindness of Women and it's fantastic. Heartbreaking too. But if you're familiar with his work you get to meet the real life characters that inspired Crash and you see the slow development of his thematic interests. My favorite section might have been when he was in the RAF in Saskatoon. Beautifully written. His stint in medical school and his love note for his cadaver is also a gorgeous piece of writing.