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So rest assured that I have no intention of desecrating a revered cinematic institution. Schindler's List is indeed about as perfect a technical achievement as is possible in film. It is gorgeously shot, impeccably acted and wonderfully scored - not a single frame is wasted. That it would be elevated to the status of Best Picture of the Year by over 100 major critics and awards organizations upon its release was a foregone conclusion, and its multiple Academy Awards were guaranteed. It is impossible to watch this movie and not be moved, amazed and simply overwhelmed by its quality. And given the current state of modern cinema, that any film could actually be called noble only makes the accomplishment of Schindler's List even greater.

But if you, dear reader, would allow me the luxury, I would like to risk being branded a heretic and say that this is not Steven Spielberg's best film. E.T., Jaws and (yes) The Color Purple are all just as good, if not even better, than what is widely considered his masterpiece. I would still unquestionably rank Schindler's List as one of Spielberg's finest cinematic accomplishments, but not at the expense of his prior work - and I am aware that such an opinion flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Hollywood's reigning infantile, its Peter Pan, Spielberg has always been accused of being the boy who refused to grow up, and laughed all the way to the bank in spite of it. His unstoppable and unrivaled commercial success engendered a begrudging respect from his peers and critical nods for his technical abilities, but a resentment that still festers decades later. Critics may like to feel that they are intellectually superior to the masses that they are supposedly writing for, but remain as predictable now as they were then. "No one who is that successful," they would whisper about Spielberg, "could really be any good." But with Schindler's List he finally proved them wrong. Little Steven had at last grown up.

Hogwash, I say. Spielberg has always been a mature filmmaker, just one whose gifts were so in tune with the mass cultural consciousness that his only crime was that his dreams and the dreams of the world were one and the same. How can you fault a filmmaker for not betraying his natural gifts? With Schindler's List, it almost felt that Spielberg was at last caving in to the pressure to finally get serious. Yet while the film may not feature any aliens, dashing archeologists and elaborate action sequences, it is not so much a rebuttal of Spielberg's previous style as a dissolution of it (you can strip him down to the bare essentials, but you can't make him turn cynical). Gone are the usual magnificent crane shots and whoosh-zooms, as are the candy-colored wonderlands, replaced by grainy handheld, black and white tracking shots of terrified Jews being led into the gas chambers. Yet even when staging scenes of mass genocide Spielberg is incapable of composing an unpretty picture, making Schindler's List gorgeous even at its most ugly. And such beauty in the horrible allows his optimism to shine even brighter. The real Oskar Schindler may have sped off into the night without the benefit of a final, cathartic group hug, but Spielberg was not out to document history with Schindler's List, but to reinterpret it and reaffirm his ultimate worldview. Even in the face of unspeakable genocide, one does not have to lose hope in humanity. And in that respect - and no matter how hard his detractors may want him to disavow his previous, "less serious" films - he is still the wide-eyed little innocent that befriended E.T. And god bless him for it.

So if we are going to remove the importance of the subject matter from the equation, Schindler's List is a film with problems, or, more appropriately, a problematic film. Like movies about historical occurrences, or issues, it presupposed a knowledge of its central conflict - the Holocaust - and offers little in the way of context. Even its characters lack meaning without at least some prior historical knowledge on the part of the viewer. That the film makes no attempt to dissect the reasons for its protagonist's ultimate redemption - Oskar would, with great risk to his own standing and life within the Nazi party, rescue "his Jews" from the unstoppable fury of Hitler - has been called its greatest strength, yet it leaves the film an inscrutable blank. The "Schindler's Jews" the film depicts are represented almost as a depersonalized mass. (How ironic, one could say, that the story finally Spielberg chose to embrace his Jewishness would be about a German?) Is this good filmmaking, or is Schindler's List a story ultimately powered only by our own feelings towards the Holocaust? Because who wouldn't be horrified?

Yet the power and passion on display in every frame of Schindler's List shines through despite any arguable faults. While I would still rather take a ride across the moon with little E.T., or fly high into the sky inside the mothership of Close Encounters, Schindler's List at last proved to the critics that Spielberg was a major talent on equal with the greatest auteurs in the history of cinema. It was just that they were a couple of decades figuring it out.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Schindler's List looks wonderful on DVD. It may have taken a long, long while, but the apparent effort that has been expended to polish up this film has paid off. Boasting the Academy Award-winning cinematography of Janusz Kaminski, this has always been a stunning piece of cinema to witness. Struck from a new print and mastered in high-definition, then downconverted here to 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen (although it looks more like 1.78:1 to me), the source materials look just about pristine. Shot in black and white for nearly 95 percent of its runtime, blacks are perfect and contrast excellent. The film has a richly detailed, often three-dimensional appearance. There is some grain present, which is entirely appropriate to the intended mock-documentary style, and the color sequences that open and close the film are subdued if supported by clean, stable hues. There are also a few scenes featuring color tinting in the middle of the film, involving a young girl with a red coat, which do look a bit spotty with a bit of dirt apparent. Otherwise, this is about as perfect a transfer as you would expect - even edge enhancement and compression artifacting are not a problem. Godspeed.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

As expected for a Spielberg DVD, Schindler's List is presented in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround. It would be tacky to suggest that this soundtrack should be faulted for not being "aggressive" enough, but it does attempt a more subtle approach throughout most of its runtime. The many scenes of horrific violence, most notably the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, do feature distinct surround effects and very forceful .1 LFE - it is terrifying, both in presentation and subject matter. Otherwise, the soundfield is largely front heavy with only some ambience, mainly minor rear effects and some score bleed (John Williams' Oscar-winning scoring is absolutely magnificent and incredibly moving). Frequency response, especially on the DTS track, is terrific, with a very warm and full-bodied sound and sharp stereo separation across the fronts. Dialogue reproduction is generally clear, although much of the film was shot "live" so some of the crowd scenes suffer from unintelligibility. The DTS track also exhibits a bit better separation and tighter imaging than the Dolby Digital, as well as a bit more strong bass, but otherwise there are not leaps and bounds apart in effectiveness.

Also included are French and Spanish Dolby 5.1 surround dubs, plus English captions encoded as subtitles, along with French and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Yes, I am disappointed with this highly-anticipated special edition. Rather than the definitive set I (and I am sure many others) were hoping for, instead we get a collection of supplements that has now become so formulaic for Spielberg that it can't help but feel like a letdown. Focused almost entirely on the historical aspects of the film, we learn next to nothing about the production of Schindler's List, either from the actors, the crew or Spielberg. I am very glad that the included documentary and featurette lend great context to the film, but did it have to be at the sacrifice of what was personal to its makers?

Produced by frequent Spielberg collaborator Laurent Bouzereau, Voices from the List runs 80 minutes and is almost entirely interviews with the legacy of the Schindler Jews. The stories are at turns poignant, horrific, hopeful, even darkly humorous. Survival at the hands of the monstrous is almost unfathomable, but these brave souls persevered, or their descendents have taken on the burden of being the storytellers for the next generation - if only to ensure that the world never forgets. Impeccably produced (as always from Bouzereau) and reverential, it is entirely the story of the Schindler Jews - we hear nothing from cast and crew about the film, aside from how many of the stories and people here found their experiences told in the film. While as a self- contained work this is undoubtedly moving, in the face of all the archival work that has already been done in preserving the memories of the Holocaust, I couldn't help but feel like a curmudgeon in feeling that perhaps this would have worked better as a stand-alone DVD release, or as part of a more extensive box set, and not the main extra here?

Also included is a much more brief 12-minute featurette, The Shoah Foundation Story, which is basically an advertisement for the Spielberg organization which seeks to at last eliminate prejudice. Of course it is well-meaning, just not very enlightening.

Rounding it out are filmographies for cast and crew. There are no other making-of materials, nor any theatrical trailers. (Note: Universal Studios Home Video is releasing not one but five versions of Schindler's List on DVD: anamorphic widescreen and full screen versions [each available in either digipak or traditional keepcase packaging], and a special collector's box set that also includes a commemorative book, film still and collectible packaging. The actual disc-based supplements on all versions are identical.)

DVD- ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

There are no ROM extras included.

Parting Thoughts