First, we see Schindler at a party, where a Jewish woman and girl present him with a cake, apparently baked by Jewish prisoners at Plaszow (although the script doesn’t specify). He kisses the girl on the cheek and the woman on the lips, as the Germans in the room glare and the woman herself freezes in horror. So here, at the top of Act IV, Schindler, we see, is still a little clueless and still addicted to his passions: he kisses the Jewish woman in spite of the fact that he’s endangering her life by doing so. The scene works well enough as a character beat, but it’s real significance doesn’t get answered for another fifteen minutes or so.

Second, we see a group of Jewish women in a Plaszow barracks, gossiping about “what they’ve heard” about Auschwitz. This scene is a rough parallel to a similar scene at the top of Act II, where we see Jews amongst themselves instead of as in relation to Schindler. The scene in Act II gives us a glimpse of life inside the ghetto before it is liquidated; here, of course, there is a dark foreboding at work.

(Throughout Act IV the question keeps arising, who knows what about Auschwitz when? Goth seems to know so much about it that he’s sloppy about who he tells, which indicates that everyone in his circle knows about it. Schindler seems to know about it, or enough to know it’s a bad thing, but needs to find out that all his workers will be moved there before he is moved to act on their behalf.)

1:58:35 – 2:06: 44 — Act IV proper begins with the excruciating “Selektion” sequence. There is a “new shipment” of workers coming in to the camp, and Goth needs to winnow out the deadwood from Plaszow. He could be a manager at any large factory, faced with redundancy and needing to cut staff. The only difference is that instead of laying off redundant workers, he’s sending them off to Auschwitz to be murdered.

As with the previous three acts, this one begins with another roll call, another row of folding tables, another list of names. The “list of names” motif becomes a kind of incantation, each name a life. As we begin to associate names with faces the enormity of the tragedy begins to form in our minds.

As Nazi doctors inspect the teeth and muscles of the naked Jews on the camp assembly ground, another doctor examines Goth up on the back porch of his house. It’s as though Goth is saying “See? I have to undergo this process too, I’m no better than you.” Goth’s girlfriend, who was so appalled to see him shooting Jews from this same porch back in Act III, here comes out in her silk pajamas to adore Goth and his bloated, doughy physique. Later, Goth puts on a shirt (but not the rest of his uniform) to go oversee his workers work. At first it looks like he’s merely a stickler for details, but as his activities come into focus we realize that he’s separating the Schindler Jews from the ones doomed to Auschwitz. In his mind, he’s just upholding his end of his corrupt kickback scheme with Schindler — he doesn’t think any of these people are going to survive the war.

On the list of redundant workers are, apparently, all the children in the camp, and surely one of the most arresting sequences in this movie of arresting sequences is a kind of “liquidation in miniature” as we follow a boy in a cap, who we’ve only glimpsed before in Act I, as he tries to find a hiding place somewhere in the camp. As Spielberg indulges in a dependable emotional sucker-punch, mothers separated from their children, the boy tries to hide in a half-dozen places before finally ending up under a barracks latrine, chest-deep in human waste — only to find the space already occupied by a half-dozen other children, the “girl in glasses” among them. Like the scene with Levertov in the previous act, the “boy in the cap” sequence is so unbelievable that I’m inclined to believe it. The movie is asking us to believe that these escaped children ran from guards, hid, and then somehow escaped detection until they were able to get out of the camp? And yet, they do.

2:06:44-2:10:19 — Schindler stops by the camp, for reasons unrevealed, apparently to hang out with his Nazi pals while the redundant workers are loaded onto train cars bound for Auschwitz. He asks Goth to hose down the train cars, so that the Jews inside might have some water to drink on their way. Goth laughs at the suggestion but goes along with it, saying that Schindler is showing true cruelty by giving the doomed hope. In any case, we see here an incremental shift in Schindler’s attitude, and a desire to do something that will not directly benefit himself. (On the “Holocaust awareness” front, this scene indicates to me that Goth certainly knows at this point that the workers are doomed, and it almost indicates that Schindler knows.)

2:10:19-2:15:00 — The Gestapo arrest Schindler for kissing the Jewish girl at the top of the act. Goth, trying to protect Schindler in order to protect his kickbacks, defends Schindler as a free-range womanizer to the unsmiling Nazi officers in charge of the case. When that fails, he falls back on his standard argument: Jewish women are she-devils who lure good Germans with their evil magic. In the previous act, Schindler made the almost-fatal mistake of confusing his morality with Goth’s. Here, Goth returns the favor, presenting his own feelings about Jews as a defense for Schindler’s actions. This gets him into even more trouble, which he tries to get out of by bribing the official — again, bringing the whole narrative back to the level of “business.”

My DVD of Schindler’s List breaks the movie in two at this point, just as the Nazi official in charge of Schindler’s case informs him, in his euphemistic way, that exterminating Jews “is policy now.” Which is, I’m guessing, the first time Schindler has this eventuality made clear to him. In any case, my timecode, of necessity, starts over here.

0:00-2:30 — Next thing we know, Schindler is walking down the street and is disturbed to find ash falling down out of the sky. The war is pressing on, and the Nazis, feeling the pressure, have ordered Goth to exhume the bodies of the people he had killed during Act II and burned in a gigantic pyre. Goth handles this task the way a harried middle-manager would handle any cockamamie scheme dictated from above: he sighs and cavils and gets on with it as best he can.

The spectacle of the exhumation, and the emotional sucker-punch of Schindler noticing the dead body of the “girl in the red coat”, are both so strong that it’s easy to miss the expository point to the scene: the Nazis are shutting down Plaszow and shipping all the Jews to Auschwitz. To Schindler this means that his factory is shutting down again, to Goth it means that the gravy train he shares with Schindler is pulling out of the station without him. “The party’s over, Oskar,” sighs Goth, “They’re shutting us down.”

2:30-4:40 — Schindler goes to Stern, in another parallel to their Act I meeting, to dissolve the business and discuss further plans. Schindler has decided to quit while he’s ahead and take his money back to Germany. Stern asks him about the business, and Schindler, paraphrasing Scrooge, tells him “You were my business.” If that’s the case, it seems to only be occurring to Schindler now — it was only an act ago that Schindler was outraged that Stern was smuggling invalids into the factory. This admission seems to be enough for Stern, who finally acquiesces to his offer of a drink. Stern approves of Schindler now, so we do too.

4:40-5:54 — Schindler, at this point, could take his war-profiteering millions and head for the hills, but the next thing we see is him in his luxury apartment (the one commandeered from the Jewish family on the day of the liquidation) with his naked mistress-of-the-day asleep in his bed, packed and ready to go, his trunks full of Reichmarks filling the dining room. Looking around at all this (and with Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” playing on the radio) Schindler comes to a decision.

5:54-7:20 — Schindler goes to Goth, in a parallel to a scene from Act III, to set up another business venture. He’s going to open a munitions factory in Czechoslovakia, and he’s going to buy “his” workers from Goth to staff it. Goth can’t wrap his head around the idea: he can’t see the profit in the situation.

7:20-11:30 — In the movie’s signature scene, Schindler and Stern compose “the list” of names of the Jews who will be removed from Plaszow and taken to Czechoslovakia (intercut with scenes of Schindler trying, and failing, to persuade other industrialists to do likewise). The weight of all those earlier roll-call scenes is brought to bear upon this one. It is both a clever “reversal” of those scenes (roll is called in the earlier scenes to find who will die, here it is called to find who will live) and a distillation of the movie’s theme: business vs. lives. Schindler is taking all the money he made through his business and exchanging it for lives, just as, in Act III, he exchanged things for lives. Stern focuses the theme down to a pinpoint at the end of the sequence: holding up the papers like Moses holding the tablets, he says “The list is life.”

(And again, there is a meta-quality to this sequence as well. For, just as Schindler is, late in his career, forfeiting his wealth, in a crisis of conscience, to “save Jews,” Spielberg could be seen as doing the same. He could go on making Jaws and Jurassic Park for the rest of his career, but he has chosen, after 20 years in movies, to risk it all on a desperately un-commercial project, shot in a hugely un-commercial manner. To “save Jews”? Perhaps, but more likely to save his own soul as an artist. The fact that Schindler’s List went on to become a huge moneymaker obviously gnawed at Spielberg: it’s one thing to create a searing vision of the Holocaust, it’s another thing entirely to have that vision make a ton of money.)

11:30-13:00 — Schindler takes a suitcase full of money to bribe Goth to transport his workers to Czechoslovakia, and plays him a hand of 21 to get Helen away from him as well. (Goth, in what surely must be his weakest moment, anemically protests against Schindler taking Helen, and spins a fantasy of taking her “back home to Vienna” to grow old with him, a fantasy so absurd that he seems to recognize it for what it is the moment it leaves his lips.)

1:13:41-1:17:14 — Act III opens with Goth on his balcony on a fine sunny morning, shirtless, watching over his labor camp. Schindler’s business may have just failed, but Goth’s is off to a swell start and he’s feeling his oats. Everyone we “know” is lined up for roll call — another roll call, another list of names. Spielberg begins each act of Schindler’s List with a scene like this, as though re-introducing us to the cast, catching us up on who’s alive and who is not, reciting their names over and over.

Goth, anxious to make his authority clear, decides to shoot a few workers from his balcony. This wakes up the blond in his bed, who is appalled at his behavior. It becomes clear that, for Goth, the gun is a penis substitute — when he’s finished shooting Jews, he goes into the bedroom and “discharges his shell” onto the blond’s naked breasts, then goes to urinate in the bathroom.

1:17:14-1:21:30 — Schindler comes to Plaszow to re-close the deal. He meets with some of his Nazi friends. Helen Hirsch, who will figure significantly in the act, is there serving. Schindler, livid about his business closing, nevertheless plays politics and jokes with the Nazis — they are his clients, after all, there’s no point in making them angry.

Once he gets alone with Goth, however, Schindler’s true feelings come out. In a parallel scene to one in Act I with Stern, Schindler cuts a deal with Goth to re-start his business. Instead of cajoling Stern, however, here he schools Goth, insisting that his business concerns trump whatever Goth’s objectives are in Krakow.

(Which raises the question: what are Goth’s objectives in Krakow? Yes, he’s a Nazi, we know that — but what does Goth want? Because Goth has the burden of standing in for “all Nazis”, the temptation is to say that Goth wants “to kill all the Jews.” Which is an over-simplification. Which is not to say that Goth does not want “to kill all the Jews,” but only to say that that is not his stated objective in Krakow. Goth’s stated objective is to run his work camp efficiently and thus gain favor from his superiors. His murder of random workers is, in his mind anyway, subservient to his goal of running his work camp efficiently. Plaszow was certainly a horrible place, but it was not a death camp — extermination was someone else’s job.)

(Of course, in practice Goth’s objective is to use his position of power, as camp commander, to terrify and kill — a psychological goal unrelated to gaining promotion.  One of Schindler’s blunders is to confuse Goth’s stated objective with his real objective, to confuse a monster with a human being.)

Schindler demands his workers back from Goth. Is he concerned for them personally, or is he primarily concerned about profit? I would say that profit is still his primary goal here. Polish workers, we have learned, cost more than Jewish workers (probably more so, now that Jewish workers don’t exist in Krakow anymore). Plus, if he re-staffed his factory he’d have to re-train everyone and incur all the start-up costs associated with that. The first half of Schindler’s List takes great care to show that Schindler isn’t some kind of Jew-lover — if anything, it repeatedly shows him to be a dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist who treats everyone equally — that is, in terms of how they can benefit his agenda. He goes to the Krakow ghetto looking for investors in Act I because he knows that these people are in a bind and will be looking to turn their currency into things, not because he loves Jews or hates them. (And, as we shall see, he will soon be the one turning things into lives.)

Goth agrees to let Schindler have his workers back — at a price, the price being regular kickbacks and gratuities. Goth, we see, is not just a black-hearted Jew-hating Nazi: he’s also a corrupt businessman. Goth’s corruption slid right by me in my first few viewings of Schindler’s List, but it makes perfect sense when you view the character as a reflection of Schindler — they’re both pragmatic businessmen who owe their very careers to wartime excess, running factories, only with different attitudes toward their workers.

1:21:30-1:23:04 – The workers come back to work at Schindler’s enamelware factory and he is back in business. The difference is, Stern now cooks the books for Goth instead of for Schindler — Schindler is, if I understand the situation correctly, re-defining his position as a contractor by sub-contracting under Goth’s command. The enamelware factory is now Goth’s, and Goth is letting Schindler keep some (most, actually) of the profits.

1:23:04-1:26:10 – There’s a big party at Goth’s house — to celebrate Goth’s new deal with Schindler? Schindler is there, drinking and womanizing right alongside Goth. He takes time to go talk to Stern, as Stern will not be allowed back to the enamelware factory. Stern tries to tell Schindler all the things he needs to attend to in order to keep the business running smoothly, but Schindler can’t keep it all straight. “It gives me a headache!” he whines — Schindler’s unwillingness to master a few business concepts (like “bookkeeping”) take precedence over Stern’s predicament — if the business goes poorly, Schindler may have to go back to Germany but Stern will most likely be executed. Nevertheless, Schindler is developing a soft spot for Stern in his situation and gives him some delicacies from the party — delicacies Stern most likely created the capital to Schindler to buy them with. Stern, noting the change in Schindler’s attitude, almost thanks him for the gesture.

(Don’t forget, Stern is our “moral compass” for the movie — until Stern approves of Schindler, we cannot approve of him either.)

1:26:10-1:38:30 — This middle chunk of the act is all about setting up the notion of trading things for lives. It’s a series of short stories, really, telling us an anecdote about one worker, then another, then another, and then showing how that worker gained a position, through Stern, at Schindler’s factory.

The first story we see is about Levertov. Levertov works in the metalworks at Plaszow, and Goth, looking to make some labor cuts, picks a gripe with Levertov’s output. He drags him out back (with a trainyard looming ominously in the background) and tries to shoot him in the head. His gun will not fire, and the guns of his underlings refuse to fire as well. (Goth, of course, has no legitimate complaint against Levertov — he’s addicted to murdering people and he’s been put in a position where he may do so freely, and so he will find any excuse he can in order to do so. Ifan excuse does not exist, he will make one up. If one cannot be made up, he’ll do it anyway.) The sudden dysfunctional-gun epidemic is played as a kind of dark comedy, and plays up Goth’s impotence. It’s one thing if Goth must use a gun to take the place of his penis, but how doubly frustrating it must be for him to not be able to shoot a gun as well. The scene is so patently absurd that I have to assume that it actually happened.

The next thing we know, Schindler delivers a plush new saddle to Goth as a kickback and gives a valuable lighter to Stern. Stern gives the lighter to Goldberg (the “bad Jew” from Act I), Goldberg puts Levertov’s name on “the good list” and Levertov is transferred to Schindler’s factory.

The next story is about the boy we saw in Act II, protecting the girl in glasses during the liquidation sequence (the boy who knows how to put them in “the good line”). A chicken has been stolen, and Goth shoots a man at random, threatening to keep shooting until someone confesses. The boy steps forward and tearfully confesses that the dead man is, in fact, the one who stole the chicken. For this act of bravery/chutzpah, Schindler gives Stern a cigarette case, the cigarette case goes to Goldberg, and Goldberg puts the boy on the rolls of Schindler’s factory.

The third story, which is a little more complicated, involves a woman who got out of the ghetto before liquidation and has been hiding in the suburbs of Krakow. Her parents are in Plaszow and she wants them to be transferred to Schindler’s factory. She comes to see Schindler at his factory, and Schindler refuses to see her. She comes back again done up as a slut, and gains admittance. She pleads her case to Schindler, telling him that she’s heard that no one dies in his factory. Schindler is appalled by this news — while it’s true that he doesn’t murder workers at random, he apparently has no idea that he’s being played by Stern as a Jew-lover. Either that, or he’s aware he’s being played to some extent but he’s concerned that the woman is a German spy being sent to entrap him.

In either case, Schindler goes to Stern and explodes. He’s livid that Stern has put him in such an uncomfortable position, and even tells him that he needs to look at the situation from Goth’s point of view. Schindler, apparently, at this mid-way point of the movie, still sees Goth as a not-that-bad variation on himself — he doesn’t see that Goth is a sociopath who’s been let off the leash by a fiat of history, he sees him as an essentially good man who’s been put into a difficult situation. In any case, he gives his watch to Stern, who gives it to Goldberg, and the woman’s parents are sent to Schindler’s factory.

Schindler, in this trio of sequences, has made an incremental change in his outlook. He seems to think now that, at some level, he is responsible for the lives of his workers. Those lives, he sees, can be exchanged for things, if one is willing to work within the corrupt system that controls the whole situation.

1:38:30-1:55:45 – This final chunk of the act has two objectives — to tell the story of Helen Hirsch, the woman Goth has selected to be his housekeeper, and to give Goth a “last chance” to redeem himself. It begins and ends in Goth’s basement, with mirrored scenes of Schindler and his nemesis Goth interrogating Helen, and has a little mini-movie in the middle concerning Schindler’s attempt to rehabilitate Goth.

During yet another party at Goth’s, Schindler comes down to the basement to chat up Helen. At first we think he’s merely trying to get a leg over, but it seems that Schindler is turning over a new leaf — he’s become interested in people as people and he asks Helen to tell him her story. Once she does so, Schindler gives her a kind of benediction. This, to me, looks like Schindler’s on his own little power trip; he’s discovered that he, like Goth, has acquired the power of life and death, but he has decided to use his power for good and not evil.

His conversation with Helen leads him to go talk to Goth about the nature of the power they both share. He tries, in his best Qui-gon style, to bring Goth over to the light side and Goth, in a totally wasted state, seems willing to give it a try. He doesn’t kill his houseboy when he leaves the expensive saddle lying on the ground, he shrugs off the offense of a shirking worker, and he almost lets his houseboy off the hook when he uses the wrong cleaner in his bathtub. Then, upon reflection (literally — Goth makes the decision while looking in a mirror), Goth decides that mercy doesn’t really suit him and murders the houseboy.

Then, as though Goth has suspected all along that this narrative digression began with Helen, he storms down to the basement and confronts her. Goth’s problem with Helen, of course, is that he wants to screw her — for all we know, he’s in love with her, whatever that means to him. He can’t screw her because it goes against everything he stands for as a Nazi. Instead, he interrogates her, supplying all her answers for her, in a bizarre, self-serving monologue that reveals nothing of Helen but tunnels deep into his own brain, showing the tortured mental convolutions he must undergo in order to justify his true objective, the murder of innocent people.

This dark, psycho-sexual nightmare is intercut against a wholesome wedding scene in one of the Jewish barracks, and also a scene of Schindler enjoying “the good life” out in a nightclub. Schindler, it seems, even past the half-way point of the narrative, is trying to maintain a sense of order. While his workers run the risk of a bullet to the head on their way to work, Schindler has no trouble treating himself to a night of wine and song.