I don't think he's thought it through. There are plenty of films that have an enigma as a central character, Lawrence of Arabia being perhaps the finest example.
And it's not like character motivations aren't hinted at throughout Schindler's List, it's just that Spielberg doesn't settle on a single defining moment or decision. One part of the film that I find particularly telling is when Schindler explains to Goeth that true power is having every justification to kill but choosing not to. It's easy to overlook this moment, yet it reveals that perhaps the only real difference between the two men is how they derive their feelings of power; Goeth from killing people, Schindler from saving them.
In fact Spielberg mirrors many of Schindler's and Goeth's actions, and as characters they share many of the same traits; a love of fine living, of money, of power, of parties, of wine, of women. At different points they each defend the actions of the other to those questioning their intentions. When defending Goeth to Stern, Schindler calls the Nazi commandant "a wonderful crook", a term that could be used just as easily to describe Schindler himself.
I think the biggest problem the OP is having with Schindler's List is that he believes it to be a film about the Holocaust and is judging it solely on how it examines or explains that particular tragedy. But calling Schindler's List a film about the Holocaust is like calling Gone With the Wind a film about the American Civil War. It's largely the backdrop to a story about one man's - or one group's - experiences during that period. If someone were to look at Schindler's List as if it should be (or wants to be) the definitive explanation of the Holocaust then no wonder they think it's oversimplified.
What the film is actually about is the act of witnessing. There's that famous quote about Schindler's List that often gets attributed to Stanley Kubrick: "The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. 'Schindler’s List’ is about 600 who don’t." Whether or not he actually said this, the idea that the Holocaust is defined simply by death isn't one that I particularly agree with. If anything the Holocaust is defined by those who survived it; by those who witnessed it and let their stories be told. And this is the point of view taken by Spielberg in Schindler's List. It's about how important the act of witnessing is and how even the powerless can proactively regain their power through the stories they tell. By extrapolation, it also becomes a film about filmmaking itself, as many of the best movies are.
Professor Miriam Bratu Hansen provides the most astute examination of this theme in Schindler's List:
‘Throughout the film Stern is the focus of point-of-view edits and reaction shots, just as he repeatedly motivates camera movements and shot changes. Stern is the only character who gets to authorise a flashback, in the sequence in which he responds to Schindler’s attempt to defend Goeth (‘a wonderful crook’) by evoking a scene of Goeth’s close range shooting of twenty-five men in a work detail; closer framing within the flashback in turn foregrounds, as mute witness, the prisoner to whom Stern attributes the account. The sequence is remarkable also in that it contains the film’s only flashforward, prompted by Schindler’s exasperated question, “what do you want me to do about it?” Notwithstanding Stern’s disavowing gesture (“nothing, nothing – it’s just talking”), his flashback narration translates into action on Schindler’s part, resulting in the requisitioning of the Pearlmans as workers, which is shown proleptically even before Schindler hands Stern his watch to be used as a bribe. This moment not only marks, on the diegetic level of the film, Schindler’s first conscious engagement in bartering for Jewish lives; it also inscribes the absolute difference in power between Gentiles and Jews on the level of cinematic discourse, a disjunction of filmic temporality. Stern is deprived of his ability, his right to act, that is, to produce a future, but he can narrate the past and pass on testimony; hoping to produce action in the viewer.’
In other words, Spielberg finds a purely cinematic way to show how even the most powerless of people can tell their story and by doing so fundamentally change the actions and thoughts of others. This isn't simplistic filmmaking at all; this is cinema at its most pure and thoughtful.
After Schindler's List was released, Spielberg dedicated much of his time and money into establishing the Shoah Foundation in order to ensure the testimony of survivors was recorded for all time. That's how important this theme was to him.
Anyway, it never fails to amaze me how seemingly intelligent people can look at a particular Spielberg film and take it wholly at face-value without putting any thought into the images, themes and ideas on display. Clearly the OP has given a film like A.I. the necessary attention and thought it deserves (probably because of the Kubrick connection), yet he then dismisses Saving Private Ryan as "one of the most over patriotic, flag-waving and morally simplistic war films I've ever seen".
Put simply, this is as wrong-headed as film criticism gets. There's a great deal of difference between showing the image of an American flag and flag-waving. Yes, the film begins and ends with an American flag, but the flag is different to its usual portrayal (as many commentators noted), appearing thin and transparent, bleached of its colour, mournful rather than triumphant. This is echoed in the music too which, though oft-criticised for its sentimentalism, never enters the realm of the triumphant but maintains a sombre tone throughout. Old man Ryan doesn’t show pride or patriotism for his actions but guilt for having survived. The film doesn't advocate or celebrate the actions of those in it, it mourns the fact that those actions were necessary in the first place.
A question: why is it that everyone who does the decent thing in the film ends up paying for it later on? Caparzo attempts to rescue a child and is warned ‘we’re not here to do the decent thing’ moments before being shot and killed for making the attempt. Wade, the medic, has the ultimate decent job of saving the lives of his comrades, yet it is he who's next to die. Miller, in a moment of reminiscence for his former life, allows Steamboat Willy to walk away only to be killed by the very same man later on. Even the mission itself, whilst on the face of it a ‘decent’ thing to do, ends up costing the lives of almost the entire squad. Only three of our protagonists survive – Upham, the coward; Reiben, the cynical realist; Ryan, the somewhat bratty target.
The implication is that, even in a justifiable war, the morality of decency is completely incompatible with the morality of warfare, and it's this above all else that Spielberg mourns, and it's for this reason that war and violence are seen as fundamentally unnatural. So, yes, let us honour the actions of those who sacrificed so much during the Second World War but let us also condemn the idea of war and violence, even as we recognise their potential necessity and mourn that fact. Trying to paint this as singularly pro-war or anti-war only simplifies something that Spielberg tries hard not to.
The character most representative of the audience in Saving Private Ryan is Corporal Upham (Spielberg has confirmed he's also most representative of himself). It's Upham who becomes the focal character in the second act of the film; we literally see his point-of-view during the attack on the radar tower. He's an intelligent, morally conscious, civilised individual, somewhat out of kilter with the rest of the squad (again reflecting the 'modern' audience sat in the theatre). Upham begins the film with a nostalgic, romanticised view of warfare; he quotes Henry V and Tennyson and extols the virtues of brotherhood in battle (reflecting both the audiences' and probably Spielberg's previous understanding of the 'Good War'). Yet by the end of the film Upham has realised what the rest of the squad already knew; that this war is illogical, random, horrific; that those in it act not out of patriotism or to 'sacrifice themselves on the altars of freedom' but out of self-preservation and the preservation of those standing next to them. That this war is merely a hindrance to their return home; something terrible and terrifying to be endured; something that is truly f—-ked up beyond all recognition. It's this change in Upham's view of the war that Spielberg hopes to also instil in the audience.
If Upham ended the film with his nostalgic, romanticised view of warfare then SPR's critics would have a point (i.e. that Spielberg's purpose was to retain the status quo in terms of our view of soldiery and the 'Good War'). But he doesn't. In the final battle in Ramelle, Upham shirks his duties and acts out of cowardice, resulting in the deaths of several members of his squad. In a fit of anger and guilt, Upham then kills Steamboat Willie in cold blood in revenge for the death of Captain Miller. But this isn’t a moment of redemption (the disapproval on the face of Miller when he witnesses other Americans shooting prisoners makes this clear) but a signifier of how the war has corrupted Upham’s moral decency and civility. The self-knowledge that Upham strives for throughout the film ends up being something far darker and more disturbing than either he, or perhaps the audience, expected. Spielberg’s message is clear - even a justifiable war can be morally and ethically abhorrent and even the most civilised and innocent of people can be corrupted by it.
Over patriotic? Flag-waving? Morally simplistic? Yeah, right.
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