re: When otherwise good movies jump the shark...

quote:

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The shower scene in Schindler's list was tasteless, emotionally manipulative, and wholly unnecessary.

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1) That scene with the women in the showers happened in real life

2) It was the climax of the story one of the Jewish prisoners was telling her comrades in the barracks. They all remembered the story she told them about how the prisoners got to the camp, had their hair cut off and clothes removed from their bodies, before being led into massive showers where they were killed by poison gas.

Everything that prisoner told them earlier in the film was now happening to them. Which is why they were all looking up expectantly at the shower heads, waiting for either water or poison gas to rain down upon them. When the water finally turns on and relief fills the scene, the final shot is of the prisoner who told them that story, laughing nervously and enjoying the warm water.

It's called good filmmaking.