‘Schindler’ Resonates on L.A.’s Streets

I have just seen what I consider to be one of the most startling and brutally effective films of my recent memory, a film that is unrelenting in its realistic details, yet touching and life affirming and, yes, even entertaining. It is an extremely violent film, yet a film that neither glamorizes nor romanticizes violence.

This is a cry of awakening, of reaffirmation, for here is a film that can take one of the ugliest events on the human soul and still find a joy of being. This film achieves verisimilitude.

Yet, ironically, “Schindler’s List” was directed by the same man, Steven Spielberg, who created the “Indiana Jones” trilogy, which dehumanizes the killing of humans by clever and entertainingly choreographed and stylized violence.

There are no consequences to death in the kind of films the “Indiana Jones” trilogy represents; no one is affected by the killing, and the bodies are never disposed of. The emphasis is on violent action, not its consequence; we look at its doing, not the result.

As I sat and watched scene after scene of mindless horror in “Schindler’s List,” I was struck by a comparison to the mindless violence on our streets. Just as the German guards looked upon Jews as non-human, the drive-bys and automatic and semiautomatic weapons dehumanizingly distance attackers from victims. It is parents and friends who see the carnage and have to deal with it.

I hope the transformation of such directors as Spielberg and Clint Eastwood (who demythologized violence in “Unforgiven”) will kill the romanticizing of violence in our popular art.

MICHAEL VETRIE, Sylmar

I have no doubt that the “Schindler” story has provided Spielberg the vehicle for attempting to preserve a profound human experience that he has known all his life he must somehow try to present.

And I am reasonably certain he also knows that every other knowledgeable co-religionist must also have been constantly bedeviled by the urge to relate this episode of human depravity so as to alert others to the threat.

Spielberg must be thanking God that he has been given this opportunity.

WILLARD LEVIN, Rancho Palos Verdes

Spielberg has done it again; creating a cinematic masterpiece. Like most people, this film outraged me. It is difficult to believe that these events actually took place.

I am writing this letter to ask both Universal Pictures and their distributors to make this film available to schools, civic groups and all educational outlets so that everyone can learn more about this unfortunate period in our history.

TOM CHALTAS, Studio City

Work for Health Coverage

Regarding the Dec. 22 article “Will Work for Health Coverage,” concerning Lee Mathis, the healthy HIV-positive actor who placed an ad in Daily Variety seeking employment in order to maintain his Screen Actors Guild health insurance:

While I certainly can sympathize with Mathis’ plight and admire his courage for coming forth so publicly, I couldn’t help but think how ironic it is that someone like myself who is fortunate enough to be in relatively good health and to work in the entertainment industry has no health coverage. I am one of thousands of assistants in this industry who work without any health insurance from either the company or the trade unions.

I am extremely grateful to have a steady job in these difficult economic times, especially in a business that I love, but if I were to suddenly find myself facing a life-threatening disease I would not be able to appeal to anyone.

As many entertainment companies continue to make cutbacks in employee benefits, my situation is, sadly, far from unique.

BILL NORMYLE, Los Angeles

Look, I’ve been lucky. Through the Writers Guild and SAG, I’ve had health insurance for a long time. It’s covered everything from the birth of my children to cosmetic chin repair from a racquetball--yes, racquetball--accident.

Now my coverage is expired. Why? Maybe because my last script sales were options, not hired work that counts toward coverage, or maybe because the free-lance hour writing market has shrunk, or maybe I’m too ugly to get an acting job. . . . I don’t know.

But, if my health coverage is restored, it’ll be through my talent, persistence and luck, not because I whine publicly about my hard times. Who made this guy or any of us enter a chance business?

PAUL EHRMANN, Santa Monica

That’s in Bad Taste

Concerning “After Brenda, Whither Shannen?” (Dec. 23), regarding Shannen Doherty and a list of work she could do after leaving “Beverly Hills, 90210,” among them was: “Perhaps the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow will have an opening for the Incredible Crooked Eyeball Lady.”

I am a professional comedy writer, and I find this to be in exceedingly bad taste. To suggest, even in apparent fun, that people with physical abnormalities should be hustled off to circus sideshows is abhorrent.

DOUGLAS WYMAN, Studio City

Photo Diminishes Actor

Give us a break: Your Dec. 14 article on Wes Studi is acceptable; the photo by Tony Barnard and whoever made the selection is not (“I Came Into the Business at the Right Time”).

That boudoir shot of Studi is ridiculous. He is an actor and not Geronimo, but he has a commanding presence that you have totally negated. Truman Capote he’s not.

Americans today are attempting to restore dignity to the Native Americans we have damaged. Your photo doesn’t help.

PANO DOUROS, Venice

‘Hemingway’ Exhilarates

I had just come from seeing “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway.” I was exhilarated. Then I read Peter Rainer’s review (“Actors Over the Top in ‘Hemingway,’ ” Dec. 17). I read it three times to make sure we’d seen the same film. First I was amazed, then annoyed, then worried. I was worried that someone would read such phrases as “life-affirming mush” (what does that mean?) and “soppy cantankerous coots” and deprive him/herself of seeing a wonderful, emotion-filled story.

Robert Duvall, Richard Harris and director Randa Haines have made some deliberate choices that this viewer thinks work. If this movie slobbers, it can slobber on my shoulder any time!

LYNN ROTH, Los Angeles

Las Vegas Theme Park

The MGM Grand Theme Park, part of the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel complex, is an absolutely dismal attempt at Las Vegas’ first theme park. It has just six rides, featuring two especially horrible ones. One is the Lightning Bolt, a lame and very short rip-off of Disneyland’s Space Mountain; the other is the Haunted Mine, a very unpleasant trip through an abandoned mine filled with skeletons.

The major portion of the park features some cheesy movie-set streets and numerous snack bars. A few of the stores feature some nice items (such as animation cels).

Southern California may no longer be the aerospace center of the nation, but its supremacy in theme parks remains unchallenged!

MATTHEW OKADA, Pasadena