1993 is inarguably one of the best years in Steven Spielberg‘s career. Rebounding from the now beloved but at the time disappointing Hook, he broke new grounds with special effects and entertainment with the summer blockbuster Jurassic Park, only to end the year with another film that was both his critical and personal apex Schindler’s List. But that almost didn’t happen. In 1991, after a decade of ups and downs, Martin Scorsese followed up his critical and personal masterpiece, Goodfellas, with the revenge thriller Cape Fear to huge financial success. But that almost didn’t happen as well. Surprisingly enough, the history of these two films is intertwined, as Scorsese was at one point set to direct Schindler’s List and Spielberg was attached to make Cape Fear. How did history get corrected? Easy. The directors swapped movies.
‘Schindler’s Long Journey to the Screen
By the time of its 1993 release, Schindler’s List had been in development for over 10 years. Schindler’s Ark, the book that made for the film’s source material, was published in 1982 and immediately caught the attention of Spielberg. As detailed in Joseph McBride‘s biography of Steven Spielberg, Spielberg was sent a review of the book by Universal Studios executive Sid Sheinberg, saying, ”It’ll make a helluva story. Is it true?” in jest. He convinced the studio to buy the rights to the book, but McBride reports Spielberg having a hesitance to direct the film. When meeting with one of the survivors of Schindler’s efforts, Leopald Page, in the 1980s Spielberg said it would take ten years for him to make the movie. But the guilt began to weigh on Spielberg, and he had his doubts.
The film’s screenwriter, Steve Zallian, believes Spielberg didn’t think he was ready. In 1994 he told Entertainment Weekly, ”[Spielberg] didn’t have kids yet. He had to come to terms with his Jewishness. He kept putting it off.” Even other directors, such as A Cry in the Dark director Fred Schepisi, reportedly told Spielberg, ”Give it to me, I don’t think you have the courage to not use the crane and dolly.” This spoke to Spielberg’s fears that he had too much of a commercial sensibility to attempt tackling such difficult subject matter. Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly, ”Survivors would come up to me in Poland and say, ‘What a strange choice,’ and I’d have a sinking feeling in my heart, (worrying that) the world wouldn’t accept Schindler’s List from me.” But with the project still in on his mind, Spielberg began to turn to his friends.
During the course of its development, Spielberg met with several directors about making Schindler’s List. McBride’s biography reports of Spielberg talking with two famed filmmakers who had direct ties to the Holocaust, Billy Wilder and criminal Roman Polanski. Wilder, who left Austria in the early 1930s, lost much of his family to the concentration camps and considered the film as a possible tribute to their memory. Polanski had lived in one of the ghettos and lost his mother at Auschwitz, but he declined Schindler’s List, only to later make The Pianist. Spielberg continued to offer the film to his contemporaries, including Sydney Pollack and Brian De Palma (who turned it down,) but didn’t find anyone willing until his friend Martin Scorsese.
Spielberg’s Regrets and Uncertainties
“I thought Marty would do a great job with it,” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly in 1994. He felt his friend, and director of such brutal films as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull, would be able to capture the horrific violence that was true to story’s reality. Scorsese was attached and hired Zallian to write the script, after two prior failed attempts. It was long before Spielberg felt regret over letting the film go. As he recalls, “I’d given away a chance to do something for my children and family about the Holocaust.” And, as McBride details, Spielberg began to feel a growing discomfort with the rise of Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But how would Scorsese feel after putting in time on the project?
“I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to the situation.” In a recent interview with Deadline, while premiering Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese discussed his initial involvement with Schindler’s. “I was about to direct it. But I had reservations at a certain point.” In the late ’80s, Scorsese was coming off of a personal passion film of his The Last Temptation of Christ, but his passion was met with controversy and it began to take a toll on him. After arguing with so many religious figures about his interpretation and retelling of the story of Christ, Scorsese became anxious about whether he had the right to tell the story. “I knew there were Jewish people upset that the writer of The Diary of Anne Frank was gentile.” Scorsese does not claim his actions were altruistic but simply more logical. “It’s the old story that the journey had to be taken by a Jewish person through that world, and I think Steven also learned that.” With both directors interested in returning to the project, there still had to be a deal made.
A Nearly Clean Switch Between Spielberg and Scorsese
Despite being friends, the two directors couldn’t simply sign over the movie like a car title, so Spielberg put together a deal. In order to regain the rights, Spielberg put together a package deal with author Micheal Crichton and CAA agent Michael Ortiz to make a film out of the yet-to-be-published, Jurassic Park, with Spielberg attached to direct. He took the deal to Universal, who still had the rights to Schindler’s List, and offered his old friend Sid Sheinberg the package in order to direct the Holocaust epic. Sheinberg, not foolish enough to turn down a film about dinosaurs directed by the guy that made Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark, agreed to the deal. There was still one issue, what to do about Scorsese?
Thankfully, Spielberg had been developing a remake of the 1961 Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck thriller Cape Fear, and his heart just simply wasn’t in it. At the time Spielberg said, “I wasn’t in the mood; it’s as simple as that…I just couldn’t find it inside me to make a scary movie about a family being preyed on by a maniac.” He offered the film to Scorsese in exchange for returning Schindler’s List, and Scorsese accepted. Not only was Scorsese starting to feel anxious about directing the historical drama, but reportedly wanted something more conventional after two deeply personal projects, The Last Temptation of Christ and Goodfellas, both reflections of Scorsese’s spiritual and literal upbringing. A deal was made, and the directors went on to make the films ultimately more fitting for each of them.
What Might Have Been?
It’s not ridiculous to think had the directors not switched projects two great films would have still been made. Scorsese has gone on to make more than one historical epic with Gangs of New York and Silence, and Spielberg has explored darker sides of his psyche while still creating thrills with Minority Report and Munich. But maybe not! Entertainment Weekly reports the script for Schindler’s developed by Scorsese and Zallian was much more contained, and it was Spielberg that opened it up to not just focusing on Schindler himself. Meanwhile, as reported in the previously referenced Far Out article, Spielberg wanted Bill Murray to play the revenge-seeking convict, for which Scorsese correctly cast De Niro. Looking back in hindsight, there are no lingering regrets, with Scorsese telling Deadline, “If I did [Schindler’s List], it would not have been the hit that it became. It may have been good, that I can tell you. I had some ideas. Most of it’s there. I had a different ending. I admired the film greatly.”
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