There are some movies that are peppered with symbolism; this one is saturated in it. The opening scene depicts a Jewish family celebrating a traditional Shabbat. The lighting of the candles is the primary focus, as is their eventual burning down and extinguishment- similarly the members of the family dissolve on the screen and fade from view. The obvious metaphor being the fading away of a way of life and attempted extinguishing of an entire people. This introduction does everything it can to prepare the viewer for the fact that this is going to be a very somber viewing experience.
The film-proper begins rather abruptly and harshly with a steam whistle being blown on a transport train. The color disappears and the film suddenly jumps to black and white. There are several artistic justifications for this, to give the film a documentary type feeling, to take the edge off some of the gorier scenes, the visual benefits of the stark contrast that only black and white can provide, what have you. I will always believe the biggest function the black and white serves is to create as ominous an ambiance as possible.
The initial scenes depict the German occupation of Poland in the fall of 1939. When the Polish Jews are rounded up and forced into the major cities for consolidation and documentation purposes, there are slight yet clever visual subtleties that illustrate the low regard the conquerors have for the natives. Crude folding tables are used to set up makeshift clerk’s offices, the captured are shuttled in on run-down cattle cars and the cold, impersonal interaction the soldiers exchange with the Jews furthers the dehumanization process as they are treated more like surplus than people. Several quick cuts of Germans logging names and ever-growing lists are used to depict the staggering number of people being inventoried.
Very deliberately, the narrative jumps to a decadent, opulent party for the Nazi glitterati. Among them is the film’s chief character, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) whose prominence is never really discussed, but rather implied, as he is shown hobnobbing with well-dressed businessmen, mobbed by attractive women and even being asked to pose for pictures with decorated military officials. This introduction of Schindler is ingenious for two reasons: it demonstrates his charisma in a practical, believable setting rather than an overblown unrealistic dialogue-driven scenario- thus preserving the flow of the movie’s fly-on-the-wall narrative type. Also, it establishes credibility by not leading the viewer to believe that the man who will become the obvious protagonist is by no means a goody-two-shoes or a “man of the people.”
Inevitably, the two worlds collide as Schindler visits one of the occupied cities. Though he is there to recruit the services of a Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) there is still a well-defined line of morality that Schindler is clearly on the wrong side of. He details his plan to use the all-but-incarcerated Jews as cheap labor in a war-profiteering pots and pans company and explains how he needs Stern’s connections in the Jewish community to provide his startup funds, which he is of course reluctant to do but also realizes that his hands are essentially tied. If done the wrong way, the initiation of Schindler and Stern’s relationship could come across as a hokey “even though my people say I’m supposed to hate you, I respect you and think we could be friends” foreshadowing. However, the only thing that is obvious is Schindler’s self-serving personality and his “reaching out” to Stern and the Jews is entirely mercenary.
Once he is in charge of Schindler’s employee recruitment, Stern, unbeknownst to Schindler, methodically begins to hire employees who are deemed to have otherwise “non-essential” skills. Though it is again only implied, the urgency with which Stern does this (going so far as to forge documents for Jews who held prominent positions before the occupation that proclaim them as grunt-workers) makes it more than evident that the concentration camp system is in full effect. At this point in the film, there is also an essential marriage of music and editing that makes for one of the most intense scenes. Jump cuts go from Stern artificially aging a schoolteacher’s paperwork by folding and pouring tea on it, to the teacher himself being shuffled to a train assumed to be headed to a death camp. The two scenes merge when Stern arrives just in time to rescue the man from the train and present his false documents to the German clerk. The string arrangement goes from understated to dark, to a pulsing repeated note that creates an almost “Jaws” effect in its resemblance to a heightened pulse as the papers are inspected, finally ending with a sweet understated flourish as the man’s job at Schindler’s factory is approved. At no point in this scene are we told that the teacher’s life is in jeopardy, but the total presentation of imagery and music make it obvious.
There is never a missed opportunity to cast a negative reflection of Oskar Schindler in the first half of the film. He is shown to be a womanizer, a slave-wage driver, a borderline alcoholic and completely unrepentant of his corruption. In fact, the introduction of the primary antagonist, Nazi Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) goes to great lengths to demonstrate the similarities between Schindler and Goeth, a man who would go on to become one of the most heinous war criminals of all time. While a speech given by Goeth ordering the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos and the construction of concentration camps plays in the background, the onscreen focus is on Schindler and Goeth individually performing the same day-to-day tasks and living very similar lifestyles.
The first indication that Schindler is undergoing any kind of character change comes during the actually carrying out of Goeth’s orders. He looks down on the carnage from atop a hill and sees S.S. officers indiscriminately brutalizing everyone from women and children to hospital patients. Amidst a sea of on-the-spot executions the camera pans around in a point-of-view shot from Schindler’s perspective- indicating that the shocking images all sort of blend together for him. The one thing that stands out though is a little girl in a red coat. The artistic importance of only coloring one image in an otherwise entirely black and white scene is to acknowledge recognition. For this one girl to stand out to Schindler, for whatever reason, finally humanizes the people he has been exploiting in his factory. If you need any more evidence that this is clearly the intention, the girl is shown inside a building after she has left Schindler’s field of vision and her coat goes back to black and white- meaning the “color” was only seen by Schindler. There is also some very unsettling foreshadowing as the girl hides under a bed while the sound of approaching Nazi footsteps gets louder.
Though an underlying sense of self-service still exists, Schindler now makes a concerted effort to keep his workforce intact and to be more hands-on in its operations. He bribes Goeth heavily in order to ensure that his workers are kept under his employment and away from Nazi harassment. The bribery becomes elaborate as many of Schindler’s material belongings are shown transferring hands several times eventually leading to workers being released back into Schindler’s custody. The character development taking place during this middle section is among the most compelling and organic you’ll ever see. On one hand, he tells Goeth that the employees are essentially his property- yet he begins learning their names. He unsympathetically tells Stern that he refuses to let his factory be considered a front or a safe-haven, yet he encourages his workers to celebrate the Sabbath. There is much more “grey area” in Schindler as the film progresses- doubtless another justification for the black and white motif.
The figurative noose begins to tighten around Schindler’s enterprise and soon his workers are all on the verge of being transferred to Auschwitz. While meeting with Goeth to discuss the impending end of their arrangement Schindler notices the little girl in the red coat again, this time in a wheelbarrow full of Jewish corpses being incinerated in an effort to conceal the full-blown genocide Goeth has largely initiated. Unable to hide his emotion, he nearly vomits in front of all the Nazi soldiers at the sight of the girl and the realization of what is in store for his own employees.
“Stern, if this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I will be VERY unhappy.” (Oskar Schindler, “Schindler’s List”)
Finally, nearly 75% of the way through the film, the big character transition in Oskar Schindler occurs. As he says his goodbyes to Stern before running away with his fortune that was made largely on the backs of his Jewish employees, Schindler devises a way he can save a small but significant number of lives. Under the guise of establishing a munitions plant in Czechoslovakia and wanting workers he is familiar with and who have done similar labor for him, Schindler persuades Goeth to sell him back his employees at a rate so inflated it practically costs Schindler his entire fortune.
The climactic scene depicting the compiling of “The List” consists of several time-lapse edits and quick cuts between Schindler and Stern and the paper in Stern’s typewriter. The music swells as the list grows longer and the two men work more frantically. Before long it is very evident that Schindler has extended the list and thus gone deeper into his own pockets than was ever intended.
Schindler is reunited with many of his former male employees but, due to a “clerical error” the Schindler women are all shipped to Auschwitz. Despite the fact that it is nowhere near as gory as some of the earlier scenes where Goeth and his men exterminate people in the streets or in the snow, this particular sequence may be the most disturbing in the film; in part simply because of the stigma attached to the name “Auschwitz” but also because of the sickening dehumanization. A dense, dark rain that can only be the cremated remains of Holocaust victims falls around the women as they are stripped and shaved bald before being marched into a gas chamber. The collective screams from the women as the lights abruptly snap off is absolutely cringe-inducing. In what should be a happy turn of events, the gas chamber turns out to be a community shower and the women are cleansed rather than gassed; however the development only serves as a tame indicator as to the torment that was really suffered.
Once the entire roster is rounded up and sent to Schindler’s “factory,” his self-fulfilling prophecy is realized- his earlier complaints that he does not want his factory to become nothing more than a safe-house come to fruition, as is explained by onscreen text declaring the Schindler munitions factor as “a model of non-production.” Fortuitously, the war ends just as Stern delivers the news that Schindler is completely penniless. At a somber parting ceremony Schindler, for the first time in the movie, breaks from his cool demeanor and hysterically laments at what he perceives to be his failure to save more lives. Stern comforts the sobbing Schindler, reassuring him that he had gone above and beyond. The bittersweet reality of life after the events of the film is shown in epilogue form as text on the screen informs us that Schindler died in poverty and obscurity and that Goeth was tried and hung for his crimes.
More onscreen text informs us that Oskar Schindler was deemed a Righteous Person by the people of Jerusalem and accorded the special honor of burial in the Holy Land. The film jumps both to modern times and full color as the real life Schindler Jews pay tribute to Oskar at his grave. While the 1,100 lives Schindler saved may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the 6 million who were killed, the final words on the screen remind us that there are now over 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Jews.
Other than the significance of the film itself, there is a lot of artistry in “Schindler’s List” that set it apart from other films that came before. The handheld camera technique that gives certain frames a very dramatic shake effect was used to perfection in this film- Steven Spielberg would revisit this directorial tool again ad-nauseum in “Saving Private Ryan” a few years later. I have also talked about the importance of music to the narrative which is appropriately sad basically throughout the movie. Also, for many of the same reasons I think excessive gore in horror movies actually makes them corny, I have to agree with the decision to keep the body of the film in black and white, given the doubtless accusations of gratuitous violence that would have been leveled against it had many of the more grizzly scenes been filmed in color.
The downsides of this film are few, but they are there. There are several periods of extended dialogue that is done in hushed voices that not only slow the pacing a little bit but also can be hard to understand. Also, the constant need to show Goeth either beating or killing people goes far beyond what is necessary to establish him as a completely abhorrent individual, though from what I understand it is an accurate portrayal of his bloodlust. However, so much evil without any exploration into any other possible facets of his character runs the risk of making him an almost cartoonish villain. Lastly of course it has to be said that, even though they are still VERY disturbing, the scenes depicting the sheer disgustingness of the Holocaust are sanitized and don’t even begin to accurately depict the reality of the situation.
Then again, if you WANT to see any more detail of the Holocaust beyond what is shown, you probably should seek help.
