Schindler's List: The Review of the Film

Introduction

The Summary of the Plot

This film “Schindler’s List” starts at a town of Krakow in Poland occupied by German troops during World War II in September 1939. For Jews, they register their family members and more than 10,000 Jews every day arrive in Krakow from the province. Oscar Schindler, who is an opportunist who pursues his own success with the times. He has bought a vessel factory which is running by a Polish Jew. He becomes a member of the Nazi Party to take over the factory and offer bribes to the German army. But Schindler is a cold-blooded opportunist, who doesn’t pay a penny for his labors. He uses the Jews to make friends with Stern, who is a Jewish accountant. He begins to hear the sounds of conscience about the cold-blooded Holocaust. It is a Nazi murder, and Schindler gets to face reality through his own eyes. At the end, he takes to a concentration camp and save the Jews.

The Title of the Movie

The title of “Schindler’s List” comes from Thomas Kennelly’s original novel, which was first published in 1982. It was actually only titled the Schindler list of the Unites States. In Europe, it was Schindler’s ark. The title was in place by the time Spielberg got there. More importantly, the list itself is the purest summary of what Schindler has done to save Jews in his factory. It becomes a powerful symbol of Jewish survival in the face of intensive and industrialized efforts to wipe them out. The title includes two of the most important parts of the story which are the horror of the Holocaust itself and the way the Nazis found it to keep alive what they worked so hard to destroy.

The Director of the Movie

The director of “Schindler’s List” is Steven Spielberg who is a Jewish filmmaker and producer in the United States. He is the director who has made most of the big box office hits such as “Jaws”, “E.T.”, “Jurassic Park” and Schindler’s List”, highly regarded for their box office success and quality. He is one of a handful of directors called the head or godfather of Hollywood.

The Producer of the Movie

The producers of this film are Gerald R. Molen and Branko Lustig. Gerald Robert Molen is an American film producer who worked closely with Steven Spielberg, having produced Schindler’s list and won an Academy Award for co-producing it. Branko Lustig is a Croatian film producer best known for winning Academy Awards for Best Picture for Schindler’s List.

The Release of the Movie

This film “Schindler’s List” has been released on 30th of November in 1993. The running time of this film is three hour and seventeen minutes.

The Genre of the Movie

The genre of Schindler’s List is historical drama. It is presenting a slightly fictionalized account of events that actually took place, in an effort to illuminate our understanding or just to remind that they really happened. There is some contracting of events and a few compound characters to help the narrative go down smoothly, but otherwise Schindler’s List presents the events and the people just as they appeared.

Main Body

Explanation of Characters

Oskar Schindler, the main character of the “Schindler’s List” who was played by Liam Neeson, is a German entrepreneur and opportunist who is a factory owner and member of the Nazi Party who lived in Poland during World War II. Schindler appears to be more interested in making money than in morality. He ignores the Jews at first and doesn’t care about them in facing danger. But as he grows compassion for Jews, he sees his factory workers as human beings worthy of life and begin to know how Nazi treat them. He slowly changes from a cold, greedy man to a donor. His compassion saves about 1,100 Jews in German concentration camps by bribing Nazi party members at high risk with sacrificing his all the fortunes to keep all of them safe. Itzhak Stern, Schindler's Jewish accountant and conscience, another main character of the “Schindler’s List” who was played by Ben Kingsely. Stern is an intellectual who does not lose his pride in the face of the violent and inhuman conditions that Jews face under the Nazi regime. He starts working with Cinderella when the Jews are moved to Ghetto. He can influence the good and moral aspects of Schindler. Stern was the first to realize that Schindler's factory could be used as a safe haven for Jews. His patriarchal attitude toward fellow Jews in Ghetto leads him to use his position to save those who would otherwise be exterminated. He faked documents for the Jews and hired them at the Schindler factory. Stern is a man who appeals to Schindler's moral side, and by the end of the movie, the two had fallen in love with each other.

Amon Goeth, a Nazi officer in charge of the construction of a Plaszow work camp, another main character of “Schindler’s List” who was played by Ralph Fiennes. Goeth is a cruel, cold, sadistic man deeply rooted in Nazi philosophy. He represents the pure evil of the Nazi Party. Goeth shows true hatred for the Jews, sometimes shooting them at random on a high balcony above a labor camp. He likes Schindler because Schindler is as greedy and can only concentrate on himself. So he grants Schindler his factory and workers. He and Schindler share many common traits, such as greed and cold egocentrism, but Goeth completely devotes himself to evil and hatred. He struggles, feeling both affection and disgust for the Jewish maid. Goeth represents all sorts of distaste for the Nazi Party. He is executed for war crimes at the end of the movie.

The Setting of the Movie

The setting of movie was held at Holocaust, Poland. The largest number of Jewish casualties came from the Holocaust in Poland. About 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland before the war. Three million of them were killed in prison camps, half of whom were killed across Europe. In occupied Poland, there were six extermination camps and other concentration camps. Poland was chosen just because it had the most Jews. Ninety percent of Poland’s Jewish population has died in the Holocaust, the largest in numbers as well as in proportions. Schindler’s list was filmed in the city of Krakow, Poland, around nearby territories and mostly outside of the Jewish Ghetto and Krakow, set up when the Nazi conquered Poland. Spielberg shot the film here because it happened right here. One of the locations filmed outside Poland was the Jewish cemetery where the real Schindler is buried which is The Mount Zion Catholic Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Conflict

There are two external conflicts and one internal conflict in “Schindler’s List”. One of the external conflicts is about Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth. In the beginning of the film, Schindler and Goeth are good friends with one another only because of the economic opportunity. Schindler thought that if they stayed friends, then he would earn more money through his factory. As movie progresses, Schindler finds out how badly Goeth actually treats his Jews. Schindler then makes it a priority to save as many Jews as he can from Goeth thus the starting of a conflict between two. If Schindler didn’t gather the courage to go to Goeth, a lot would have changed. More people would have died in horrendous ways and there wouldn’t be as many stories out there that describe what went on in the camps. Another external conflict is about Jews and society. Even before the film started, there was a conflict between the Jews and society. The Jews were rejected because of what they believed in and because they were different. Through the film, Jews are mistreated by almost every member in society that was apart of the Nazi party. They were tortured, worked to death, and murdered brutally. If this wasn’t’ a conflict, there wouldn’t have been a World War II. If society didn’t have something against the Jews, then there wouldn’t have been a mass murder, stories, or movie to watch. Lastly, internal conflict is about Oskar Schindler and his conscience. Through the film, Schindler has to deal with the constant conflict between himself and his conscience. Because he is saving the Jews, his common sense is telling him to stop due to the fact he is risking his life. Despite that, his conscience is telling him to keep saving these people because not only will it help him, it will help his own well-being. This affects the plot because it shows, once again, the battle between good and evil. If Schindler hadn’t decided that the well-being of other’s was better than his own well-being, then there wouldn’t have been hundreds to thousands of people saved by him.

The Camera Tecniques

The camera techniques used in “Schindler’s List” are track-in shots, sideways tracking shots, dramatic over-the-shoulder shots, claustrophobic over-the-shoulder shots, track-in 2-shot and mirror entry shots. Track-in-shots is type of camera technique is that medium-sized close-up went to stricter close-up, which physically moves this type of camera on the subject. The background of the movement is becoming blurred, and is generally neat used to draw interest in the story of letters at important moments. Sideways tracking shot is one of the classic cinematographic techniques, but Steven Spielberg always adds tremendous value to the camera and makes his tracking photos look absolutely different from everyone else's. His side-tracking shots can be very long, and can be traced to two characters who generally walk and talk. Spielberg adds significant visual acuity to photography by placing all kinds of objects and extras between the camera and two main subjects to improve the richness of the frame and the visual perception of movement. Dramatic over-the-shoulder shots is very common, but what was taken by Steven Spielberg is really something else. He typically uses wide lenses to shoot characters over the main character's shoulder, which makes the protagonist in the foreground look much bigger than the other character, and conveys a dominant feel. Claustrophobic over-the-shoulder shot is another camera technique. These are scenes that occupy much of the screen over the shoulder and inject the main theme into the side of the frame. Spielberg used the technique to emphasize moments for a particular meaning and he didn't use it more than once in the film. Track-in-2-shot is another movie technique that the camera makes frames with two medium-sized letters and moves very slowly to end with two tighter shots. The technique is typically used to cover scenes in which characters discuss topics of special importance. Mirror entry shots is last camera technique. In the technique, the camera frame a character reflected in the mirror in a wide shot, followed by the character entering the frame and closing up. This is a very effective way to switch to tighter shots of the same character.

Analysis and Evaluation

The Red-Coat Girl

The first scene in which the color appears is the scene of a girl wearing the red coat. The reason he inserted red into the scene is said to be symbolic of the rebuke of top U.S. officials who knew the Holocaust was happening but left it unattended. The Holocaust was that no one had taken any action, even though it seemed natural for a girl to wear a red coat. Another reason why this scene is important is because Schindler changes when he sees a girl. Schindler, who only knew money at first, was shocked and changed when he saw the Holocaust. The girl reappears, when she appears as well. In the process of burning the bodies of Krakow, Schindler finds the girl's red coat, and is no longer just looking at it quietly. He regains his Jewish workers by meeting Goeth, carefully building rapport and talking about business. Later, they buy and persuade Nazi Germany to build sub-camps to protect Jews. n this film, red-coat girl represents the innocence of the Jews being slaughtered. He sees her from high atop a hill and is riveted by her, almost to the exclusion of the surrounding violence. The moment Schindler catches sight of her marks the moment when he is forced to confront the horror of Jewish life during the Holocaust and his own hand in that horror. The little girl also has a greater social significance. Her red coat suggests the “red flag” the Jews waved at the Allied powers during World War II as a cry for help. The little girl walks through the violence of the evacuation as if she can’t see it, ignoring the carnage around her. Her oblivion mirrors the inaction of the Allied powers in helping to save the Jews. Schindler later spots her in a pile of exhumed dead bodies, and her death symbolizes the death of innocence.

The Black-and-white Background

One of the things that we have to look is the black and white background in Schindler’s List. We can barely find color except some of the scene and starting of the film. The beginning of this movie is not a black-and white movie. It begins to turn black and white as the candle is lifted up in the scene of the Jews praying. This is probably one of the elements behind the film’s time, the Holocaust of the World War II, to be more devastating and realistic. In middle of the movie, the blood on the body of a red-clad girl and her body was shown in color, not in black and white, and the bloodstained body seemed to symbolize the preciousness and hope of life, revealing the horrors of the times by symbolized by despair, frustration and hope of losing extreme conditions. In films set in modern times, the director's choice to use black-and-white may seem banal and artistic. But in the Schindler List, black and white expressions effectively evoke the Second World War era and deepen the impact of the story. Black-and-white also offers the filmmaker an opportunity to use spare colors to highlight the signal changes in key scenes and times. For example, the opening full-color scene, one of only a handful of color scenes in the movie, flows to the next scene in black and white. The shift sent viewers headlong into 1939, bringing them symbolically closer to the events and characters in the story. This artistic and psychological practice of bringing the audiences back on time is partly because black-and-white images and movie scenes from the 1930s and 1940s capture the way many people visualize World War II. Although modern viewers tend to be familiar with full-color images and think such images are more realistic than black-and-white. The black-and-white in the Schindler List delivers a alternate but less realistic version of life. The film shows various styles, such as noir, which is associated with the great detective story of the 1940s. The style connects the film to that era and deepens viewers' immersion in the historical background. The artistic advantage of black and white is that it increases the violence of movies and highlights the duality of good and evil. The film noir-style lighting and contrast strengthens the brutality of each violent scene. For example, when a single-armed man was shot in the head in the snowy streets of Krakow, his seemingly black blood spreads through the pure white snow, and the stark contrast of color emphasizes the division between life and death, between good and evil. In some terrifying scenes, such as the evacuation of Krakow Ghetto, the lights remain dim, conveying a sense of panic and confusion. The white faces of the dead on the street contrast sharply with the dark background. The same contrast marks a pile of burning bodies in the Plaszow work camp; the white skull stands out in the ashes. The women's faces in the Auschwitz shower scene look up in horror and bathe in white light. The contrast between light and darkness also often half-shaded, displaying Schindler's face, reflecting the selfish dark side. His face becomes more fully lighted as he transforms from a war profiteer to a savior. Schindler's List may not have the same visual and emotional impact what Spielberg had made the film color.

Background Music

The music in Schindler List is powerful enough to emphasize most of scenes in film and make audiences feel same feeling how the Jews feel in this film. The original sound track in Schindler List includes a world-renowned violinist known as Itzhak Perlman, who is one of the Jews that Schindler saved. So, Itzhak Perlman is playing on Schindler’s List of original sound track. Perlman was in the midst of a horrific massacre at that time, so he could feel sadness and extreme fear in his performance. Itzhak Perlman said the subject of Schindler’s List is important to him and that he who knows about Jewish history contributes to the songs. He plays the song by taking it is not fiction but it is reality and irrevocable as in the film. The main theme of Schindler’s List which played with his heart, asks numerous questions beyond simply not to forget the Holocaust where a history of shame and cruelty happened. A total of 14 songs, including original scores and Itzhak Perlman’s performance, add value to the emotion of in Schindler’s List. His performance doesn’t make Schindler’s grief feel like it is just a matter of Jews.

Conclusion

The film “Schindler’s List' overall did a fantastic job in showing the reality and brutality of the Holocaust. It is the first Holocaust film that has had me on the edge of my seat and has made me cry. If I can rate this film, I would like to give five out of five because there are a lot of interesting parts that are highlighting to us. This film affected me in ways I didn’t expect and cannot describe. Watching this film was an experience I believe everyone should have, and one I shall certainly never forget. Many moments and many aspects of this film have left me speechless, and even now I’m clueless as to how to describe my impression of the plot. One of the part that is highlighting in this film is that the built up is done very slowly and very subtly, you don’t realize what’s happening until it’s over and you’re suddenly at the climax, and all the feelings that have been bottling up for the past 3 hours all pour out at once. Oscar Schindler only tells us the audience he needs people for his factory, and while it’s obvious that’s not his main objective, him not saying it out loud makes his actions speak so much louder. It makes the character more flawed and interesting, almost as if you’re watching the horrors of the holocaust through an objective point of view. Another highlighting part is about the film actually works well in black and white. We know the holocaust only from old, black and white photos. A frame from this film doesn’t look any different from these photos. From the starving to the barracks to the children, it looks horrific, but it was horrific. So many films use World War II as an easy device to make the audience cry, or to romanticize the period with great heroes, but “Schindler’s List” was none of that. It looked and felt like an honest impression of the war, terrors and all. Of course this film also contains the usual elements that can make or break a film. The performances were fantastic, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes deserve all the awards, as well as Ben Kinglsey. The cinematography was amazing, but I didn’t expect anything less from Steven Spielberg. The most outstanding element however, is easily the score. Every bit of music is better than the last, and is certainly better than the music from any other movie ever. Not only does it fit the tone perfectly, as a violinist I also have great appreciation for the melodies out of context.In conclusion, “Schindler’s List” is a film you have to have seen, whether you like it or not. This was said to me often, and now that I’ve seen it, I will say it to others often. It is an experience, it leaves an impression, and next to that it’s also just an excellent piece of film.

References

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