Schindler's Lost

Shindler's List

Schindlers List "Memory is all we have, and when the memories are dreadful- when they hold images of the pain we have suffered or, perhaps inflicted- they are what we are try to escape" (Corliss 110). Steven Spielberg captures the audience in this critically acclaimed movie about the Holocaust. Schindlers List is a movie made to induce the mind into the unknown, the horrors of World War II. David Ansen states "Schindlers List plunges us into the nightmare of the Holocaust with newsreel-like urgency- and amazing restraint" (Newsweek 113). Spielberg brings out all emotions in recapturing this monstrous time period. Schindlers List is about Oskar Schindler, a German Nazi who uses the Jews to make money off the war. At the beginning of the movie Schindler is portrayed as a womanizer, gambler, and heavy drinker. He becomes friends with some top Nazi officials to better himself. As the movie progresses Schindler begins to produce war materials using the Jews as a labor force. As he sits back and watches the various actions of the Nazis he begins to question his morals. His accountant, Itzhak Stern, begins making a list of around 1200 Jews. These Jews were to come and work in Schindlers' factory. When Germany surrendered all of the Nazis were to be hunted. Many Jews thanked him and all of the workers wrote a letter explaining Schindlers' actions. Also, a gold ring was given to him inscribed, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire" (Talmud). Schindler said good-bye to his workers and fled. Only now the Jews are liberated to have nowhere to go and nowhere to leave. Many great directors concentrate on dialogue, scenery, and plat; however, Spielberg stresses the importance of camera angles and the effect of black and white film, scenes and characters, on viewers in Schindlers List. With his outstanding work on camera angles, Steven Spielberg holds the audience at breath while waiting for the next scene. Spielberg uses a hand held camera to grasp the effects. David Denby explains how the use of a handheld camera is much more accurate. "The camera keeps moving [...] moving fast, chasing corners and up stairways [...]." Spielberg makes the movie look "like and advertent look of newsreel footage" (1282). Life magazine quoted Spielberg discussing the image of Amon Goeth sunbathing. A man named Raymond Titsch took pictures inside the Holocaust gates. When he died Spielberg got a hold of those pictures and disclaims remark about the photographs and courage. "He looked as if he was at Club Med [...] the photographers shadow on his gut [...] the courage the shadow represented" ("Schindler's 9). Clearly Spielberg was moved by these images; it took courage to face up to the reality of the Holocaust. During the movie the camera angles are not hard to catch on to. Throughout it the camera is basically focusing eye level. Spielberg is emphasizing reality, not fiction, by having the viewer seeing everything to the eye level. Spielberg keeps his scenes at this level because he is reminding viewers of the popular opinion of this time- there is no God. God is looking down upon the horror, and does nothing about it. Therefore many now believe he does not exist. Philip Strick introduces a new approach to Spielberg's' actions. He believes Spielberg discards his "classy crane-shots" to get the crowd to mix in. "[...] panic inducing proximity or tries to provide vistas where so much is happening, so many details of independent action almost unobserved [...] unable to imagine the logistics of it's fakery" (1291-92). Spielberg also comments about how hard the film was to make. In an interview with Spielberg Ansen writes that Spielberg was directing a scene and could not watch it himself. He said to the man "'Do you think you got that?' And he said, 'I don't know, I wasn't looking.'" Spielberg takes this reaction as a compliment, "when the focusing man doesn't look you know it's interesting" (Film 1290). According to Ansen Spielberg had is own idea of making his style. "[...] I threw half my toolbox away, I canceled the crane. I tore out the dolly track. I didn't really plan a style. I didn't say I'm going to use a handheld camera. I simply tried to pull the events closer to the audience by reducing the artifice" (Newsweek 1). Although Spielberg's' imagination helped him to recreate the "footage" of the Holocaust, his imagination helped him even more once he decided to do the movie without color. Spielberg's assumption was right. There was no need for color; the audience could not handle the movie if it had been in color. Since the movie is in black and white the viewer often looks closer to pick up any missed images. Therefore a deeper meaning behind Schindlers List arises. Spielberg uses a little girl dressed in red to emphasize how no one was spared. The color red symbolizes life, and hope. This hope is shattered when viewers see the little girl again, dead. A German writer, Geoff Eley, comments "Spielberg moves us through the major stations of the Holocaust--dispossession, the curse of the Poles [...], the walking into the ghetto [...], selections, terror and humiliation on the streets (black blood on white snow)[...] but still partially negotiable normality, before the sledgehammer of terror is applied" (7). The movie opens up in color with a Jewish family lighting the Sabbath candles. Then later on at the end the candles reappear indicating Jewish survival (4). "[...] shifted us into a different space, accomplished above all by the move from the color of the candle's flame to the black-and-whiteness of the historical reconstruction, [...] its single most important striking feature." Black and white films produce a complex emotion (3). Truth is one of the main thoughts running through Spielberg's mind when he is filming this movie.