[Cesar Chacon from El Paso TX, USA]

Schindler’s List is described as the black and white masterpiece of Steven Spielberg. It narrates one of the many stories that occurred during the holocaust in Krakow. Schindler’s List is different from other movies made about the holocaust because it has a happy ending.

The film follows the story of two ethnic groups, and strongly relates some kind of symbol to them. At first, the Jewish group is established as a very religious population with very strong roots. Candles are also related to Jews right from the start because of the menorah. The Nazis are related to wealth, weapons, military uniforms, and songs of joy. Oskar Schindler’s profile is given by very quick glances to the props related to him; which are: money, jewelry, wine, a suit, and a Nazi pin he is always wearing. In addition, the song “Gloomy Sunday” plays several times when Schindler is on frame, this is a very unusual song; also called “The Suicide Song.” It was written in 1933 by of Rezsô Seress a self-thaught pianist born in Hungary. Hundreds of suicides during the 1940’s were atributed to this song, according to police reports, they found suicide notes with the lyrics of “Gloomy Sunday” on them. There is a scene when Amon Goeth is holding a party at his Villa and two jewish musicians are playing at the party. According to the testimony of one of the musicians [Which is found ond the bonus features of the DVD], one of the soldiers asked him and his partner to play “The Suicide Song”. The played it around twelve times, then the soldier went out to the balcony and shoot himself.

At the beginning of the movie, Schindler does not say much, but the audience can appreciate what he is focusing on because of the objective view. The light that falls on his eyes makes him seem like a wolf searching for his prey. Schindler’s habits are very repetitive right from the beginning; offering brives, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, surrounding himself with beautiful women and the burgeoisie, seem to be part of his very day life. For most of the movie Schindler appears to be very tall when he appears in the frame, but when he is in the frame with his wife, his head is always below hers, and he looks small and powerless. In addition, when they go to the same hotel where Schindler goes at the beginning of the movie, he focuses all of his attention on Ms. Schindler disregarding anything else.

The movie has a lot of close-ups to show detail. The most common close-ups made to props were the ones made to typewriters, ink bottles, official documents, and jewelry. The facial gestures of the actors are also emphazised, except for the German soldiers, their faces are not visible most of the time.

The content of the movie is shown trough a Hollywood style. For example, if the scenes were people are killed are revised chronologically, the intensity of the violence increases as the movie advances. The director did not wanted to show raw brutality right from the start, it is progressive, as well as the emotional change that the main character experiences. When Schindler is sitting at the table of the hotel in the first scene, he looks like a detective from a “femme fatale” type of movie, instead of an ambitious German. In addition, the pace of the movie is continuous. The director used on-screen text between some of the scenes narrating the historical events that led to the action that is taking place in the scene. The use of a graphic match to show the cross-cutting between Goeth’s monologue to Helen and the singer and Schindler is both compelling and dramatic. When Schindler receives a visit by a Jewish woman seeking to save his parents two frames are visible: The first is Schindler’s office and the second is the window where the interior of the fabric can be seen.

There is a very interesting character in this movie, which has become a legend and sort of a landmark. The little girl with the red coat, it is a unique character, which appears very briefly in the movie, but still is meaningful. She is the only character that appears with color when the movie is on black and white. In addition, she has her own music; the song that plays when she appears in the frame is “Oyfn Pripetshok”(On the Hearth).
“On the hearth a little fire is burning,
And it is hot in the house,
And the rebbe is teaching the little children.
The Aleph Bet.

Study, children, with great interest,
That is what I tell you;
He who’ll know his lessons first,
Will get a banner for a prize”
The song provides a very different touch to the the little girl’s character, because it resembles innonce and youth. She walks unnoticed, and people are killed on the spot right beside her, the she enters a house and hides in the the attic, for a brief shot the color of his coat dissapears. The little girl is most likely a representation of the Jewish people and their hope to survive. Schindler sees the girl but he is visibly refrained to to something to save her. Later he looks at her remains in a a pile of exhumated corpses.

The lightning is very significant trorughout the movie, in resembles the fear and the frustation expierenced by the characters, in other scenes it is used to focus the attention of the audience (i.e. When Stern enters the gates of Plaszow, the light that covers him comes right from the middle of the screen, illuminating tha graves wchich were used to build a road). Another scene when lightning higlights th dramatic essence of the movie is when the soldiers are looking for hiding Jews in the ghetto. The soldiers faces are in the dark, the flashes of the gunshots seen from outside the building provide a subjective view of what was happening inside. When Schindler is shooting water at the train cars the light seems to be coming with the water, and the Jews are in gloom.

The sound in the movie is used to represent different situations that often happen in real life. The over-lapping dialog that is suddenly shut when Schindler speaks, is an example of power. The constant ininteligible orders by the Germans, approching footsteps, dog barking, gunshots, people screaming, and women crying were constant sounds in the movie.
The movie exponds how the Nazis lied to the Jews in order to make them do as the Nazis wanted. How they tortured and treated them unhumanly. It is unbearable to see how people were disposed. It gives the audience a notion of how did the people reacted to the drastic changes made in their lives. The phrases used give clear examples of the confusion experienced by the Jewish people “this is the bottom” one of them said “the ghetto is liberty” argued another. The arbitrary murders comitted by the Nazis was one of the main events the movie denounces.