Schindler’s List
Universal Pictures (1993).
Spielberg’s Magnum Opus Remains Powerful 30 Years Later.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Steven Zaillian
Cast: Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler), Ralph Fiennes (Amon Göeth), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern)
Steven Spielberg will be immortalized as one of the greatest film directors to ever exist behind the lens for his uncompromising tale of the brutality and endurance of the Jewish people during Europe’s darkest years on Earth.
Schindler’s List is unequaled in its emotional weight. The black and white film lends a dynamic vision to this sullen tale that surpasses any drama that has come before or after it. With a 3-hour and 15-minute runtime, the film never leads your mind to stray, and it fails to relieve it of any solitude until the credits roll. Gen Z and Millennial attention spans need not worry, the pacing of Schindler’s List is a master class for editing and screenwriting alike. While the source material may be depressing and unyielding in its sorrowful tone, the entirety of the film is impeccable storytelling that could only have been accomplished by a legendary film director.
The film opens with two candles being lit while the Jewish Sabbath prayer is recited in the background. The flame of a single candle burns down to its base and disappears, taking with it the last rays of color from the film and the prosperous times of the Jewish people of Europe. The visual symbolism in this opening shot is nearly beyond words. The rest of the movie is beset with these emotionally vibrant moments the way jewels encrust the band of a crown; their positions carefully placed with expert craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Schindler’s List limited color scheme causes each scene to carry more weight than the whole of some movies. After a brief scene of Jewish people reciting their names, we are cast into the heart of the Third Reich at play. Festive ballrooms and grand dinner parties mark the calm before the storm. Before the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos, we see the dominance of the German Nationalist Party, and the rise of its most infamous appendage, the SS, or Schutzstaffel, or “Protection Squads”.
The elite police squad was Adolf Hitler’s personal guard and would later become the Third Reich’s executive force tasked with carrying out security duties from hunting down dissenters of the Nazi party to carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution of the Jewish people. Rubbing elbows with this cadre of dastardly villains is a German industrialist named Oskar Schindler.
Played by Liam Neeson, Schindler is a shrewd businessman with a penchant for recognizing the opportunity that any controversial situation may bring, especially a world war. He quickly makes his way to Krakow where edict 44/91 has been established by the Nazi Party, dictating that all Jews relinquish their residential properties and move into a sixteen-block ghetto south of the Vistula River. Schindler knows that this area will have to depend on underground black markets in order to obtain food, clothing, and other staples that make life bearable in such squalid conditions. His first order of business is to contact the once wealthy members of this fledgling Jewish society and use their newfound oppression as leverage to place himself in a lucrative position.
Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler.
Every scene has a purpose and every one succeeds in establishing the incredible duality that existed between the Jewish and German people. A wealthy Jewish family is forced out of their luxurious apartment, forced to pack up their belongings under the guise of German officers. We watch as they are herded towards the new ghetto in Krakow while, simultaneously, shots of Schindler show him settling into their home. The scene is poignant and nearly terrifying, able to convey that the first moves by the Nazi’s are systematically expedient and cold; out with the old and in with the new.
The next scenes are escalatory; the demotion of skilled and educated members of Jewish society into skilled and unskilled workers. The Nazi party is beginning to show that it values nothing about its cultural adversaries and that the worst times are just getting started.
Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern.
At the heart of this process lies Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kinglsey. Stern is a gifted accountant who grabs Schindler’s attention as the perfect intermediary between him and the Jewish people of the ghetto, particularly its once-wealthy inhabitants. Schindler has his eyes set on starting a munitions factory, and he needs labor for his operation to get off the ground.
The demotion of the Jewish people into third class citizens presents a unique opportunity for Schindler; he now can employ a workforce that he does not have to pay for. Every situation has a silver lining, even one that marks the beginning of mass genocide. The duality of Stern’s predicament is followed throughout the entire movie. He bears witness to the incredibly disturbing erosion of his people while witnessing the exhaustive rise of the Nazi Party.
Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göeth.
A film without a villain is no film at all, and Schindler’s List has the most detestable of all in Ralph Fiennes’ character, Amon Göeth. The ultimate responsibility of the Krakow ghetto falls under Amon’s command as he is the Untersturmführer, or “Junior Storm Leader”, an SS elite officer. Amon is without remorse, compunction, or morality. His cold indifference towards the Jewish people is made apparent from one of the most chilling scenes in cinematic history: Amon indiscriminately shooting and killing Jews of the Plaszow concentration camp below his bedroom balcony. A more terrifying villain could not exist on film, and the fact that the real Amon Göeth’s actions were far more violent and terrifying is a testament to the ferocity screenwriter Zaillian was able to convey through Fiennes’ character.
The darkest films can still possess moments that are nothing short of magic. The liquidation of the ghetto scene is poetic and unnerving. Nazi stormtroopers force the Jewish people out at gunpoint and execute those who refuse. The sequence is watched by Oskar Schindler from horseback with his wife on a nearby ridge overlooking the ghettos. Oskar catches the red coat of a young girl no older than 5. Her red overcoat is the only object that is given color throughout the movie aside from the candle light in the opening scene.
Schindler watches as she makes her way through the crowds of fleeing peoples and zig-zags through lines of Nazi soldiers. She goes unnoticed because of her size and makes her way into a building where she climbs the stairs and hides under a bed. We later see this same girl’s vibrant red coat in a pile of dead bodies at a concentration camp later in the movie.
This same scene has another standout moment when a SS officer begins to play the piano while the stormtroopers shoot the rest of the hiding Jewish people at night. There is a single wide shot that lasts no more than a few seconds, but it is a powerful sequence nonetheless. While the SS officer continues to play Mozart on the piano, the windows of the buildings light up with gun fire. This sporadic show of fireworks is haunting as it is beautiful. Spielberg has a way with the lens that is nothing short of magic and though this scene marks one of many atrocities against the Jewish people, it represents a milestone in modern filmmaking.
Schindler’s List is the kind of movie that makes you question the human condition. It will leave you clutching your chest and wonder how such atrocities begin to even take shape. Spielberg can do what no other director could: bring the atrocities of the Jewish struggle under Nazi Germany into the mainstream media through an uncompromising film narrative. Standout performances and a captivating story come to life through the most admirable and detestable characters that could ever grace the silver screen. Spielberg is a master film director, and though he has many blockbuster titles that have changed the cinematic landscape forever, Schindler’s List will remain the immutable milestone of his career long after he is gone.