Schindler's List, a primarily black and white documentary drama, released in 1993 and based on the novel 'Schindler's Ark' by Thomas Keanelly, was directed by Steven Spielberg - more popularly remembered as the director of "Jaws", "Jurassic Park" and "E.T.". The movie is a true story, based on the life of German businessman - Oskar Schindler, during the period of the Holocaust of 1941 when over six million Jews faced mass genocide by the Nazis. Schindler was a Nazi of this time, who grew sympathetic towards the Jews and is known for having saved over a thousand such Jews from being murdered by Hitler's Nazis.
The Holocaust1 is a sensitive issue, and making a movie on it would definitely lead to controversies. This probably was the reason Spielberg initially displayed reluctance towards directing the movie. He is said to have tried to pass the movie on to several other directors before taking it on himself. When he finally did decide to do it himself, that was when came up the worldwide phenomenon known as "Schindler's List" - a film that was both gruesome, and heart-wrenching; that unflinchingly showed the facts, and at the same time, moved one to the catastrophe of the Holocaust.
The first question that would strike one's mind is - "Why black and white?" A film on the Holocaust involves scenes of genocide of an innocent race that fell into the power of a cruel ruler, mass murder of the old and young alike for no apparent reason. Spielberg states in an interview - "The Holocaust was life without light. For me the symbol of life is color. That's why a film about the Holocaust has to be in black-and-white." 2 This film is full of both subtle and overt symbolism that he uses in an attempt to put through his own feelings towards the topic in question.
The film starts with a scene in color where a Jew family is seen lighting candles and observing Shabbat - the present day, where they were free people and not beholden to anyone with their lives. The scene soon fades into the past when Jews were not considered people, Shabbat was forgotten, and along with the fading of the time, so does the color. The scenes of the Holocaust are depicted in grayscale - a fitting scheme in regard to the situation of the time.
However the one highlight of the film - the one that breaks through the monotony of the gray backdrop, one meant to horrify the audience and bring them to tears - 'The girl in the red coat'. The liquidation of the Krakow ghetto - a scene showing Jews being murdered by the thousands, running and screaming in chaos, and a girl of three, walking the streets with innocence glowing on her face, and in the red coat she wears. The one streak of color amidst the chaos of murder, and in a few short moments - dead, and nothing but another forgotten memory of a life that really got the chance to live. Schindler is shown to have been moved by this particular event, so much that it becomes a turning point in his life and he sympathizes with the situation of the Jews. He then opens up a new company in which all his hired workers are Jews, thus placing them under his protection and saving their race.
This is the first movie that gave voice to the protest against the injustice of the Nazis that had occurred over 5 decades earlier. Spielberg has perfectly captured every emotion that the events inspire, on screen. This movie was a breakthrough in the genre of war movies. Spielberg's initial reluctance before doing the film transformed into a passion that brought forth movies like 'Saving Private Ryan' from him. His underlying themes in his movies became more mature and serious after 'Schindler's List'. Thus this movie was a breakthrough, not only in the film world, but also in Spielberg's own career.
1. The period between 1930 and 1941 when the Nazis were mass-eliminating the Jews who migrated to Germany.
2 : Palowski, Franciszek (1998) [1993]. The Making of Schindler's List: Behind the Scenes of an Epic Film. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 1-55972-445-5.