Why is Schindler’s List in black and white?

Many of you have asked why the director chose to film Schindler’s List in black and white.  This moving film is probably the most famous black and white film of modern times.  It is thought by many critics that Spielberg chose to film Schindler’s List in black and white to create an extra layer of horrific realism. It is interesting to note that this film did not have storyboards as director Steven Spielberg looked to Holocaust documentaries for inspiration which helps to explain the use of documentary style in the film.

Janusz Kaminski, Schindler’s List’s Director of Photography, said when he discussed the look:

“I was ecstatic to be working with Steven, and yet when we began filming it brought home the sickening reality of the Holocaust. The newsreel quality of the black and white seemed to fade the barriers of time, making [the footage] feel like an ongoing horror that I was witnessing firsthand. I think I can speak for the whole crew when I say the experience was sobering.”

It is also worth noting that the film was shot without the usual use of modern filmmaking tools such as cranes, steadicam and zoom lenses. There was much use of hand held camera shots (40%) which helped to make the film seem realistic. Perhaps the lack of more modern filmmaking tools also helped the viewer to focus on the story being told and help bring alive the time period portrayed in the film.

Spielberg awarded Liberty Medal

The director of Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg will be awarded Philadelphia’s 2009 Liberty Medal for his artistic and humanitarian achievements on October 8. Spielberg also established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation  to produce video and oral histories of Holocaust survivors. He will donate the award’s US$100,000 cash prize to the foundation.

The Liberty medal was established to honour those whose actions represent the founding principles of the United States.

Don’t Vote

In this PSA celebrities such as Borat, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Snoop Dogg, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg and Justin Timberlake, encourage everyone to get out the vote.

Be afraid, very afraid – again

Today in class we looked at a couple of Mark Kermode’s film reviews. I have added part of his review of Steven Spielberg’s ‘War of the Worlds’. A movie I must admit that I have chosen not to watch (the Tom Cruise factor) but it is one that many of you have seen and as it is directed by Spielberg it will get you thinking about his directing style.

Almost exactly 30 years ago, in the summer of 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws established a template for the modern blockbuster which helped make him the world’s most bankable director. Adapted from a bestseller about everyday folk being hunted by an unstoppable killing machine, Jaws sold 25 million tickets in 38 days.

In one mighty gobble, Spielberg’s sleekly mechanical hit swallowed up Hollywood’s European-arthouse affectations and dragged mainstream cinema back to its carnival sideshow roots, offering a rollercoaster ride through microcosmic Americana, filled with threatening chills and thrills, but ending with the promise of a family hug.

With War of the Worlds, Spielberg has come full circle. Since Jaws he has salved his artistic conscience with worthy dirges such as Schindler’s List and Amistad and even toyed with Stanley Kubrick’s sombre mantle by adopting his unrealised dream project Artificial Intelligence: AI. Now he returns to his popcorn roots, serving up a voracious big-budget action-spectacular with a pleasingly ravenous bite.

Even more so than Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds mimics the trusty Jaws formula of helpless Americans preyed on by ruthless inhuman predators. ‘They’re from someplace else!’ gasps Tom Cruise after first setting eyes on the towering Tripods, to which his slacker son replies: ‘What, you mean… Europe?’ In fact, he means outer space, but in the post-9/11 climate of Spielberg’s explosive potboiler, there is really very little difference … read the rest here.

Schindler the Sphinx

What has the Sphinx got to do with ‘Schindler’s List’ ? Well, if you are thinking about the one in Eygpt, not much really. However, another meaning of sphinx is an enigmatic or mysterious person. The character of Oskar Schindler as interpreted by Liam Neeson is certainly a fascinating and compelling enigma. But what was the real Schindler like?
As a hard-drinking, profiteering playboy, Schindler does not fit the standard mould for a hero, though neither was he the typical Nazi. Credited with saving 1,200 Jews his actions continue to serve as an example and inspiration. However, the question still remains – why did he do it ? No one will ever know exactly what made this complex man do what no German had the courage to do. A large part of the fascination of Schindler is that not even those who admire him most can figure out his motives.

Schindler’s Ark

“In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he was a saviour.

“This is the story of Oskar Schindler who risked his life to protect beleaguered Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, who continually defied the SS, and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.”

These quotes are from the dustjacket of Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize winning novel ‘Schindler’s Ark’. The book was published in 1982 and later made into the film ‘Schindler’s List’.

‘Schindler’s Ark’ attempts to recreate the story of Oskar Schindler, a German factory owner who risked everything to save his Jewish workers from the death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Thomas Keneally’s novel is based on the recollections of the Schindlerjuden (Schindler’s Jews), Oscar Schindler himself, and other witnesses and it is told in a series of stories. It details the life of the opportunist and womaniser Schindler; Schindler’s wife, Emilie; the cruel SS commandant Amon Goeth; Schindler’s saintly factory manager, Itzhak Stern and many of other Jews who were subjected to the horrors of the Nazi regime. However, the book is mainly the story of Schindler’s unlikely heroism and his attempt to do good in the midst of incredible evil.

Schindler’s List Essay

This essay was written in 30 minutes in test conditions and the student who wrote it really wants some help to improve it. He thinks it is around the achieved level but he is not sure. What do you think?

Identify what you consider to be the director’s main purpose AND explore, in depth, one or two main visual/oral techniques used to achieve this purpose.

Steven Spielberg’s main purpose in the film Schindler’s List is to show the eternal moral dilemma: how an individual responds to power and temptation. This is achieved through the two characters, Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth, how each character responds to power and temptation and the parallels between the two characters. Amon Goeth, the films central representation of evil, is depicted as not just a monster but a complex man beset by indecision and even temptation to do good as shown in the ‘forgiveness’ sequence where he attempts to “pardon” himself and others. Goeth makes this attempt at goodness after Schindler states, “power is when we have every justification to kill and we don’t.” But Goeth always denies his humanity and falls back on the side of evil. This complex portrayal of such a monster is shocking but shows that individuals respond differently to power.

The film starts off showing many parallels between these two main characters, Amon Goeth and Oskar Schindler. It is shown through many cross-cutting scenes that both men are charismatic, Nazis, in places of power and both have a fine sense of style. The viewer is made to feel these two men are very similar, that both have the potential for good and bad. But it is scenes such as the basement scenes where Schindler and Amon find themselves in almost identical situations that we are able to see how the different choices each one has made is effecting him. Where Schindler embraces the Jew, Helen Hirsch, by giving her a “kiss of pity” Goeth denies his humanity and beats her. Goeth makes excuses for his human feelings towards Helen Hirsch stating “they cast a spell on you, you know the Jews.” Where Schindler embraces his human feelings, Goeth denies them, denies them, discarding them as a weakness.

We are shown the extent at which moments in the film have changed each character when Schindler, previously money driven, gives up his fortune to save Jews where Goeth decides the fate of Helen Hirsch over a pack of cards. Schindler also shows he has made good moral decisions when he hoses down the Jews in the trains while Goeth sits there shouting “This is very cruel Oskar, You’re giving them hope, you shouldn’t do that. “That’s cruel!” Both have gained different outlooks on life through the different ways that they responded to temptation and power.

The outcomes of their decision shows the beneficial and humane way to respond to temptation and power. Goeth is last seen as a pathetic figure still in a fantasy world as he states “Heil Hitler” just before he is hanged. This shows there is no remorse of those who abuse power. In contrast Schindler becomes a saviour as the Schindlerjuden present him with a ring inscribed with the saying “whoever saves a life saves the world entire.”

The purpose of Steven Spielberg in this film was to show the moral dilemma of how an individual responds to temptation and power. He successfully achieved this through the characters of Amon Goeth and Oskar Schindler as he showed the parallels between the two and the choices they made that determined their fates.

Interview with Steven Spielberg

For those students who studied Schindler’s List the DVD features meaningful bonus materials that further illuminates the film’s powerful subject matter. It has as an extra a moving 77-minute documentary produced by the Shoah Foundation entitled Voices From the List which offers never-before-seen testimonies from actual Schindler survivors, as they recount their real-life experiences with the man who saved their lives. The DVD also features The Shoah Foundation Story with Steven Spielberg, a behind-the-scenes look at works and accomplishments of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Its mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance and bigotry – and the suffering they cause – through the educational use of the Foundation’s visual history testimonies.

The extract that follows is taken from Inside Film and it is an intervew with Steven Spielberg written by Susan Royal. The photos are by David James.

The Holocaust occurred only 50 years ago and yet there are those who deny its existence. In fact, Schindler’s List was given Britain’s prestigious literary award, the Booker’s Prize, for fiction.

Keneally thinks that’s one of the most overlooked ironies – that his book won for fiction, not non-fiction. And he was quite amazed at their findings. Perhaps it was because the book was based on interviews and the words “based on” have some sort of stigma.

Director Steven Spielberg on the set of Schindler’s List, showing how he wants the violin and bow held for a scene with Henry Rosner.

But the book was written in an almost documentary style, with Keneally reporting all sides to the story.

That’s what I liked about the book. And that’s why I wanted to do the film, because it was not just another Holocaust story.

Were you shocked at the amount of anti-Semitism you found still in Poland today? There were several reported around the set.

No, I had expected it. It was actually less than I thought would happen and I was prepared for more incidents than we encountered. But they were incidents nonetheless. And every one was shocking. Nothing happened to me directly, but things happened to my cast, my crew, and I would hear about it the next morning.

Before the war there were some 60,000 Jews in Krakow; they comprised 25 percent of the population. Today, there are less than 500.

Yeah, Hitler killed all of ’em. He just killed everybody.

Do you think the anti-Semitism in Poland was so strong that to this day Jews have not wanted to return to Poland?

Yes, because, look, Krakow has been both the bastion of Jewish culture in Poland and anti-Semitism for centuries. The Jews invited the wall around their ghetto to protect them from Polish citizens that they would often have to do business with. They looked upon the walls as a fortress against anti-Semitism and against all sorts of personal, emotional atrocities. Well, when the Nazis came along the Jews willingly went to the ghetto because that was their lot in Polish life. They expected it, they were protected by it, and they felt relatively safe because the Nazis suggested the walls go up. And the Jews were very comfortable. They thought you get into the ghetto and you’ll be able to have Jewish culture. They didn’t understand that there was a script that had been written for them with a very defined ending.

To read the rest of the interview go here.