Schindler S List 2 Essay, Research Paper

The paper I decided to do was on Schindler s List . I have seen this movie four times and yet had not really noticed the many ways in which the director, Steven Spielberg, used the camera to emphasis a million words . It was interesting, when watching this film from this stand point, how I was able to see the importance of the way the director uses sounds and color to make some much significant points of a film.

I decided to emphasis the way certain close ups and facial expressions were used to show very significant emotions of the characters in the film. In these particular scenes, no words had to be used. The camera focuses on the character involved in the scene and one can tell exactly what is going on in the mind of the character.

The other aspect of the movie that I wanted to discuss is the music that was used. This movie won seven academy awards. Not surprisingly, one of awards was for Best Original scene . The use of music in the scenes was very appropriate. I m going to discuss several of the scenes of the movie and how music contributed to the scene.

There is a scene in the movie where Oskar Schindler is put in jail because he kissed a Jewish girl, this scene has Schindler in a cell with another person, Schindler says that he is incarcerated because he kissed this Jewish girl. His cellmate makes the remark Did your prick fall off , the cellmate begins to laugh, and Schindler joins him in the laughter. Suddenly the camera pans up to Oskar Schindler s face. His face shows a man that is no longer laughing but, without words, you can see in his face that he doesn t find the remark humorous. Further, the close up on his expression reveals a man that has a revelation. The revelation is that he is horrified that Jewish people are thought of in this way.

The close ups of Amon Goeth, the monster SS guard that ran the camp at Krakow, are some of the most revealing scenes without words. One scene shows a conversation between Schindler and Goeth. Schindler is trying to explain to Goeth that true power lies in forgiving when you don t have to forgive. For a while Goeth tries to do what Schindler says, pardon those Jews that do him wrong. He lets the stable boy that dropped his saddle of the hook. He tells the guard to let a woman go back to work; the guard was going to shoot the woman. Goeth goes upstairs and finds a boy cleaning his tub. The boy is frightened and pleads with Goeth not be angry. Goeth looks at the boy, slowly he tells the boy I pardon you Now go . The relieved boy runs off. The next scene is a powerful scene. The camera does a close up of Goeth looking into a mirror. He is adjusting his hair. He seems to slip into a dream world. He envisions himself the powerful emperor that Schindler describes. He whispers I pardon you . The camera then focuses on Goeth eyes. Without saying anything, the viewer knows that Goeth is far too gone. He doesn t have the power described by Schindler. He is a mad man.

Another scene with Goeth that uses camera scene only and silence to depict so much is the scene where all the Jewish is in the hot trains. Schindler feels compassion toward these suffering people. He asks that some hoses be provided in order to cool the passengers. The SS guards think, because of their own perversions, that Schindler is trying to be cruel. They think he is trying to give the Jewish false hope. Schindler laughs a long with them. He then asks that his very long hoses be brought so that they will reach the end of the train cars. The next scene shows Schindler spraying the cars at the end of the line. The camera shows a close up of Amon Goeth. Goeth s expression, without any words, shows a man that is very confused. You can tell that Goeth now sees that Schindler is not being cruel. He sees a man that is powerful, compassionate and a member of the Nazi party. Goeth s expression seems to ask how???

I think the director was attempting to show that perhaps there was more to this monster, but the monster could never let that be known.

The girl in the red coat, is probably one of the most talked about scenes in the movie. The reason that this is so powerful is that it is one of the only times during the movie that color is used. In the initial scene, Schindler is riding horse with one of his lovers. They are an on top of a hill and they are looking at all of the murders below. Once again, a close up is shown of Schindler s face. He appears to be very bothered by something he sees below. The camera pans downward and you see little girl walking along. The girl was wearing a bright red coat. The cameras, which act as Schindler s eyes, follow the girl until she disappears behind a building. The camera alone follows her up to a room where she hids under the bed. Later in the movie, they are showing the bodies (dead) that are waiting to be burned in the incinerator. The scene is gray a smoky depressing and cold. Goeth is talking to Schindler, Schindler glances over and sees the dead body charred over of the girl in the red coat. This signifies the beginning of Schindler s metamorphosis.

The sound in the movie played an important role in its most significant scenes.

During the scene of the girl in the red coat, the music played in the background was a song sang by children, which would add more drama and sadness to the scene making the audience almost feel like if they were experiencing the same feelings Oskar Schindler was.

In another scene when the guard of the SS went into the Ghetto looking for Jewish survivors, one of the guard sits on the piano and plays a very fast pace, classical piece from either Mozart or Bach. Meanwhile the other guards fire at any survivor they can find in the Ghetto.

There is a scene where all the suitcases and personal belongings from the Jewish from the Ghetto, are being pile up in a storage room, the belongings included shoes, clothes, photographs, watches, and a lot of jewelry which was being kept by the guards. One of the Jewish Jewelers is helping in the guard sort the jewelry; all of the sudden they brought him extracted human teeth with gold and silver fillings for him to remove the metals. The music during this scene played an important role in influencing the audience. The song was a very sand song and with everything that was happening it showed the scene as the beginning of all of the Jewish death.

There is another part in the movie where three scenes are being shown simultaneously. One is Goeth beating up his maid, the other one is a Jewish wedding in on of the barracks and the other one is Oskar Schindler in a restaurant enjoying a drink and watching some dancers. Meanwhile the camera switches between scenes so does the music, and that was all that was said. When the camera was on the Jewish wedding the music was the one played on Jewish weddings, the music and the restaurant was different from the one in the other two scenes, and so was the one in the scenes where Goeth was beating up his maid.

Schindler s List is an incredible movie. Every time that I walk away form watching this movie, I feel emotionally wrecked. I think this is the intention of the film and why it is so great. I think that Steven Spielberg s intention was to make this unforgettable so that it could never happen again. I chose to talk about the silent moments where a camera shot emphasizes an emotion. I also chose to discuss some of the music. There are so many other things that are worth discussing. The way the film was done in black and white. The way that the scenes in the death camps were so realistic that you really thought you were viewing actual footage. There are so many things that made it like no other film. I know that a lot of the people found the movie disturbing because of the violence. Perhaps these people forget that this is not violence done just to make the movie Oscar worthy. This is true violence that was done to 6 million Jewish human beings. A person would hope that one would be disturbed enough to take a stand against anything like this ever happening again.