Schindler’s List Essay

Oskar Schindler would never have been anyone’s ideal savior, especially for the Jewish community. He was an open member of the Nazi party, a womanizer, a gambler, an alcoholic, and an extremely money hungry man, but insight of all of this he was successfully able to rescue over twelve hundred Jewish men and women from death.

Schindler was a very tall and handsome man. Needless to say, he was adored by all the young women he met eyes with. However, Schindler fell for a beautiful young girl named Emily. After only six weeks of courtship, they were married. Sadly, after only a few months of marriage, Schindler began to heavily abuse alcohol. He also had several affairs resulting in two children out of wedlock. In 1929, during the Great Depression, the Schindler family business went bankrupt. At this time, Schindler’s father left his mother, and she died soon after. Finding himself jobless, Schindler sought work in nearby Poland as a machinery salesman.

The saving of the first Schindler Jews began in 1939, when he came to Krakow in the wake of the German invasion. In Krakow, he took over two previously Jewish owned companies that dealt with the manufacture and sales of kitchenware products. In one of the businesses, however, Schindler was merely a trustee. Looking more for his own power, he opened up a small enamel shop right outside of Krakow near the Jewish ghetto. Here, he employed mostly Jewish workers. This in turn saved them from being deported to labor camps. Then in 1942, Schindler found out through some of his workers that many of the local Krakow Jews were being sent to the brutal Plazow labor camp. This is where Schindler’s connections with the German government were so useful. Using his know how, he convinced the S. S. and the Armaments Administration, who had set up the Plazow labor camp, to set up a portion of the camp in his factory. They agreed, and Schindler took even those unfit and unqualified for work. In turn, he spared 900 Jewish lives from this one action. Schindler spent infinite amounts of money not only paying for the upkeep of his workers, but paying the government. Schindler was arrested two times while trying to complete his saving operations. Each time, though, he found a new excuse, or paid a little more money. He risked his life, as well as his family’s lives, to save a race of people he never even knew.

Knowing of Schindler’s less than pleasant background, the story of his bravery and compassion was acknowledged around the world for it’s shocking outcome and soon took up the interest of a highly recognized American film producer named Steven Spielberg. When more of the story of Oskar Schindler was revealed to the American producer he was compelled to open the public’s eyes and put it on the big screens. Spielberg wanted to create a picture to represent not only the horrors of the Holocaust to raise awareness, but as well as to show the sympathetic and merciful hearts humanity was capable of in such a time of sorrow. Up until the release of the movie, the Holocaust seemed a subject too harrowing and far too uncommercial for any studio to tackle. Only a director who has become one of the most successful filmmakers in history could get a studio to spend even the relatively modest 23 million dollars to tell the story of the genocide of the European Jews.

Being of Jewish descent himself, Spielberg had a passion and a straight connection to the story and wanted it to have more of an emotional impact than a cinematic one. He did this by not sparing any efforts to portray the unworthy and disgusting life Schindler lived before his transformation and change of heart to help the Jews. This depiction of Schindler helped relate the true alteration the Holocaust caused Schindler to have in order to turn from his old ways. The picture being painted of Schindler in the movie is not exactly one of high class and morals. Indeed, Schindler was an alcoholic and a womanizer. This leads many to think, how can this man be considered a hero? What possessed him, with all of his power and money, to risk his own life to save the lives of thousands of people he had never met? These are the very hard hitting questions Spielberg wanted to place in the minds of his viewers. He wanted them to challenge themselves to imagine the discipline and effort it took Schindler to compromise everything he had aimed for the whole duration of his life and then ultimately demote himself. All doing so for the well being of someone else. Schindler was a deceitful and refined man whom people noted that his power was his throne, but Schindler was also the man that used his unseemly throne of power and sin to help mere strangers.

The conversation between Amon Goeth and Schindler about power in Spielberg's movie is also a telling one.The clear difference that is identified between the men is their ideas of power. Up until this point, it has been clear that Schindler is more compassionate and less cruel and violent than Goeth. However, both men have still appeared to have questionable morals. This conversation elucidates a giant moral difference. Schindler views respect as the ultimate power and goal. Goeth, on the other hand, views fear in that way. This difference is irreconcilable, and the viewer now understands that Schindler has moved morally beyond Goeth. Additionally, this conversation is another aspect of Schindler's activism, for he is attempting to convince Goeth to be less violent. This does, in fact, save the life of a Jewish boy the next day.

Power is defined as the possession of control or command over others, also known as authority. Based on the dictionary definition Goeth and Schindler show power in the movie by controlling the Jewish community into work camps. Goeth shows authority by creating work camps and randomly shooting the weak people that do not work as fast or as well. This shows control because the Jews now posses fear. With fear the Jews would do anything for Goeth to attempt survival. Schindler shows authority by being in the Nazi party and creating a place of work. While Schindler doesn’t kill and provide fear among the workers, the workers feel they are entitled to be under his command and control because Schindler, whether intentional or not, is saving the Jews. To get Goeth to see power the way Schindler does, Schindler tells Goeth that power is pardoning people when they know they have done something wrong.

A hero can be any number of things. A hero can be someone who loves and cares for you, someone you look up to, or maybe someone ordinary who does the extraordinary. Many people think of their favorite athlete or rockstar. Some may think of a famous speaker or activist. Whatever the case may be, most everyone has a hero. Oskar Schindler is a hero to over 6,000 Jews currently living across the United States and Europe . Schindler was an ordinary man with extraordinary power that he used to save 1200 human lives during the Holocaust of World War II. The past of a person should not exclude them from the potential they have to do something significant for mankind and because of Spielberg’s movie, Schindler’s testimony of courage is a fabulous example of this for nations to witness.

Steven Spielberg, dramatically and effectively uses color to portray major themes and characters in the film . Most of the movie is in black and white, but there are certain scenes and objects in the movie that are in color. Both the black and white and the color are representative. The individual colors have different, sometimes changing, significant meanings. Most important, the difference between black and white and color is central to the struggle of the Jews.

Most of the movie is in black and white, symbolizing the gravity and bleakness of the Holocaust. The events that happen are very clear, they are ethically “black and white”, like the colors they are presented in. No doubt pervades the film, everything is factual and no one can refute the atrocities that the Nazis commit. The black and white colors evoke a very cold and harsh feeling, which is representative of the Nazis in control and everything the Jews experience. A sense of emptiness and a void pervade the film. The Jews are dying and being forced to work, and almost all good and happiness is replaced with evil and malice. Oskar Schindler is the last glimmer of good in the movie that can fight the evil. At first, he is driven by greed, but he becomes concerned for humanity and the dignity of the Jews. The black and white colors are representative of people themselves. Purity and good are usually represented by the color white, which is symbolic of the Jews. Corruption and evil are usually represented by the color black, which is symbolic of the Nazis. The light, the Jews, is put out by the dark, the Nazis. Schindler, however, keeps some light from going out.The Jews are extremely pale and light because they are freezing and starving. The Nazis are darker and robust because they are evil, greedy, and physically healthy. The Nazis starve the Jews of life, happiness, food, and color.

The highlighting if the child in red, in an otherwise monochrome movie, was designed to put one thread of horror for one identifiable character in the midst of mass slaughter which would otherwise just numb the audience. In purely dramatic terms this creates a sense of identification for the audience who now have a human scale story of the elimination of an obviously innocent life. This creates a point of empathy and connection for the audience which is far more powerful and emotionally impactful than the statistics of mass slaughter.The use of red also helps to highlight Schindler's recognition of the true depths of horror he has witnessed. We notice Schindler's recognition of the dead girl because of the red highlight when, with no highlight, we would miss his identification of the girl in a pile of undifferentiated corpse.
There are a few key instances that are very hard to miss throughout the film which are in color. Some these moments however happen when when a Jewish prayer takes place. The beginning sequence is shot in color, specifically when the Jewish prayer of Kaddish is being recited. Kaddish is recited in the Jewish faith specifically to praise god in mourning prayers, prayer services, and during funerals. This sequence is shot in a specific way and appears twice in the film, in the beginning of the movie and the end. If looked at from a point of view as the beginning before the Holocaust, then the color represents prosperity as the light from the candle dims, the wax disappears, and the shot turns from color to black white representing the beginning of the end of the Jews. From the point of view of the ending being the beginning the color represents hope while the prayer represents the mourning of the dead. Spielberg’s interpretation of the complete distress of the Holocaust using color was head turning. The unique color scheme caught the eyes of the viewers and again lead them to think more in depth about what the movie was based on rather than the movie itself.