Schindler's List 1993 and how Spielberg was perfect to tell this story
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
As a kid I did not understand the need for movies like Schindler's List. Growing up Jewish I knew about the Holocaust. I knew about the Nazis and heard stories about stuff they did. But movies in my childhood brain were firmly just a form of entertainment. What entertainment is there if you are watching people suffer? Yet as I explain in my other article at about 14 I got to a rather strange point in my life, when everything dark and real became important. That's when I saw Schindler's List for the first time. That's when a film that is not made for entertainment suddenly started making sense. ↩ Reply
Even though Schindler's List is not a movie designed for entertainment, it would be silly to suggest that a Steven Spielberg film could be entirely dull. It is Steven Spielberg we are talking about. His film-language intuition alone, as is, creates a lot of very utterly cinematic moments. And frankly, for a film like this, it is a good thing. ↩ Reply
If I recall correctly, Spielberg did not storyboard the film. Now, I don't know if this is true for the entire picture, or just for the horrible stuff in it. But I heard somewhere that he didn't. That said, if that is true, Spielberg's cinematic intuition must be immaculate. ↩ Reply
Take for example the introduction to Oscar Schindler ( Liam Neeson ). That scene flows so good and the camerawork is on such a level that it must have been story-boarded. And if it wasn't, damn, this is some good film-making out there. ↩ Reply
The flow of the entire picture is pretty much flawless, as far as I can see. Though there is a peculiar structure to it. If you compare this movie to anything else by Spielberg, you quickly find yourself a bit lost when it comes to the story. If say, in E.T. you have a straight forward narrative. You know who are who. And so on and so forth. Schindler's List's plot is way too complex to be streamlined into such a movie. So you may feel lost, when it comes to the structure at times. Yet, the execution of said plot, the flow between scenes, the way certain ideas are set-up and then built upon and ultimately paid off, is mesmerizing. ↩ Reply
![[embedded image]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/girl_in_red_coat.png "The girl in red coat")
The famous example of that would be the girl in the red coat. As you probably know, the film was made in black and white. So a sudden introduction of color, makes you notice it. Spielberg uses this color queue as a focusing technique. We notice this tiny little girl in the middle of all this chaos as people are being shot dead left and right. She hides. We feel like she must have escaped death. ↩ Reply
Yet some time later in the movie, this red coat returns to the screen. This time in a scene where dead bodies are being massively burned away. This is a true horror film stuff. This is the closest Steven Spielberg ever got to making a true horror scene. It goes on only for a minute, maybe even less. But it is horrifying. All those bodies are dug up and burnt on a massive open flame. And in those piles, we can see this red coat. And whatever remained of this tiny little girl. ↩ Reply
If you know how I reacted to The House That Jack Built, you know that I personally barely can withstand child-murder in movies. With adults I don't feel that as much. Gimme blood. I don't care. Something fundamentally switches on, or off or to a different wavelength, in my brain, though, when there is violence against children on screen. For that very reason It took me almost 5 days to watch Schindler's List for this review. I just kept not being able to handle the film. ↩ Reply
Yet, with all that, I would not even try to re-watch The House That Jack Built. While Spielberg being Spielberg ( which means he knows to not show too much, when it is not needed ), made Schindler's List survivable. ↩ Reply
It is the closest Spielberg got to actual horror. But as I explained in my review of his daughter's debut picture: he never did a true, scary horror film. ↩ Reply
This is probably due to a number of factors. Spielberg seems to be a sentimental guy, who just doesn't want to fuck-up the audience. I would be utterly terrified if Lars Von Trier or Eli Roth would attempt a Holocaust movie. But Spielberg doesn't operate on those wavelengths. And then there is the experience he had with Bruce, the Shark. ↩ Reply
On Jaws the mechanical shark they made for the movie didn't work half of the time, requiring from Spielberg to come up with ways to make the scene work without showing the shark. He adopted this mode of film-making for his other films, since. And even thought quite a lot of stuff is shown in Schindler's List, Spielberg is still using the Jaws technique here quite a lot as well. Most of the very bad stuff about the Holocaust is not shown, per se, but implied, through various methods. ↩ Reply
The Auschwitz scene for example, isn't about the gas chambers. Yet it is about walking a thin line towards making you understand the horror of the gas chambers, without explicitly showing anybody gassed. You see the smoke. You feel the tension. You are truly scared that Spielberg has the nerve to show it. But he doesn't. ↩ Reply
This approach to keeping the film just about on the edge of watch-ability, I believe is a very good thing. There is just enough entertainment in between the horrible stuff, to make you relax a bit. Yes, it is also there to make you feel the contrast. To see the horrible stuff as horrible stuff. Otherwise, why on earth the first half of the film feels like an utter comedy. But this balanced approach goes a long way to make this film approachable. ↩ Reply
The film, with all the subject matter attached to it, proved to be a rather huge hit. Spielberg famously refused to get paid for making this movie. And frankly money isn't the point here. Being a hit means a lot of people saw it. A lot of people got to experience the horrors. A lot of people got to understand what the word Holocaust means. ↩ Reply
If the movie would be too horrible, it would not have been a hit. Less people would have seen it. If the movie would be too light, the people who saw it, would not have understood the horrors. They would maybe understand them on some pseudo-intellectual level. But not on a gut-wrenching level. Not emotionally. Having specifically Spielberg, made the movie just about perfectly balanced for it to do actual good in the world. c:0 ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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Troler
c:0 February 05, 2026 If the movie would be too horrible, it would not have been a hit. Less people would have seen it. If the movie would be too light, the people who saw it, would not have understood the horrors. They would maybe understand them on some pseudo-intellectual level. But not on a gut-wrenching level. Not emotionally.
⤴ ViewIn a way, Kihachi Okamoto goes a similar route in his war comedies. If the subject were grim most of them time, it would be hard for audience to understand what he is getting at.
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