The decision to shoot the film in black and white was initially met with resistance by the studio, Universal Pictures, who feared the lack of color would alienate younger audiences. Spielberg, backed by cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, insisted upon it. The decision proved to be one of the film's most powerful artistic choices.
“Don’t ever do it again,” he said. “Not because it’s wrong. Because next time, come to me first. We do this together, or we both hang.” schindler-s list -1993-
The film Schindler’s List ends with the survivors placing stones on Oskar Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem. But the story never told is that of the quiet, desperate mathematics of salvation: the ledger inside the ledger, the list behind the list. It’s the story of Itzhak Stern, who understood that to save one life is to save the entire world—but to save a world, sometimes you have to forge a few of its pages. The decision to shoot the film in black
However, the film is famous for breaking its own rule. The single exception is a tiny girl in a red coat. As Schindler watches the ghetto being cleared from a hillside, his eye—and the camera—fixes on a small figure moving through the chaos. The red is barely there, a flicker of saturation. This 1993 innovation served two purposes: it humanized the faceless masses (we follow that specific child) and it later served as a tragic bookmark when we see the same coat on a pile of bodies being wheeled to the incinerator. The red coat is the film’s silent scream. “Don’t ever do it again,” he said
No analysis of Schindler’s List -1993- is complete without addressing Ralph Fiennes’s performance as Amon Goeth. The real Goeth was a sadist; Fiennes plays him as a chaotic, self-loathing monster who tries to rationalize his brutality. The 1993 film introduces a terrifying psychological subplot: Goeth’s "mercy." In one excruciating scene, Schindler tries to teach the commandant that "true power" is forgiving, not punishing. Goeth tries it for a moment—he looks at a boy who has failed to clean his bathtub and says, "I pardon you." But the habit of evil is too strong. The very next cut, he shoots the boy dead.