The Cinematic Beauty of Schindler’s List

Michelle Davis

CTV 606

Professor Fraser

November 4, 2022
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Stephen Speilberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List is a beautiful movie. The film is one of

the most brilliant pieces of art and exemplifies the beauty of the human spirit. The setting and

narrative of the film are dark and tragic, but it highlights the resilience of the human soul. The

holocaust was one of the evilest times in history, which is far from beauty’s definition. However,

Speilberg’s mastery of cinematography and character development made the narrative a thing of

sheer beauty. One may ask how something so violent, cruel, and tragic can be beautiful, and the

answer is shining a light on the truth. The beauty of God lies in the reality that God exists. If we

believe in the divine, there is always light in even the darkest hour.

The meaning of beauty goes deeper than just superficial attractiveness. According to

John-Mark Miravalle, “the experience of beauty involves perceiving spiritual good and spiritual

truth in sense images. This means that through beauty we can trigger physical reactions to

spiritual reality”.1 Humans react to visual images with emotions. Once they feel connected, they

see the beauty in those images. When we see a character act out the narrative, we become

invested in their story. When we see their plight, we empathize with their situation. Schindler’s

List pulls us into the character of Schindler, who is not perfect but genuinely cares for and saves

over one thousand Jews from the gas chambers.

We mainly learn about the holocaust through history books and literature. Many people

know the horrors the Germans inflicted on the Jews during World War II, but Speilberg wanted

to show that there were heroes that risked their safety to save others. The whole truth of the

Holocaust is that there were people who had morals and values that pushed them to make a

difference, no matter how small it was. With this truth, we can see the beauty through the

atrocities and believe that God can get us through even the darkest hour.

1 Miravalle, John-Mark L. 2019. Beauty. Sophia Institute Press.

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The film is shot entirely in black and white, which adds to the cinematic beauty of the

movie—the contrast between light and dark mirrors the dark days of the war. This look of the

film symbolizes the cold, harsh reality faced by the Jews and the German citizens. The shots

show the character's emotions and the situation they were facing through close-ups and lingering

wide shots. Speilberg used deep-focus cinematography to show the mass amounts of people the

Nazi laws affected. The opening sequences show the mass migration of Jews into the ghettos and

the drastic changes happening in Germany when Hitler was in power. In one scene, Oskar looks

out the window at the people in the streets, and the only light spatters through the curtain

pattern. This scene is exquisite in softening the harsh darkness of both the setting and the

character.2

Through the mise en scene, we find the beauty of nature, even when the scenes become

violent or graphic. The blood slowly seeping into the snow seems less gruesome in black and

white. The way the camera holds on to the shot while the snow becomes darker and spreads

becomes beautiful. The act was horrific, but at that moment, we are mesmerized by how the

black fills in the white space. We do not focus on the bullet wound in the guy’s head or the other

bodies sprawled around the street. We become connected and moved by the simple act of the

blood living in the body.

There is a truth in the violence of the Holocaust; Speilberg did not sugarcoat that. He

understood, as Miravalle wrote that beauty and truth are closely connected.3 To find beauty, one

must accept the reality of the situation. Reality is what God has planned for us, the divine truth,

2 Speilberg, Steven, dir. 1993. Schindler’s List Film. Universal Pictures.

3 Miravalle, John-Mark L. 2019. Beauty. Sophia Institute Press.

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and there is divine beauty in his plan. The art of Schindler’s List highlights this beauty in the

careful details of the shots, mise en scene, and the characters.

The character of Oskar Schindler is fully developed. He is a well-rounded character who

has an epiphany at some point and becomes less of a businessman and more of a humanitarian.

At first, he was a man out solely for profit, then developed into a man with morals and values

who tried to save as many Jews as possible.4 Oskar was a man who loved the lifestyle of wealth

and women. He was a sinner and a loyal German, yet he could not help but see how morally

wrong the Nazi party was. He was deeply affected by seeing the atrocities in his homeland—the

friendships he made strengthened his resolve to do the right thing.

There was sadness in his eyes throughout the film. The beauty came as the genocide

became more and more brutal. The audience felt his anguish but hoped he would do right by his

friends and employees. Like many of us, he has flaws. There was a lot of infidelity in his

marriage. He appreciated the female form and beauty. Even though he was a womanizer, he was

a gentleman. We connect to his character because he does not let his sins keep him from his

moral obligation to save lives. We may not like his actions, but that is a sign that the character is

realistic. We all have flaws, and each has unique vices, making us beautiful. We are designed

and created in God’s likeness, so even the dark parts of ourselves can be beautiful when we see

the truth in his reality.

4 Gottlieb, Akiva. 2018. Review of Why “Schindler’s List” Remains Brilliant and Troubling 25
Years after Its Release. LA Times, December 5, 2018.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-schindlers-list-25-20181205-story.html.

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Schindler was a businessman who, unlike the film, never had a profound moment of

epiphany. In the movie, Oskar watches the evacuation of the Krakow ghetto to Auschwitz and

sees a girl with a red coat. In real life, Oskar slowly built a disdain for the German soldiers and

the Nazi party and became closer to the Jewish employees than his comrades.5 The character

shows the true beauty of the human spirit. Schindler could have made his life easier by forsaking

the Jews and finding workers another way. He risked his life and financial wealth to ensure over

a thousand Jews did not go to the gas chambers. Though in the film, he delivers the bribe

himself, in reality, that would have been too dangerous, and he found other ways to push the

transfers through.

The Bible describes that doing what is right may not save everyone, but ultimately those

who believe in the glory of God will never really suffer. In Isiah 32, “and the effect of

righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever. My

people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places”.6

Though the genocide killed millions of Jews, there was beauty in the knowledge that they were

the righteous ones. They will find peace in the eternal resting place. There is beauty in the

stillness of death and the quiet moments when the spirit leaves the body to reunite with the

creator. Speilberg captured this subtle elegance through the images he chose to show.

5 Crowe, David M. and Joseph Serge. "Schindler - the Man Behind the Myth [Oskar Schindler,
the Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities and the True Story Behind the List]."
Canadian Jewish News, Feb 03, 2005. https://ezproxy.regent.edu/login?url=https://www-
proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/newspapers/schindler-man-behind-myth-oskar-untold-
account/docview/351486265/se-2.
6 Isaiah 32: 17-18 The New American Bible (Nashville: Catholic Bible Press, 2021),
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In this way, Schindler also lived in peace with his conscience. At first, making money

consumed him, but as time passed, he developed a fondness for humanity. He realized that what

was going on to the Jews was unrighteous, horrible, and vile. His mission then turned from

wealth to saving lives. The actor portrayed this inner beauty through his facial expressions and

his eyes. The combination of the actor's physical features and the technical aspects of the

cinematography made us feel his emotions change throughout the movie. We see his relationship

grow with Stern, his Jewish accountant, increase while his relationship with the officer in the SS

diminishes.7 He comes to trust the Jews more than his people. As the war progresses, he sees the

beauty of their soul and the vileness and brutality of the Nazi party. There is a divine truth that

we are all the same and created in the likeness of God. The Nazi party worked tirelessly to

convince the German people otherwise. The Nazis brainwashed their citizens into believing God

would choose one over another to be superior. The Nazi party hid the truth, and those who saw

the absolute truth saw the Nazis and Hitler for the true monster he was.

Another beautiful element of the film was the one shot of color on a little girl’s coat. The

scene when Oskar looks out his window and sees the one girl walking down the street in a red

jacket profoundly affects the character and the audience. We see her because Speilberg wanted

us to notice her by colorizing her coat. Red, the color of blood, is accentuated by being the only

shot of color throughout the movie. The audience knows to pay attention to her, just as Oskar is

from the window. We know when we see the jacket in a pile of dead bodies that the girl did not

make it. We know that Schindler is also aware of this fact, which becomes the catalyst for him to

7 Gottlieb, Akiva. 2018. Review of Why “Schindler’s List” Remains Brilliant and Troubling 25
Years after Its Release. LA Times, December 5, 2018.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-schindlers-list-25-20181205-story.html.

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ramp up his plan to save as many people as possible. As he connects to the little girl, so does the

audience. We see the beauty in her innocence through the red coat. We also know the loss and

violence when we see the jacket for the second time.

Even though the film is about one of the most despicable, egregious, and vile events in

history, Schindler’s List shows the beauty of filmmaking, the human spirit, and the divine.

Miravalle describes why this is the case the best.

God, in Christ, takes all the ugliness, perversion, and pain of human existence and makes
the greatest sin of all time result in the healing of humanity and the restoration of man to
God. This is order: an order so powerful that it can force disorder itself ultimately to
serve the ends of proportion, harmony, and perfection. And this is surprise: at the
moment when evil achieves its most colossal outrage-at that moment, goodness wins. 8

There is truth in God’s plan; even in the most brutal, senseless situations, God shows beauty

through salvation. With this movie, we see a different side to the Holocaust. We see not only the

inhumane treatment of people based on their religion or heritage and the hope of humanity

through the eyes of Schindler and other Germans like him. They risked their security, fortunes,

and lives doing the right thing.

The movie Schindler’s List is an excellent example of the complex nature of beauty. The

cinematography is a work of art in itself. The way the director uses the camera to convey feelings

and emotions makes the audience feel the genuine sentiments of the characters. The audience

connects to the feeling of the film. The black and white photography shows the sad nature of the

story. We feel the despair and dreary anxiety the Jewish people thought at the time. The narrative

highlights that not all Germans felt the same towards the Jews, and a few, like Oskar, attempted

to use their clout to save as many people as possible. The connection between humans develops

8 Miravalle, John-Mark L. 2019. Beauty. Sophia Institute Press.

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deeper through the characters' relationships. This film shows us that beauty is not all joy but

accepting the reality that God creates. This film shows us that the light of God’s love can bring

beauty even through the darkness.

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Works Cited

Crowe, David M., and Joseph Serge. "Schindler - the Man Behind the Myth [Oskar Schindler,
the
Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities and the True Story Behind the List]."
Canadian Jewish News, Feb 03, 2005. https://ezproxy.regent.edu/login?
url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/newspapers/Schindler-man-behind-myth-
oskar-untold-account/docview/351486265/se-2.

Gottlieb, Akiva. 2018. Review of Why “Schindler’s List” Remains Brilliant and Troubling 25
Years after Its Release. LA Times, December 5, 2018.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-schindlers-list

Isaiah 32: 17-18 The New American Bible (Nashville: Catholic Bible Press, 2021),

Miravalle, John-Mark L. 2019. Beauty. Sophia Institute Press.

Speilberg, Steven, dir. 1993. Schindler’s List Film. Universal Pictures.

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