Rhetorical Analysis Schindlers List Trying to explain feelings to someone is not a very easy task.

. How can you explain the level of despair of someone whose family is suddenly taken away for no reason to someone who has never experienced something like that? World War II was a time of distress, vulnerability, desperation, anguish, and anxiousness. Being able to evoke the feelings of the era to those who did not live through it is extremely difficult. Steven Spielbergs movie, Schindlers List, is the most successful movie to ever achieve this purpose. Spielberg pays Schindler tribute by using color, symbols, and music to call forth in his audience the most profound and poignant human feelings that characterize World War II. The lack of color in a movie makes it extremely difficult for many people to sit through an entire film, the monotony of black and white makes it utterly boring for most. Spielberg chooses to take a huge risk and films Schindlers List mostly in black and white during 1993. Nonetheless, the movie is listed as one of the greatest movies in the 1990s. Spielberg succeeds using black and white techniques in the film because the lack of color blocks any sense of happiness and easiness that the audience may feel. He makes it easier for the viewer to imagine a world drained from common sense and filled with terror and despair. Although most of the movie is in black and white, the opening scene is colored. The lighting of a Sabbath candle, intended for Jewish prayers takes the screen in the first few seconds. The scene then fades to black and white, setting the viewer back in 1939, when the first events depicted in the movie take place. In addition to placing the viewer in the right setting, the feel of antiqueness that the lack of color brings to the movie also sets a special atmosphere of grief, desolation and desperation for the audience. Furthermore, the contrast between black and white gives each violent scene a more sharp and shocking visual impact. Instead of being distracted by colors, the simplicity and cleanness of the images on screen make it easier for the viewer to concentrate on the situation itself. In a particular scene of the movie, a one armed old Jewish worker is taken away from the rest of the Jews shoveling snow, he claims to be an important worker in Schindlers Emailwarenfabrik, an enamel ware factory, the Nazi soldiers mock him and bring him towards a wall to then shoot him. The handicapped man fills the screen, black blood flowing from his head and onto the white snow. Black and white represent the highest level of contrast, giving the viewers goose bumps. Successfully using symbols in a movie is not an easy task to make. Spielbergs decision to use black and white for the whole movie allows him to mark a difference of importance. Colors emphasize the symbols significance in the film. There are two symbols for which Schindler uses color in the movie: Sabbath candles and a girl in a red coat. The Sabbath candles appear twice, once in the beginning of the movie and once near the end. At the beginning of the movie the burning candles introduce the viewer into a weekly Jewish tradition: the lighting of the Sabbath candle every Friday. The candles fading into a black and white scene symbolize the unfair interruption to this tradition that was soon to come. They also symbolize the calm before the storm, a storm in the form of the Holocaust. The second time the candles appear is near the end of the movie. Oskar Schindler buys more than a thousand Jews from the Nazis and brings them into his own sub-camp, where he treats them well and does not allow them being slaughtered anymore. Schindler calls the rabbi and allows him to celebrate Sabbath with his fellow Jewish workers; all the

while war was still in going on. With the lighting of this second candle Spielberg attempts to signal the viewers with a glimmer of hope that begins to develop, a hope that had been long since lost for the Jews. The girl with the red coat is the most important symbol in the movie. The viewer knows this because of the chosen color. It is neither blue nor brown; it is a bright, blood red. The fragile child appears in the middle of the evacuation of the ghetto, when Nazis separated families, killing many Jews in the process. Schindler observes the chaos from afar, from the top of a hill. Oskar sees the girl in her bright red coat, her presence highlighted between the shades of gray surrounding her. The girl makes her way from one side of the ghetto to the other; oblivious of everything that is going on around her. She then walks into a building and hides under a bed. The girl symbolizes many different things at once. She symbolizes innocence and the moment in which Oskar Schindler realizes the brutality and unfairness in slaughtering the Jews. Later on in the film Schindler catches sight of the corpse of the girl in the red coat on top of some bodies being carried on a cart, the death of innocence and all kind of hope for an end any time soon is embodied in this scene. Music is the final and most powerful element that Spielberg uses to help the audience place itself in the era and feel its harsh reality. Music is probably the most thought of characteristic of the whole movie. There are neither trumpets nor many percussion instruments; instead, the soundtrack features a violin, played by Itzhak Perlman, directed by John Williams. Slow, melancholic melodies during the toughest, most sad moments of the movie chill the viewers to the bone. In my opinion, closing your eyes during any of these moments is the most successful way to feel the sadness that any holocaust victim felt back then. When the girl in the red coat appears on the screen there is a perfect example of the successful music choice. The sound of guns and people screaming and running fill the audiences ears but soon, a dreary, mournful melody with children singing fades in. The childrens voices heighten the sense of innocence that the girl evokes, making the symbol even more effective. Another example is the movies theme song. The song is played several times during during the movie however, I think it reaches its most powerful moment near the end of the movie. Schindlers workers want to thank him for everything he has done for them so when Oskar Schindler and his wife are about to leave them and run, the Jews give him a ring. During this peak moment for Schindlers emotions when he finally breaks down the theme song is played. Every note calls for a tear or goose bump, enhancing the feelings portrayed in the film. Music is the most effective way to touch any persons soul. It empowers the situation during the film deepening and enhancing every feeling, touching even the toughest of persons. Words cannot describe the effect that the movies melodies have on people, but emotions feel almost tangible once they are heard. Even if someone heard the songs alone, not knowing what they were composed for, the feelings evoked would still be the same. It may be impossible to fully understand what people living through World War II felt and lived; however, Steven Spielberg makes a powerful attempt at it. The use of monochromatic film gives Schindlers list a feel of emptiness, confusion and bewilderment. The symbols Spielberg uses help evoke a deeper and more vivid sense of how people felt back then. The choice of music brings the audience to the ultimate state of closeness with the story, to the point where it makes people weep once or twice at least. Once someone is done watching this movie only the noblest intentions are provokedw. It leaves its watchers

in a state of numbness and emptiness. The movie calls for a sense of realization, so as to never allow for something like this to happen again. Never has a movie situated in World War II had the slightest effect that Schindlers List has on its audience.