Great Scene: “Schindler’s List”
October is Great Scene month at Go Into The Story whereby we put a spotlight on notable movie scenes, then analyze and discuss them. Their structure, themes, character dynamics. Why do they work? What are their narrative elements that elevate them to greatness? Let’s face it: In a fundamental way, screenwriting is scene-writing, so the more we learn about this aspect of the craft, the better.
Today’s suggestion by James Schramm: The 1993 movie Schindler’s List, screenplay by Steve Zaillian, novel by Thomas Keneally. IMDB plot summary:
In Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.
Out for a ride on their horses, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and his wife Emilie Schindler (Caroline Goodall) stop on a bluff, peering down at the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.
Some background:
* After the book’s author Thomas Keneally wrote a miniseries-length script, Kurt Luedtke was hired by Steven Spielberg to write the screenplay, but he gave up after four years’ work.
* At Steven Spielberg’s request, Aaron Sorkin did a “dialogue wash” on the excessively wordy script.
* The Krakow ghetto “liquidation” scene was only a page of action in the script, but Steven Spielberg turned it into 20 pages and 20 minutes of screen action “based on living witness testimony”. For example, the scene in which the young man escapes capture by German soldiers by telling them he was ordered to clear the luggage from the street was taken directly from a survivor’s story.
* The girl in the red dress was a real girl named Roma Ligocka. Unlike her film counterpart, she survived the war, and wrote a memoir titled “The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir”.
Great scenes often involve events that twist the plot in a significant and new direction. That is the case here with Schindler. Up to this point in the story, he had viewed indentured Jews merely as factory workers and a means for him to line his pockets with profits. That all changes because of this scene.
What is fascinating about the scene is how it manages to capture both the breadth of the unfolding horror almost exclusively from a distance, reflecting Schindler’s vantage point, and combined with the specificity of the atrocities, the latter driven home by the appearance of the Girl in the Red Coat.
Schindler spots her. Tracks her. Cannot keep his eyes off her. Imagine the scene without her. Would the impact on Schindler have been so powerful? My guess is it was the experience of watching this little girl where empathy about the fate of the Jews really settled into Schindler’s consciousness. The enormity of the violence he witnessed from the hilltop was almost too much to imagine. The fate of that little girl was something he could identify with: one human soul to another.
Of course from a narrative standpoint, this scene with the Girl in the Red Coat is a setup for a gut-wrenching payoff:
I would imagine that the image of the deceased child, clearly someone Schindler remembers (just look at his expression when he sees her body pass by), provides a powerful incentive for Schindler to do whatever he can to save as many Jews as he can.
If one sign of a great scene is how memorable it is… the saga of the Girl in the Red Coat certainly passes that test.
How about you? What’s your take on this scene? Why does it work so well? What takeaways are there for us?
To read all of the entries in the Great Scene archive, go here.
Thanks for the suggestion, James! If you have an idea for this Great Scene series, check out the responses people have made so far here. If you have a different scene in mind you think would be worthy of analysis, please post it there or in comments for this post. Thanks!
