The Impact of Black-and-White Film
In movies set in modern times, a director’s choice to
use black and white might seem trite and artistically showy. In Schindler’s
List, however, the black-and-white presentation effectively
evokes the World War II era and deepens the impact of the story.
Black and white also presents the filmmaker with the opportunity
to use sparing color to highlight key scenes and signal shifts in
time. For example, the opening full-color scene, one of only a handful
of color scenes in the movie, fades into the next scene, in black
and white. The shift plunges viewers into 1939,
bringing them symbolically closer to the events and characters in
the story. This artistic and psychological convention of bringing
the audience back in time works well partly because it captures
the way many people visualize World War II—through black-and-white
images and film footage of the 1930s and 1940s.
Although contemporary viewers are accustomed to full-color images
and tend to consider such images to be more realistic than those
in black and white, the black and white in Schindler’s List conveys
an alternate but no less realistic version of life. The movie presents
an eclectic mix of styles, such as film noir, which is associated
with the great detective stories of the 1940s.
The style links the film to that time period and serves to deepen
viewers’ immersion in the historical setting.
The artistic advantage of black and white is that it heightens
the impact of the film’s violence and highlights the duality of
good and evil. The lighting and contrast in the film noir style
enhance the brutality of each violent scene. For instance, when
the one-armed man is shot in the head in the snowy streets of Kraków,
his seemingly black blood spreads through the pure white snow, and
the stark contrast in colors emphasizes the split between life and
death, good and evil. In some terrifying scenes, such as the evacuation
of the Kraków ghetto, the lighting is kept dark, conveying a sense
of panic and confusion. The white faces of the dead in the streets
contrast starkly against the murky background. The same contrast
marks the pile of burning bodies in the Plaszów work camp: the white
skulls stand out in the pile of ashes. The women’s faces in the
shower scene at Auschwitz are bathed in white light as they stare
up in terror at the showerheads. The contrast of light and dark
also marks Schindler’s face, which is often half in shadow, reflecting
his selfish dark side. His face becomes more fully lighted as he
makes the transformation from war profiteer to savior. Schindler’s
List might not have had the same visual and emotional impact
had Spielberg made the film in color.
