Steven Spielberg’s movie “Schindler’s List” I have admired for a few years, the emotional pull it has on viewers leaves you feeling quite overwhelmed. In this particular scene I wanted to firstly pull on the symbol of the girl in the red coat. This is one of the many things people pick up on when watching the clip and I think it really adds an overlaying meaning and intensity to the scene.

The red coat is the only colour in the entire movie making this scene in particular really hold significant meaning. Red as we see it, communicates a meaning of death, pain and in some instances love. As the girl, she represents both these, the love and the innocence of the people being killed and she represents the death and unimaginable pain of the killings around her.

This rings as quite important as audiences are quite literally forced to pay attention to this little girl in an otherwise completely black and white movie. Our attention is drawn to her as she comes up in varying scenes throughout the film. As audiences we immediately connect children to innocence so the fact that this little girl is not only surrounded by murder but herself also gets killed really hits hard with viewers. We as audiences understand this is important to notice throughout the film and in a way take this as an independent story within the overall narrative.

A handheld and often not locked off shot is used within this death scene, this projects a really personal relationship between viewer and character allowing audiences to feel a part of the scene. The movement is quite jarring and a little off putting, this places us to feel quite uncomfortable which again enhances the scene of piles of dead people.

Likewise by setting up both characters as a wide shot gives us a real sense of size and space. We notice the pile of burning dead bodies to be quite large but upon placing subjects in the for ground and background enhances this and really allows us to see the enormity of the scene, again continually placing an uncomfortable and unsettling vibe on the whole situation.

The music I think is particularly interesting to note, an orchestral and choir like soundtrack follows the sequence. The choir can be closely related to religious events or spirituality so I think this adds a dramatic element again enhancing the sequence. The music here allows us to reflect and think deeply about whats happening, our thoughts by the end of this sequence almost reflect the reaction of the subject at the end of the sequence.