Schindler's List (1993)
Synopsis
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis. Working with his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), Schindler devises a plan to save them, eventually risking his fortune and life to protect over a thousand Jewish refugees from certain death in the concentration camps.
Film Analysis
Spielberg's Triumph of Restraint
Known primarily for his crowd-pleasing blockbusters, Steven Spielberg achieved something extraordinary with Schindler's List—a work of sober, unsentimental restraint that stands in stark contrast to his more entertainment-driven films. The decision to film primarily in black and white (with strategic moments of color) serves both historical and emotional purposes: it evokes documentary footage of the era while creating a stark visual landscape that refuses to aestheticize horror. Spielberg eschews manipulative cinematic techniques, instead employing a documentary-like approach with handheld cameras and natural lighting that lends an immersive, almost unbearable immediacy to the atrocities depicted.
The Moral Transformation of Oskar Schindler
The film's central narrative arc—Schindler's evolution from opportunistic war profiteer to humanitarian savior—offers a powerful examination of moral awakening. Liam Neeson's nuanced performance captures this transformation with remarkable subtlety. What begins as economic self-interest gradually evolves into a moral imperative, illustrated in the pivotal "I could have done more" breakdown scene. The film avoids simplistic redemption narratives by showing Schindler's flaws throughout—his womanizing, drinking, and initial complicity—making his eventual heroism all the more affecting because it emerges from such human complexity.
Janusz Kamiński's Revolutionary Cinematography
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński's work on Schindler's List represents one of cinema's most powerful visual achievements. The high-contrast black and white photography creates a documentary aesthetic while achieving a haunting beauty that never glamorizes its subject matter. Kamiński employed techniques rarely used in major studio films of the time: shooting handheld with available light, using different film stocks to create varying textures, and frequently employing stark overhead lighting that creates harsh shadows reminiscent of German Expressionism. The film's selective use of color—the girl in the red coat, the Sabbath candles, and the memorial sequence—provides moments of devastating emotional punctuation within the monochromatic palette.
Ralph Fiennes' Portrayal of Calculated Evil
Ralph Fiennes' performance as SS officer Amon Göth remains one of cinema's most chilling depictions of evil precisely because it eschews caricature. Fiennes portrays Göth as a man of contradictions: refined yet barbaric, capable of discussing literature before committing casual murder. His unpredictability makes him all the more terrifying—the randomness of his violence highlighting the irrational nature of genocidal hatred. The infamous "Is this power?" mirror scene reveals the narcissism underlying his sadism, while his complicated attraction to his Jewish maid Helen Hirsch (embodied in the cellar scene) exposes the twisted psychology of the oppressor who desires yet despises his victim.
The Liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto Sequence
The 20-minute sequence depicting the clearing of the Krakow ghetto represents one of cinema's most devastating portrayals of systematic brutality. Spielberg employed documentary filmmaking techniques—handheld cameras, natural lighting, and long takes—to create an immersive, almost unbearable witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. The sequence intercuts between multiple narrative strands: Nazi officers calmly discussing logistics, individual victims attempting to hide, and Schindler watching from horseback on a distant hill. This structure creates a comprehensive view of the event while maintaining its emotional impact through intimate moments: a boy hiding in a latrine, a girl in a red coat walking unnoticed through chaos, a pianist continuing to play amid gunfire. The scene's power comes from its meticulous accumulation of details that refuse to look away from horror.
Music as Emotional Counterpoint
John Williams' score for Schindler's List represents some of the composer's most restrained and powerful work. Rather than overwhelming scenes with emotional cues, Williams employs a minimalist approach centered around violin solos performed by Itzhak Perlman. The main theme—with its mournful violin melody over simple accompaniment—draws on Jewish musical traditions without resorting to cliché. Williams' most effective choice was knowing when not to use music at all: many of the film's most horrific scenes play out in near silence or with only diegetic sound, allowing the events to speak for themselves without emotional manipulation. This approach makes the moments when music does swell—such as the "I could have saved more" scene—all the more powerful.
The Historical Context and Accuracy
Schindler's List represents one of Hollywood's most meticulously researched historical films. Working from Thomas Keneally's extensively documented book Schindler's Ark, Spielberg and screenwriter Steven Zaillian took extraordinary measures to ensure historical accuracy while still crafting a compelling narrative. The production team consulted Holocaust survivors (including the actual "Schindlerjuden"), historians, and archival materials to recreate locations, costumes, and events with remarkable fidelity.
The film's approach to historical accuracy is evident in several key aspects:
- Location authenticity: Filming took place in Poland, with many scenes shot in the actual locations where events occurred. The production rebuilt portions of the Płaszów concentration camp according to architectural plans and survivor accounts.
- Visual documentation: Many scenes directly reference documentary photographs and footage from the era, including the ghetto liquidation and camp sequences.
- Character portrayal: While some characters are composites, the principal figures—Schindler, Göth, and Stern—are portrayed with biographical accuracy. Survivors who knew these individuals confirmed the authenticity of their depictions.
- Procedural accuracy: The film meticulously documents the bureaucratic processes of the Holocaust—the registration procedures, labor assignments, and selection processes—illustrating how genocide was systematized through administration.
The film does take some dramatic license, particularly in condensing the timeline of Schindler's moral evolution and in creating composite characters among the Schindlerjuden. However, these choices serve the film's larger truth while maintaining its essential historical integrity. As Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer noted, the film "is not a documentary but captures the essence of the historical reality."
The Girl in the Red Coat: Symbol and Controversy
Perhaps the film's most iconic image—the girl in the red coat who appears during the Krakow ghetto liquidation—represents Spielberg's most discussed artistic choice. In a film shot almost entirely in black and white, this singular use of color creates an indelible moment that has generated extensive critical analysis. The red coat serves multiple symbolic functions:
First, it individualizes the Holocaust, focusing our attention on a single child amidst mass suffering. As Spielberg explained, "It was as obvious as a little girl wearing a red coat walking down the street, and yet nobody notices her... That was our system metaphor, that we woke up one day and decided not to notice anymore."
Second, the red coat connects to Schindler's witnessing of the ghetto liquidation from a distant hill—representing the moment when anonymous victims become individuals in his consciousness, catalyzing his moral awakening.
Third, when the coat reappears later in a pile of exhumed bodies, it serves as a devastating reminder of individual lives lost in the industrial-scale slaughter.
The sequence has faced criticism from some scholars who view it as manipulative or sentimental. Film theorist Miriam Bratu Hansen argued that it "aestheticizes genocide" by creating a visually striking image from mass murder. Others defend it as a necessary artistic device that makes the unimaginable scale of the Holocaust comprehensible through individual experience. The controversy reflects the fundamental challenge of representing historical atrocity through cinema: how to balance artistic expression with ethical responsibility to the truth of traumatic events.
Behind the Scenes
The Project's Long Journey to Screen
The path from Thomas Keneally's book to Spielberg's film was remarkably circuitous. Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the actual Schindlerjuden, had been trying to get Schindler's story told since 1963. After convincing Keneally to write the book in 1982, Pfefferberg then spent years pursuing various filmmakers. Universal Pictures acquired the rights in 1982 and initially approached Roman Polanski (who declined, later making his own Holocaust film The Pianist). Martin Scorsese was briefly attached before Spielberg, who had initially passed on the project feeling unprepared to tackle the subject, finally committed to directing in 1992. Spielberg took no salary for the film, calling any profits "blood money," and established the Shoah Foundation with his earnings to record Holocaust survivor testimonies.
The Psychological Toll on Cast and Crew
The production of Schindler's List was emotionally devastating for everyone involved. Ralph Fiennes lost 28 pounds to achieve the gaunt look of SS officers and studied footage of Nazi speeches to capture their mannerisms. He reported being disturbed by how easily he could tap into Göth's sadism. Liam Neeson worked closely with survivors who knew Schindler to perfect his portrayal. Many scenes were shot at Auschwitz and other actual Holocaust locations, creating an atmosphere of profound gravity. Spielberg has spoken about crying between takes and requiring regular calls from Robin Williams to lift his spirits. The production employed numerous Holocaust survivors as extras and consultants, whose presence on set served as a constant reminder of the real human stakes behind the film.
Innovative Cinematography Techniques
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński developed several innovative techniques for the film. To achieve the documentary-like quality, he used a variety of unconventional methods: deliberately dirtying the camera lens, using older film stock that produced a grainier image, employing newsreel-style camera shake, and utilizing extreme contrast lighting. For night scenes, Kamiński often used only available light sources like candles or fires, requiring specialized film stock. The production also employed techniques rarely seen in major studio films, such as using different film stocks within the same scene to create textural shifts. The selective use of color was achieved through a complex lab process that desaturated the film and then reintroduced specific colors—a technique that would later become standard but was groundbreaking in 1993.
The Real Schindlerjuden
Perhaps the most powerful behind-the-scenes aspect of Schindler's List was the involvement of the actual survivors saved by Schindler. Over 1,100 Jews were saved through Schindler's actions, and many of them or their descendants participated in the film. The emotional final scene—where actual Schindlerjuden place stones on Schindler's grave in Jerusalem, accompanied by the actors who portrayed them—creates a powerful merging of history and its representation. Leopold Page (born Poldek Pfefferberg), whose decades-long campaign had brought the story to screen, appears in this sequence. Many survivors served as consultants, ensuring authenticity in the depiction of their experiences. The production team recorded extensive interviews with these survivors, forming the beginning of Spielberg's Shoah Foundation, which has since collected over 55,000 Holocaust testimonies.
Themes and Critical Analysis
The Banality of Evil
Drawing on Hannah Arendt's famous concept, Schindler's List powerfully illustrates how the Holocaust operated through bureaucratic systems and ordinary people rather than merely through obvious monsters. The film depicts Nazi atrocities not as the actions of cartoon villains but as the result of a system where murder becomes administrative procedure. This theme is evident in scenes showing the methodical categorization of possessions confiscated from Jews, the matter-of-fact discussions of "processing" capacities at extermination camps, and the clerical precision with which death is documented. Even Göth, despite his sadism, is presented as someone who believes he's simply doing his job efficiently. This portrayal of evil as systematic rather than exceptional makes the film's moral message all the more unsettling, suggesting that inhumanity requires not monsters but merely human compliance with immoral systems.
Moral Ambiguity and Complicity
The film refuses simplistic moral categorization, instead exploring the complex spectrum of human behavior during catastrophe. Schindler himself embodies this ambiguity—beginning as a war profiteer exploiting Jewish labor before evolving into their savior. The film doesn't present his transformation as a clean break but as a gradual process with continuing contradictions. Similarly, other characters inhabit morally complex positions: Stern manipulates the system from within; some Jewish police enforce Nazi orders against their own people to survive; some Germans look away while others actively resist. By depicting this moral complexity, Spielberg forces viewers to consider not just obvious heroism or villainy but the more common middle ground of compromise, complicity, and small resistances that characterized most people's experience of the Holocaust.
The Power and Limitations of Witness
The film consistently returns to the theme of bearing witness to atrocity—and the moral responsibility that follows. Schindler's moral awakening begins when he witnesses the liquidation of the ghetto from horseback. The camera frequently adopts his perspective, making the audience complicit in the act of witnessing. Similarly, the film itself functions as an act of witness, preserving Holocaust testimony for future generations. Yet the film also explores the limitations of witness: the willful blindness of many Germans, the outside world's failure to intervene despite knowledge of the genocide, and the fundamental inadequacy of representation to fully capture atrocity. The epilogue featuring actual Schindlerjuden acknowledges that even this meticulously crafted film remains an incomplete testament, suggesting that true witness requires connecting cinematic representation to historical reality.
The Value of a Single Life
At its core, Schindler's List is an exploration of the Talmudic principle that "whoever saves one life saves the world entire"—a quote explicitly referenced in the film. Against the industrial-scale dehumanization of the Holocaust, the film repeatedly emphasizes individual lives: the girl in the red coat, the boy hiding in the latrine, the engineer shot for pointing out construction flaws. Schindler's list itself—with its names rather than numbers—stands in direct opposition to the Nazi system of reducing humans to statistics. The final sequence powerfully embodies this theme by showing the actual Schindlerjuden and their descendants (numbering over 6,000 by the film's release) placing stones on Schindler's grave—a visual representation of how saving individual lives preserves entire generations and cultures.
Critical Reception and Controversies
Upon its release, Schindler's List received near-universal acclaim, with critics hailing it as a landmark achievement in Holocaust cinema and Spielberg's masterpiece. The film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and has consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made in subsequent critical assessments.
However, the film has not been without its critics and controversies:
- Claude Lanzmann's critique: The director of the documentary Shoah criticized Spielberg's film as "kitsch" that trivializes the Holocaust by attempting to represent the unrepresentable. Lanzmann argued that fiction film inherently aestheticizes atrocity and that only survivor testimony should document the Holocaust.
- The "rescue narrative" problem: Some scholars have criticized the film for focusing on the exceptional story of rescue rather than the more common experience of annihilation, potentially offering audiences a comforting narrative that obscures the Holocaust's overwhelming devastation.
- Limited Jewish perspective: Critics have noted that the film primarily tells its story through non-Jewish eyes (Schindler and Göth), potentially marginalizing Jewish agency and experience. The film has been criticized for not more fully developing the Jewish characters beyond their relationship to Schindler.
- Commercial Hollywood treatment: Some critics argue that despite its artistic achievements, the film ultimately remains a Hollywood product that makes genocide accessible for mass consumption, potentially trivializing historical trauma through entertainment conventions.
Defenders of the film counter that its mainstream accessibility has brought Holocaust education to millions who would never engage with more challenging or experimental approaches. Film scholar Annette Insdorf argues that the film's power lies precisely in its ability to use conventional narrative techniques to make the unimaginable comprehensible without diminishing its moral horror. The ongoing critical debate around Schindler's List reflects the fundamental challenge of Holocaust representation: how to balance historical accuracy, ethical responsibility, and artistic expression when depicting catastrophic human suffering.
Legacy and Cultural Impact
Educational Influence
Schindler's List has become one of the most widely used films in Holocaust education worldwide. Following the film's release, Spielberg established the USC Shoah Foundation, which has recorded over 55,000 video testimonies from Holocaust survivors, creating the world's largest archive of first-person accounts. The film itself has been shown in schools across more than 60 countries, often with specially developed educational materials. When NBC aired the film uncut and commercial-free in 1997, approximately 65 million Americans watched—many encountering detailed Holocaust history for the first time. Studies have shown that for many people born after 1980, the film represents their primary understanding of Holocaust history, demonstrating cinema's power to shape historical consciousness.
Influence on Holocaust Representation
The film fundamentally changed how the Holocaust is depicted in mainstream media. Before Schindler's List, Hollywood had largely avoided direct portrayals of Holocaust atrocities, with even acclaimed films like Sophie's Choice approaching the subject obliquely. Spielberg's film established that commercial cinema could directly confront genocide while maintaining artistic integrity and finding an audience. Its visual approach—particularly the documentary-style black and white photography—has influenced countless subsequent Holocaust depictions across film and television. The film also helped establish what scholar Alison Landsberg calls "prosthetic memory"—the way contemporary audiences come to "remember" historical traumas they never experienced through immersive media representations.
Impact on Spielberg's Career
Schindler's List marked a pivotal shift in Steven Spielberg's career, establishing him as not merely an entertainer but an artist capable of profound historical and moral engagement. After decades of being denied critical recognition despite commercial success, the film finally brought Spielberg his first Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director. The film's success empowered him to pursue more challenging material, leading directly to works like Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Munich, and Lincoln—all historical films grappling with complex moral questions. Beyond filmmaking, Schindler's List transformed Spielberg's public identity and personal mission; his establishment of the Shoah Foundation represented a commitment to using his influence for historical preservation and education.
Contemporary Relevance
Three decades after its release, Schindler's List continues to resonate in contemporary discussions about genocide, historical memory, and moral responsibility. As firsthand Holocaust witnesses diminish with time, the film's role in preserving historical memory has only grown more significant. Its exploration of how ordinary people become complicit in systemic evil remains relevant to understanding modern atrocities and human rights abuses. The film continues to provoke debate about representation: whether atrocity can or should be depicted through entertainment media, and how to balance historical accuracy with narrative accessibility. In an era of rising antisemitism and historical revisionism, Schindler's List serves as a powerful counter to Holocaust denial and historical amnesia.
The Real Oskar Schindler's Legacy
Beyond its artistic and educational impact, Schindler's List dramatically transformed public awareness of the historical Oskar Schindler. Before the film, Schindler was a relatively obscure historical figure; after, he became one of the most recognized Holocaust rescuers alongside figures like Raoul Wallenberg and Irena Sendler.
The historical Schindler died in relative obscurity in Frankfurt in 1974, nearly destitute and dependent on financial support from the Schindlerjuden. Despite being recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem in 1963, he received little public recognition during his lifetime. The film's success dramatically changed this historical neglect:
- Schindler's grave in Jerusalem, which appears in the film's epilogue, became a pilgrimage site visited by thousands annually.
- His factory in Krakow has been preserved as a museum, now receiving over 100,000 visitors per year.
- Historical research into Schindler's life expanded dramatically, producing numerous books and academic studies that have added nuance to his complex biography.
- His name has become shorthand for moral courage, with "Schindler-type" now commonly used to describe those who risk personal safety to protect the persecuted.
The film thus achieved one of Spielberg's stated aims: ensuring that Schindler's actions would be remembered by future generations. As Spielberg noted in 1993, "Schindler's story needed to be told now because there are people who denied the Holocaust ever happened." By transforming an individual historical account into a global cultural touchstone, Schindler's List demonstrated cinema's unique power to reshape historical memory and moral understanding across generations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Schindler's List historically accurate?
While taking some dramatic license for narrative purposes, Schindler's List is considered one of Hollywood's most historically accurate portrayals of the Holocaust. The film's principal events—Schindler's evolution from profiteer to savior, the operations of his factory, the brutality at Płaszów camp, and the rescue of over 1,100 Jews—are well-documented historical facts. The production team conducted extensive research, consulting Holocaust survivors (including actual Schindlerjuden), historians, and archival materials.
Areas where the film takes creative liberties include:
- Condensing the timeline of Schindler's moral evolution, which was more gradual in reality
- Creating composite characters among the Schindlerjuden
- Dramatizing certain interactions, particularly between Schindler and Göth
- The "list scene" is somewhat fictionalized, though the list itself was real
Holocaust scholars generally praise the film for capturing the essential truth of events while making necessary adaptations for narrative cinema.
Why did Spielberg shoot the film in black and white?
Spielberg's decision to film Schindler's List primarily in black and white served multiple artistic and historical purposes:
- Historical authenticity: Most people's visual understanding of the Holocaust comes from black and white documentary footage and photographs. The monochromatic approach creates visual continuity with this historical record.
- Avoiding aestheticization: Spielberg felt that color might inadvertently beautify the horror, noting: "The Holocaust was life without light. For me the symbol of life is color. That's why a film about the Holocaust has to be in black and white."
- Documentary quality: The black and white photography, particularly with its grainy, high-contrast style, evokes documentary filmmaking, lending the narrative a sense of historical witnessing rather than fictional recreation.
- Emotional distance: The monochrome creates a certain emotional remove that paradoxically makes the atrocities more bearable to watch while preserving their impact.
- Selective color impact: The sparing use of color (the girl in the red coat, the Sabbath candles, the memorial sequence) creates moments of profound emotional punctuation that would be impossible in a fully color film.
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński has noted that the black and white approach allowed for more expressionistic lighting choices that would have seemed artificial in color but create powerful visual compositions in monochrome.
What happened to the real Amon Göth?
Amon Göth, the brutal Nazi commandant portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, met a fate only briefly mentioned in the film's epilogue. After the war, Göth was arrested by American forces in 1945 and extradited to Poland to face trial for war crimes. During his imprisonment, he was recognized by survivors of the Płaszów camp, who provided extensive testimony about his sadistic behavior.
At his trial before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland, Göth was charged with the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Witnesses testified about his practice of shooting prisoners randomly from his balcony (as depicted in the film), his use of dogs to maul prisoners, and numerous other atrocities. Unlike some Nazi defendants who claimed they were "following orders," Göth showed little remorse during his trial.
Found guilty of mass murder, Göth was sentenced to death. He was hanged in Krakow on September 13, 1946, at the age of 37. His last words were reportedly "Heil Hitler."
In a disturbing postscript, Göth's daughter Monika Hertwig (born after his execution) later confronted her father's legacy in the documentary Inheritance (2006), where she met with Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, one of the Jewish prisoners who had served as a household slave in Göth's villa (similar to the character Helen Hirsch in the film).
What is the significance of placing stones on Schindler's grave in the final scene?
The powerful final scene showing Schindler's survivors and the actors who portrayed them placing stones on his grave in Jerusalem references an important Jewish mourning tradition. In Jewish custom, visitors to a grave place small stones rather than flowers. This practice has several levels of significance:
- Permanence: Unlike flowers that wither and die, stones are permanent—symbolizing the enduring nature of memory and the permanent impact of the deceased's life.
- Biblical origins: The practice derives from ancient burial customs where stones were used to cover graves in desert regions.
- Participation in remembrance: The act of selecting and placing a stone represents an active participation in the act of remembrance—physically marking one's visit and commitment to memory.
- Community: As stones accumulate on a grave, they represent the community of people touched by the deceased, creating a visible record of ongoing remembrance.
In the context of Schindler's List, this tradition takes on additional significance. The stones placed by the actual Schindlerjuden (Holocaust survivors saved by Schindler) represent not just remembrance but profound gratitude for life itself. The scene creates a powerful bridge between historical reality and cinematic representation, as actual survivors stand alongside the actors who portrayed them, placing stones on the grave of the man who saved them from genocide. This final image powerfully embodies the film's central theme: that saving individual lives preserves not just those individuals but entire generations and a cultural tradition.
Did Oskar Schindler really go bankrupt saving Jews?
Yes, the film accurately portrays that Oskar Schindler spent his fortune to save his workers. Historical records confirm that Schindler depleted his considerable wartime wealth through several key expenses:
- Direct bribes to Nazi officials: Schindler paid substantial bribes to multiple Nazi officers, including Amon Göth, to maintain control of his workers and later to secure their transfer to Brünnlitz.
- Black market purchases: As depicted in the film, Schindler spent enormous sums on black market goods to feed his workers when official rations were insufficient.
- The "list" itself: Each name on Schindler's list required payment to Nazi authorities, essentially "purchasing" each worker.
- Factory expenses: Schindler's Brünnlitz factory was deliberately unproductive—he was essentially funding a safe haven rather than a profitable enterprise.
By the war's end, Schindler had spent his entire fortune. His postwar life was marked by financial difficulties—he attempted several business ventures in Argentina and Germany, all of which failed. In his later years, he lived on a small pension and financial support from the Schindlerjuden (Jews he had saved), who regularly sent him money in recognition of his sacrifice.
When Schindler died in 1974, he was nearly destitute. The Schindlerjuden paid for his wish to be buried in Jerusalem at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion—the grave shown in the film's final scene. The historical record thus confirms the film's portrayal of Schindler's financial sacrifice, though the dramatic "I could have got more" breakdown scene is a somewhat fictionalized representation of his feelings.
Related Films
The Pianist (2002)
Roman Polanski's deeply personal Holocaust film follows Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman's struggle for survival in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Another 1990s masterpiece exploring themes of hope and resilience in the face of profound injustice.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Spielberg's other landmark WWII film, featuring revolutionary combat sequences and an examination of sacrifice.
The Godfather (1972)
Like Schindler's List, a defining American masterpiece that explores moral complexity and the fundamental question of what makes a good man.
Comments
I've seen this film at least once a year since its release, and its power never diminishes. What strikes me most on recent viewings is how Spielberg balances the enormous scale of the Holocaust with intimate human moments. The scene where Schindler watches the little girl in the red coat moves me to tears every time.
I recently showed this film to my history students, and even in our era of short attention spans, they sat in complete silence for the entire 3+ hours. Many told me afterward it was the first time they'd truly comprehended the reality of the Holocaust beyond textbook facts. This is why cinema matters.
From a purely technical perspective, Kaminski's cinematography in this film revolutionized how black and white photography is used in modern cinema. The high-contrast lighting, handheld documentary approach, and selective use of color created a visual language that countless films have borrowed from since.