Why was the girl in red in Schindlers list?
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ucme (
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February 21st, 2010
Watched it again last night.Great movie,powerful performances,thought provoking.However, the scene where the nazis liquidate the ghetto, where a little girl is seen wandering aimlessly through the bedlam in the streets.Wondered was their ever an explanation given by Spielberg for why she was seen dressed in a red coat?Or was this left to the interpretation of the audience? I always viewed it through the eyes of Schindler,as he apparently is the only person who sees the girl in this light.Interested to hear whether any official interpretation was ever given & if not, what would your view on this be?
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The little girl’s jacket is red so that she stands out from the masses. When color is used, it makes a point and an impression. And Schindler´s soul is touched by the child, he feels her pain, cries for her. The plight of the one little girl in red touches him in a way the shear numbers make unreal, it is easy to get lost in numbers.
He transforms the faceless mass around him into one real palpable human being. This one child is a symbol of all the 6.000.000 victims, exposed to ruthless slaughter. The little girl in the red coat footage gives a feeling of hope.
The Little Girl in Red -
http://www.auschwitz.dk/redgirl.htm
yeah… what they said.
To personalize an impersonal horror.
@troubleinharlem Excellent thanks.That’s how I always interpreted the scene.Interesting how the girl is then shown to be dead.As I said great movie.
@troubleinharlem Great Answer!
@ucme If the girl in the red coat is a symbol of all the faceless masses who suffered at the hands of the criminally insane nazi German monsters, then showing the girl as dead would complete that symbolism, would it not?
@davidbetterman Absolutely.Another outcome could have been that she was seen as a beacon of hope left to burn bright. Hence she could have lived.Then again who am I to question the genius of the movie.
@ucme That’s what I love about DVDs with those alternate endings in the bonus section!
As I remember, later in the film you see the red coat among the clothes from the dead.
Would you have remembered her to mention her here otherwise?
Spielberg said, “America and Russia and England all knew about the Holocaust when it was happening, and yet we did nothing about it. We didn’t assign any of our forces to stopping the march toward death, the inexorable march toward death. It was a large bloodstain, primary red color on everyone’s radar, but no one did anything about it. And that’s why I wanted to bring the color red in.”
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