Question: Does anyone know the name of the song which is playing on the radio in the beginning of the movie, when Schindler is getting dressed for the party?
Question: The Jews in the film are mostly small people, but the Germans are tall. Why?
Question: Moments before the end of the film, a man puts a rose on Schindler's grave. Can someone tell me who he is?
Answer: Liam Neeson, the actor who played Schindler.
Question: Are the real Schindler Jews in the end accompanied by younger relatives or by the people who played them in the movie?
Answer: It depends, some are accompanied by younger relatives, and others have the actor who played them. The majority have relatives though.
Question: At the end of the movie, what is the name of that haunting song as the workers head towards town?
Answer: The song is called "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold"). This was a somewhat anachronistic choice for the scene, as the song was written in 1967, twenty-two years after the end of World War II, by Israeli folk artist Naomi Shemer. For more information on the song, including an English translation of the lyrics, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_of_Gold.
Question: What is the conversation between the German soldiers in the Ghetto scene, after they have shot the boy who ran away and the boy's father who interfered?
Answer: Roughly "What is this shit? Did you become moved? You could have shot me. You have shot at me before. An apology is called for. You became moved."
Question: In the liquidation of the ghetto segment a little girl is shown in color wearing a red dress. What is the significance of this?
Chosen answer: The little girl appears three times in the film: once at the beginning of the film, bringing her belongings into the ghetto with her family, once during the liquidation of the ghetto, and once during the disinternment and burning of the Jews killed at Plaszow. Schindler noticed her during the liquidation scene and was horrified by the way the Germans completely ignored her and callously murdered and destroyed other human lives without any regard for this innocent child. It was one of the turning points in his life; after that he began to realize he could no longer turn a blind eye to the monstrous evils of the Nazi party, and began to take a more active role in protecting and rescuing Jews. As another possible answer: During the Adolf Eichmann Trial, which took place in Israel, a story was told by a holocaust survivor (a father) who just parted forcibly with his wife and daughter at Auschwitz. Then, moments later, his son was told by the SS guard to run after his mother. The only way the father could follow the sight of his family among so many people was to follow his little daughter who was in a red jacket. He describes the sight of the girl in the red coat getting smaller and smaller...that was the last they saw of his family. Here is a link to that story http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-053-04.html Additionally, the story was so moving that the prosecutor could not speak for many minutes (per an interview I once saw with the prosecutor, who also had a little daughter the same approximate age) and the courtroom was silent under the weight of this story of the girl in the red coat.
Question: Schindler first meets Geoth during a breakfast meeting, afterwards they discuss Schindler's request for his own workers. Helen is serving brandy and picking up glasses. Goeth calls Helen 'Lena'. Is this an error or more Goeth's way of mistreating her, ie.: 'I can call you what ever I want'?
Answer: Lena is a nickname for Helena, or Elena, or simply Helen. It's not necessarily derogatory, but does imply Goeth doesn't care if she prefers Helen or Lena.
Question: When the little girl in the read coat goes inside to hide during the liquidation of the ghetto, she goes under a bed. Why isn't her coat red anymore?
Answer: It's open to interpretation because it was a directorial decision. But the technique was a way to direct the audience's eye towards what Schindler was observing during the chaotic outdoor scenes. Once the girl's inside, the shot is no longer from his perspective since Schindler can't see her anymore, so the red was no longer necessary.
Question: In the scene where Schindler has just seen the body of the girl in the red coat, and is now talking to Stern about the fates of the workers, it seemed to me that Schindler's eyes were brown and not black and white. It might be just me seeing things, but I thought it might be something symbolic, that his eyes have truly been opened. Does anyone know if this is right or if the eyes are colorless?
Answer: His eyes are colorless.
Question: On the Deluxe Edition DVD, disc 2, there is a documentary about the Shoah Foundation. I couldn't find any credits for it, but the narrator sounded an awful lot like Morgan Freeman. Is it him?
Question: Was the film always intended to be in black-and-white? If not, roughly when was the decision made? And what was the reason, was it artistic, to get an elderly feel to it or to take focus off blood and gore?
Answer: Documentary footage of this era was in B&W, this gave the movie a more authentic feel and was intentional from its inception.
Answer: To Spielberg, the black and white presentation of the film came to represent the Holocaust itself. Spielberg stated, "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."
Question: Although the movie itself is in English, how is it that in a lot of cases both Poles and Germans all seem to be speaking the same language? Are they speaking Polish or German?
Answer: They're speaking both. Spielberg did an interview about it and said, "I had Germans speaking German and Poles speaking Polish only on certain occasions when I wanted to pretty much show what it was like and what it sounded like, and then only let those moments come across in English where I had to make a point." Link to interview: http://www.insidefilm.com/spielberg2.html.
Answer: "Gloomy Sunday".
Kimberly Klaus