SCHINDLERS LIST WHY THE CANDLES

The beginning features a family observing the Shabbat. Spielberg said, "to start the film with the candles being lit...would be a rich bookend, to start the film with a normal Shabbes service before the juggernaut against the Jews begins." When the color fades out in the film's opening moments, it gives way to a movie in which smoke comes to symbolize bodies being burnt at Auschwitz. Only at the end do the images of candle fire regain their warmth when Schindler allows his workers to hold Shabbat services. For Spielberg, they represented "just a glint of color, and a glimmer of hope."^[4]