PRIVATE LIVES : VIDEODROME : Inviting ‘Schindler’ Home : How to market Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning Holocaust movie, ‘Schindler’s List’? It’s all there--no cuts, no new scenes--in black and white.

When “Schindler’s List” comes to home video on Aug. 17, it won’t be accompanied by the array of never-before-seen sequences and behind-the-scenes glimpses that have become part of many “event” video releases. After all, how do you improve upon what many consider to be perfection?

“When a movie has won this many awards and has been shown the respect and honor that this has,” observes Andrew Kairey, senior vice president of marketing and sales for MCA/Universal Home Video, “it’s kind of hard to go back to it and say, ‘I want to make it better.’ ”

“Schindler’s List,” Steven Spielberg’s sobering, resonant epic of Nazi war profiteer Oskar Schindler and his most unexpected act of heroism--rescuing 1,100 Jews from certain death in Nazi concentration camps--won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, and was named best picture of 1993 by every major critics group as well as the Golden Globes and the British Academy Awards. Beyond the accolades, it offered definitive proof that Spielberg, the acknowledged master of popcorn movies, was likewise capable of tackling difficult adult material--his previous efforts in that arena had always been considered compromised or flawed in some fashion.

I t was also a proud moment for the film industry in general, as Universal proved that a film examining such a delicate subject could be made, marketed and distributed with remarkable sensitivity and without “Hollywooding” it up.

Which is not to say that “Schindler” won’t find its way to video without some hoopla. A special collector’s edition, retailing for $139.98, will include a letter from Spielberg, an exclusive pictorial book of photos from the production, a copy of Thomas Keneally’s original novel and a special-edition compact disc of John Williams’ Oscar-winning soundtrack, packaged in a coffee-table-style linen slipcase. Each set will be individually numbered, up to 100,000.

Otherwise, “Schindler” will be priced for rental rather than ownership, although Kairey expects some video stores will offer the double-cassette package for sale for just under $100. Rental copies of the film will be available in both letterboxed and full-frame versions; the collector’s edition will come only in a letterboxed version.

Spielberg and Oscar-winning director of photography Janusz Kaminski spent a month on the film-to-video transfer to ensure that the 3-hour, 17-minute film looks as vivid on video as it did in theaters. There were no technical glitches in the video transfer of the sort endured during the theatrical release, which found some projectionists around the country inexperienced in dealing with the thinner black-and-white celluloid.

“It’s much easier to intercut black-and-white and color footage on videotape than it is in theaters,” says Mike Fitzgerald of MCA/Universal Home Video, who helped oversee the video transfer of the film with Spielberg and Kaminski.

Still, it’s no picnic: “You have to time and grade the film in a scene-by-scene process to check that the density of the dark and light spots of the image are the same as on the original answer print. At every cut, you take time out to make sure the transfer resembles the answer print, and then you go on.”

Since its release last Christmas, “Schindler’s List” has grossed about $96 million in the United States and more than $300 million worldwide. Even after the video release, the film will remain in limited theatrical release, Kairey said.

“There’s no emphasis to get it to $100 million,” he said, “but we want to expose it to as many people as possible, and there are still schools and civic groups who ask us to set up screenings in theaters.”

A dvertising for the video re lease, which began Aug. 1, positions the film as a “must-see event” to be viewed with other family members, Kairey said. After the release, TV commercials focusing on the collector’s edition will be added to the mix. Kairey added that print advertising will be expanded beyond the usual sources and entertainment and performing-arts publications to include such special-interest outlets as Jewish newspapers.

Laser disc versions of the film will be released Sept. 21, with the Limited Collector’s Edition also retailing for $139.98 and the regular edition for $49.98. Both of these will be letterboxed.

“Steven Spielberg has been involved in every aspect of the video release,” Kairey said. “Whether he will add footage in a special release down the road is a decision he has to make.”*