The Pianist
Filmmaker Roman Polanski, who as a boy growing up in Poland watched while the Nazis devastated his country during World War II, directed this downbeat drama based on the true story of a privileged musician who spent five years struggling against the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a gifted classical pianist born to a wealthy Jewish family in Poland. The Szpilmans have a large and comfortable flat in Warsaw which Wladyslaw shares with his mother and father (Maureen Lipman and Frank Finlay), his sisters Halina and Regina (Jessica Kate Meyer and Julia Rayner), and his brother, Henryk (Ed Stoppard). While Wladyslaw and his family are aware of the looming presence of German forces and Hitler's designs on Poland, they're convinced that the Nazis are a menace which will pass, and that England and France will step forward to aid Poland in the event of a real crisis. Wladyslaw's naïveté is shattered when a German bomb rips through a radio studio while he performs a recital for broadcast. During the early stages of the Nazi occupation, as a respected artist, he still imagines himself above the danger, using his pull to obtain employment papers for his father and landing a supposedly safe job playing piano in a restaurant. But as the German grip tightens upon Poland, Wladyslaw and his family are selected for deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Refusing to face a certain death, Wladyslaw goes into hiding in a comfortable apartment provided by a friend. However, when his benefactor goes missing, Wladyslaw is left to fend for himself and he spends the next several years dashing from one abandoned home to another, desperate to avoid capture by German occupation troops. The Pianist was based on the memoir of the same name by the real-life Wladyslaw Szpilman; the book was first published in 1946 as Death of a City, but was banned by Polish Communist officials and went out of print until 1998, when a new edition was issued as The Pianist. more..
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Thomas Kretschmann, Michal Zebrowski, Ed Stoppard
One of the great Holocaust films.
There are three Poles in The Pianist -- Szpilman, Polanski, and Frederic Chopin. Of the three, fittingly, Chopin speaks the loudest.
A great movie on a powerful, essential subject -- the Holocaust years in Poland -- directed with such artistry and skill that, as we watch, the barriers of the screen seem to melt away.
The result is a movie, and Cannes Palme d'Or winner, of riveting power and sadness, a great match of film and filmmaker -- and star, too.
Nothing can detract from the film as a portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Awards (2003)
Ronald Harwood
American Screenwriters Association (2003)
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases
American Society of Cinematographers (2003)
Best Foreign Film (Mejor Película Extranjera)
Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards (2004)
Best Foreign Film
Awards of the Japanese Academy (2004)
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