The Pianist Movie
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Storyline
TAGLINES
Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece.
The true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw City Revolt in August/October 1944.
| Captain Wilm Hosenfeld | |
| Adrien Brody | Wladyslaw Szpilman |
| Frank Finlay | Father |
| Maureen Lipman | Mother |
| Emilia Fox | Dorota |
| Ed Stoppard | Henryk |
| Julia Rayner | Regina |
| Jessica Kate Meyer | Halina |
| Michal Zebrowski | Jurek |
| Wanja Mues | SS Slapping Father |
| Richard Ridings | Mr. Lipa |
| Nomi Sharron | Feather Woman |
| Anthony Milner | Man Waiting to Cross |
| Roddy Skeaping | Street Musician |
| Roman Polanski |
8.50 out of 10 (39269 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Very moving and realistic...
posted on 30 Aug 2009........I don't have much to add onto what the others here have said-one of the things that struck me was how believable the passing of time. People have slow lives. People have to wait. Refugees hiding in an apt like he was are not exactly racing around to 77 different places in 4 days-they sit, they wait, they hide, they fear that the Nazis will come at any moment, and of course they wait some more. Wars take time. Being forced into a labor camp took time to get thru, slow agonizing months, weeks, days of it. Polanski knows this and shows it. If you want a Michael Bay style MTV jump and cut type editing kinda flick, go elsewheres. This subject matter and this era deserves, merits nothing less than what Polanski gives it.**** believable as anything, kudos to them all for the oscar wins.
the ultimate war movie to me , impressive movie.
posted on 30 Aug 2009probably the ultimate war movie , not the shooting stuff , but from a victims view. i am a pianist myself and felt like i was looking at myself and could imagine what he was going through . my favorite part was when he got pulled away from his father when entering the train , and the officer shouted , what are you doing , i am saving your life, ... and don't run ! it was a second that changed his future . also , the movie didn't bore at any moment , every second was worth to watch. normally every movie has a few seconds where it falls asleep. the weak moments from a movie . but this one kept going without weak moments . my opinion about roman Polanski is very good now. before it was just a famous name to me . i can not believe how people can be so bad like the soldiers i have seen in this movie. and probably somewhere in the world it is still like this today.
Slightly Better Than Schindler's List
posted on 30 Aug 2009A beautiful movie,The Pianist,revolves around the war time life of a Jew pianist Szpilman and his efforts to survive it.Luck follows him all the time but his determination never dies off.Hope is the emotion we see on his face frame after frame and hope wins him freedom.Roman Polanski has given us an all time great movie which will survive time and will certainly comes out as the greatest WW2 movie ever made.I can see that the Schindler's List is way ahead of Pianist.But we don't have to care about the rankings.Schindler's List shows more compassion,so it isn't a great mistake even if its ranked high.But,at least as far as I am concerned,Pianist is a better movie.A movie,any movie maker would love to point out as his creation.Each and every frame has perfection attached with it.And one very big factor that leaves this movie ahead of Schindler's list is Adrien's performance.As this whole movie moves along with him,a slight fluctuation in his performance would have hurt the movie so much!But no compromise.As i said before,we can see hope all the time on his face.And all other characters manage to put in a minimalistic performance.Polanski,as u see in this movie,is not ready for any kind of compromise.The art work,costumes are all perfect and we could see the research and hard work put behind them clearly in this film.The background score is nothing I should miss out.Its truly one of the best,or probably the best you could score for such a movie.It just makes it more beautiful.As u see,its very easy to criticize such a movie.Adding to this reason is a very big fact that a lot of movies are made behalf of the second world war.So in such a situation,Polanski has shown brilliance in narrating a book written by Mr.Szpilman himself making it something never seen and never attempted in the big screen ever.We have seen a lot of war movie viewed psychologically,or biographically and among those to make this one stand out is an effort truly masterful!This is the movie for all spirited movie lovers.A lesson for all those who wants to become good screen writers.It has everything,yeah a movie you would want to call great,this is it!
It doesn't make an difference! Very overrated
posted on 24 Aug 2009This movie is nothing more than an average documentary on holocaust. It follows the fate of a pianist but has nothing to do with the piano ie. music has a small if existing role in the movie. In my oppinion it's one of the most overrated movies I've ever seen...
one of the greats
posted on 18 Aug 2009Over this past weekend two emotionally moving events happened. First, I saw "the pianist": Second, I went on a church retreat. Now I have been going to my church retreats for a number of years and they are almost always the highlight of the month, let alone the weekend. But I would have to say that the pianist moved me more then the retreat. I know this is pretentious but I just wanted to say it to emphasize the greatness of this film.In my mind, if Shindler's List was ranked #7 on AFI "100 years, 100 movies", then this movie would have to be ranked somewhere between #1-6. Of course I don't think Shindler's List is the #7 movie of all time and I doubt "The Pianist" is in the top ten, either (though maybe the top 20), but that is beside the point.This movie highlights what very few movies dare to say. This is that it is not enough mearly to survive, but to survive as a human being. This point is stated multiple times throughut the film (i.e. "I'm cold"; when Szpilman expresses his emotions through a moving score with the German; how Szpilman eats the Jam plain without the bread like a small child; etc., etc.), and is really what makes the film great. Brody really expresses how close to an emotional zombie Szpilman comes, without (in the end) eventually becoming one. I think the reason that the film came across so powerfully, without being sentamental, was that Polanski was there. I know this has been said before and will be said again, but I don't think it can be under-emphized. P.T. Anderson makes great films about "the valley" because he lived there, Spielberg makes great films about family relations because he was very hurt when his partent divorced, Quintin Tarintino makes great films about low-lifes partially because for many years he lived and interacted with lowlifes as a video clerk in L.A. Polanski was able to make a great film about the holocost becuase he was there.And to all of you who have previously said that Brody flatlines on his acting I feel you have unfortunelty mistaken bad acting with suttle acting.Overall this is maybe one of the greatest films of all time10/10
Haunting, Timeless, Unforgettable, Uplifting...One for the Ages
posted on 12 Aug 2009Although not nearly as epic and emotionally devastating as "Schindler's List", Roman Polanski's deeply personal "Pianist" is by many measures a greater film and a work of true cinematic art. Haunting, cold, and austere where other films are sentimental and clichéd; true to the horrors of human existence where other films play for shock and gore; poignantly quiet where other films are overwhelmed by a swelling music score; darkly comic where other films don't even dare speak a word; and universally compelling where other films are specific and preachy (though a fact based Holocaust tale, this could have been anyone's tale of triumph over the horrors of man's brutality towards each other and could speak to a tribal warrior in Somalia or Palestinian separatist just as much as it does to a Jew from Poland). This is a film deeply rooted in the ethereal realm of the timeless artistic representation of man's struggle against adversity and our innate will to survive.I can't remember the last time I watched a film and was so transported into the world the director created (I think only "Mulholland Drive" has done this for me in recent years) and yet was so aware of the artistic nature of it all. I don't think I've ever sat through a film before and thought during so many scenes "this is one for the ages." My personal favorite scenes are the shot of the snow covered street running through a bombed out post-apocalyptic Warsaw and the eerily poetic shot of the German officer standing by the car on that very street at night underneath the full moon while the sounds of the piano playing from a bombed out building break the serene silence. The seamless editing and style of direction are purely European old school, and work wonderfully to keep the viewer entranced and spellbound by the state of Poland during WWII and the state of man's soul during times of tribulation. Polanski, working possibly from his own memories of his childhood in Poland during the Holocaust as well as by the actual accounts of his protagonist, gives this powerful tale its heart through the details (i.e. the family sharing the caramel while waiting to be taken away to the death camps). I can imagine sitting through this film a dozen times and still not catching everything. Half of the time I wasn't even sure what some of the details meant (like when he was playing piano at the ghetto club and one of the patrons asked him to stop playing so he could hear the sounds some coins made when he flipped them on the tabletop). Polanski clearly respects his audience as well as his characters and story. Sometimes we have to figure it out for ourselves what was the purpose of a certain scene or certain piece of dialogue (like when the German officer remarks that Szpilman, which only people with knowledge of foreign languages would know means "player," is a very appropriate name for a pianist). It's this kind of attention to detail and respect for characters, setting, and audience alike that separate the good films from the great ones, and the movies from the works of art. This is a great work of art, and one of the greatest films of all time.
powerful...
posted on 04 Aug 2009... and it takes your breath away. This is a superior film to any of the other "Best Picture" nominees last year and an especially better film that "Chicago"... great from start to finish and an important film to teach the horrors of the holocaust to future generations. Bravo!
Holocaust cliche? It's a true story!
posted on 31 Jul 2009I though The Pianist was a great movie. It's good to see a movie that actually might teach people something, that makes you think about it and isn't just the sort of thing that has no message and is pointless. In a society where the most popular movies are often mindless drivel, a movive such as The Pianist is a breath of fresh air.Adrien Brody was well deserved of the Oscar. His performance is brilliant, and the lengths he obviously went to to prepare for the role benefit the film greatly.I can't understand , in other reviews I've read, people talk about its unoriginality. Sure, there may be plenty of other Holocaust movies, but it's based on a true story! It's just a movie set in a period in history, just like many movies are set in the present time. The people who say this movie is unoriginal seem to have missed this point.Overall, I loved this movie. If you want to get as much as you can from The Pianist you'll have to think a bit, but if you do take that trouble then you'll really enjoy it. If it's not at a cinema i really recommend hiring it.
This is Roman Polanski's best film to date.
posted on 29 Jul 2009I don't want to trivialize the subject by analyzing the film; suffice it to say that, lest we forget the destructive power of prejudice and bigotry, we should not be apathetic in the face of genocide no matter where it occurs in the world. We are all fellow human beings--our differences will always be less significant than that essential truth--we are as one people on this planet. Therefore, whatever horror you visit on someone you also bring onto yourself.10/10
Deceptive Title & Damaging to Jews' Psyche
posted on 09 Jul 2009I went to see this movie expecting to see a film about music - that's what the name implies and what the posters promised. But it was not about music... it was about the Holocaust. I stayed and watched but only because one of my long-time friend's grandmother was clubbed to death on the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto (site of the movie) so there was a personal and painful connection.I asked another friend, a young American Jew who lives in California, if the movie made him feel confident, outgoing and positive, or wary, uncertain, fearful, and negative. No surprise - it was the latter and how could it be otherwise? I would be hard pressed to think up a more effective means to screw up Jews' psyche than to produce a movie just like this one. I wonder if Roman Polanski was secretly and unknowingly financed by SDOPOAJ (Syrian Department of Psychological Operations Against Jews)The problem with making people fearful, and that is what this movie does quite successfully, it that they become diminished. As Lord D'Abernon (1857-1941) said: "The worst atrocities are probably committed by those who are most afraid". I think that the Jews' oppression of the Palestinians may be rooted in the fear that Jews feel in their very souls... and this is being fanned, constantly it seems, by films like this one. The world would be a better and kinder place if the Jews would stop wallowing in their victimization and move on to positive things where they are so well equipped to make big and positive contributions.
Not at all like 'Schindler's List'.
posted on 29 Jun 2009This film is a brilliant look at the holocaust from one man's point of view.
'Schindler's List' examined the holocaust in multiple fashion. From the view of a man trying to save potential victims. From a potential victim himself and from the point of view of the Nazis. 'The Pianist' is about one man's quest for survival and following his odyssey through all of the horrors of history's darkest time. All films about the holocaust are relevant but few films such as this one overall have such a power that comes from such little dialogue. Adrien Brody is a Polish pianist in 1939 when war breaks out in his country. He is separated from his family and must survive in the most terrible ways. Director Roman Polanski, who has memories of his own from the holocaust, directs this film with the pain and horror of that time still locked in his mind. You can see it in every frame. 'The Pianist' is an educational tool, and entertainment piece and an acting lesson all rolled into one phenomenal achievement.
A Turkey Is Not Just For Christmas
posted on 29 Jun 2009It is hard to imagine a film more boring than The Pianist. With lumpen direction, wooden acting, a script hewn from pure corn, little characterisation and no suspense, the film, which should have been life-affirming, had all the hallmarks of a homogenised US mini-series that had been hacked down from 18 to 2.5 hours. The only thing on screen for longer than Adrian Brody, an actor who has single-handedly perfected the bewildered expression, was a Warsaw tram. The producers had obviously hired it for the day and were determined to get their money's worth. One can only wonder how this turkey picked up so many awards. I'd like to award it the Yawn D'or.
Brutal, but hard to turn away.
posted on 25 Jun 2009(7 out of 10) Of all the movies nominated for top Oscars, this one I put off the longest. I KNEW it would be tough to watch. I've seen what I consider to be the epitome of World War II films, 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Schindler's List', and I've had enough. The movies today pull no punches.
Blood, death, war, cruelty. It's why war is hell. Today's filmmakers can be as graphic and real as they wish. And I suppose that's the problem I have.
It's all so real, it hurts. One-third of the way through, I considered getting up and leaving. But like a rubbernecker, I stayed to see the rest of the carnage, and hopefully a glimmer of humanity.I'm glad I stayed. After behaving fairly 'normally' in the beginning, Adrien Brody as Szpilman gets to act his way to his Oscar nomination. The camera is rarely off him; the movie must live or die with Brody's ability to move us. By the end, you see the work that went into the part, the gauntness, the hunger, the pain. After seeing the other films nominated with the 'Best Actor' category, I believe Brody deserves the Oscar. It will probably be the role of his life.What I liked best was the 'tunnelvision'. We could often only see what Szpilman saw, like out of a small window, as if the rest of the world were this vast unknown. All we knew what was in front of us-- death and more death. All we knew was what Szpilman appeared to feel-- "Stay alive". He does, by luck and opportunities taken. Szpilman is not a hero, nor is he portrayed as one. His is but one story of the very few that survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust. There are others, but what sets Szpilman's apart is his fame and notoriety as a pianist, and the amazing 'good fortune' that allowed him to live past the war.Although I have seen enough movies involving the Holocaust, I felt more informed as to what the Warsaw Ghetto must have been like, day after day; its oppressiveness, its shrinking, its decay.I gave this movie a 7 out of 10 only because of the plethora of scenes of Nazi and wartime cruelty. Yes, I know that's how it was, and they were only being accurate. It's merely a reaction on my part to having seen ENOUGH of this horror. Otherwise it would have been 8 out of 10.Kudos to Roman Polanski for bringing his vision to the film. His childhood wartime memories obviously helped to shape 'The Pianist'. It is powerfully directed, and the best work Polanski has done in many years. Although he has tough competition, I can totally see him winning the Best Director Oscar (although not being there to receive it, of course). I will probably never watch this movie again, but I'm glad I saw it. And I'll be rooting for Brody March 30th.
Adrian Brody's brilliant performance and Roman Polanski's direction help makes this a masterpiece
posted on 21 Jun 2009The year was 2003 when I fell in love with the Academy Award movies in which instead of watching mindless movies from XXX with Vin Diseal or The Scorpion King with The Rock, I started watching movies that were nominated for Academy Awards no matter what the award was. 2002 was a year of memorable movies from Chicago and it's razzle dazzle to Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York showing how violent America was during the early years of the mafia. But no movie has touched me more deeply and profound than Roman Polanski's look at the holocaust in "The Pianist" in which the director himself was a victim of the tragic event before escaping into hiding.Adrian Brody plays real life pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who is force to move out of the apartment complexes with his family and into a small community after Hitler announces that certain parts of the country will be divided for those who are Jewish and those who are not. Wladyslaw and his family see the horrors that go on from soldiers forcing people to dance in the streets, homeless Jews fighting people for food; even at night when Nazi soldiers break into people's houses to execute Jews for no apparent reason. The scenes are so real that I gasped at first sight.After Wladyslaw and his family are moved into concentration camps to work in enslavement, he leaves where he's like a mouse hiding from building to building in avoiding the cats to get him. Years go by for the famous pianist in which the horrors are continuing in the streets for which there are a few people not afraid to die trying in the fight.The film is mainly a survival for the pianist, but the film's portrayal of what went on outside the concentration camps during the holocaust is a masterpiece that only Roman Polanski never thought he could show. Adrian Brody's performance is so wonderful that you'll be shaken by his performance; Thomas Kratchsmann as a sympathetic German Nazi soldier to Wladyslaw is another good portrayal in the film that shows how good acting can be when putting a survivalist and a soldier meeting face to face.
schindler's facelift
posted on 13 Jun 2009spielberg go home...or phone home...whatever...once you've seen this, you will realize why roman polanski is truly the world's greatest filmmaker...simple storytelling...emotional without getting schmaltzy, and with an understated beauty, polanski is back on top form...i have been waiting my whole life, all 26 years, to see a great polanski film on the big screen...know what i mean...i missed the day's of repulsion and rosemary's baby up there in all their glory (which i am very sore about...will speak to my mother about that), but here, all the emotion i have ever bottled up came out in one whopping gush...i think i was more emotional about the fact that roman had returned with brilliance...all of those who said...'but did you see 'The Ninth Gate', don't really know who roman really is...it's like people who say they hate woody allen because of 'scenes from a mall'...i mean really...sorry, digressing here...thank you mister polanski for staying true to yourself and shaping my life in more ways than imaginable...
Perfect!
posted on 11 Jun 2009This film is totally amazing. I love it and it's got such fine details or everything in. O.K i don't like seeing people dead in the streets and stuff, but it really was like that and I think Polanski has done an amazing job of making the film of someones personal experiences. I cannot fault anything about this movie and the devotion Adam Brody must have put in to play Chopin is fantastic! Being a musician myself I cannot express how hard and stressful it would have been to learn to do that in such a short time. I think that Roman has made a perfect movie here and there is not one thing that he could do to better it. The quality of the acting from all the cast in particular Adam Brody is absolute perfection. It really makes you think you are there living the nightmare with them, and this is what good films are all about. They make you emotionally attached and I am so glad I was not living in the war. It really makes you look at what you have and feel grateful for what you have been given.
Intense biography about a Polish pianist named Szpilman during the Warsaw ghetto
posted on 09 Jun 2009This is an emotionally tale and very decent drama about a pianist named Szpilman from luxurious life until terrible ending in the Warsaw ghetto. Polanski correctly directs a spellbinding portrait about the holocaust with his personal knowledge and proper experience on his childhood . Adrien Brody is excellent in a complicate and suffering role. Besides splendid actors, Frank Finlay,Jessica Meyer, Emilia Fox and Thomas Kretschman as a good Nazi officer who helps him. Evocative cinematography by cameraman Pawel Edlman, Polanski's usual. Musical score by Wojciech Kilar with brilliant piano sounds. Academy Award for best director Roman Polanski, Actor, Adrien Brody and adapted script by Ronald Harwood based on Wladyslaw Szpilman memories.Adding more details over largely described on the movie referred 'the Warsaw ghetto uprising', the events happened on the following manner : In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich chief of Gestapo began to place all Polish Jews in ghettos, where they could slowly die of hunger and disease. The campaign was to be administered by the Waffen-SS the party's military formations that fought as integral units in the armed forces. The Warsaw ghetto was the largest of these segregated areas established by the Nazis in Poland. In 1940 Heydrich, using the excuse that the spread of typhus had to be contained, set up a special section 11 miles in circumference enclosed by a brick wall 10 feet high. The cost was paid by the Judenrat, the Jewish Council of twenty-four-members, which was in charge of Jewish affairs inside the ghetto. In 1940 more than 80.000 gentile Poles living in the infected area were ordered to leave, and the next month about 140,000 living elsewhere in the city were moved in which the 240,000 still live in the ghetto. Some 360.000 Jews, a third of Warsaw's population, were herded into a 3,5-square-mile area. Meanwhile, Gestapo agents removed all Jews from the economic and cultural life of the city, from factories,shops, theaters, and libraries. On November 15,1940, the ghetto was sealed and its twenty-two entrances closed. No one was allowed to leave or enter, there was to be contact with the outside world.The situation soon became critical,Jews fought for jobs in the ghetto, including work with the labor battalions organized by the Nazis. Those unable to find work tried to exist by selling jewels,clothing, or anything else to obtain food. From 300 to 400 died daily in the Warsaw trap. More than 43.000 starved to death during the first year. Children crazed by hunger crawled through the sewers to the non-Jewish sectors of the city to smuggle in a bit of food. People were no longer moved by the sight of men and women falling dead on the streets. The Nazi authorities began intensified measure on July 22, 1942. As a memorial to Heydrich, Heirich Himmler ordered all Jews except those already in concentration camps to be deported .The ghetto and all labor camps would then be destroyed. Mass deportations to the gas chambers of Treblinka began. In two months 300.000 Jews were eliminated. The Judenrat was ordered to deliver 6.000 Jews daily for deportation. Each day thousands were driven by guards through the gates.Young Zionists, pioneers training to go to Palestine, mobilized first to be followed by members of the Polish workers party . On July 28, 1942, the Jewish Combat organization consisting about 1.000 men and boys was formed. All resolved to kill as many of their tormentors as they could before they died.The Jews fighting from rooftops, cellars, and attics,Poles outside the ghetto now began to send in more revolvers, grenades, and dynamite. In 1943 the guerrillas divided into twenty-two groups built an intricate network underground cellars and tunnels ,linked with command posts . In April 19,1943 German troops moved in on the ghetto to send all who were left to Treblinka in a final action. First came the armed trucks, tanks, and armored cars. The ghetto fighters poured a hail of bullets, grenades and bombs, the fighting went on for twenty-eight days. The guerrillas fought to the last. Many committed suicide at the moment before capture. The Germans dragged survivors from the cellars and rubble. Fewer than 100 escaped, the last 60000 Jews had been exterminated or killed in the explosions and fires.Polish sources reported that the fighters had killed 300 Germans and wounded 1000. From Warsaw Jewish resistance moved to swamps and forests.
Good movie, but...
posted on 07 Jun 2009I think this is a good movie but still I think there are much better ones about WW2 and the Holocaust. The movie is well made and the acting is very good but the subject is so worn out that it leaves you nothing. Why do they always have to see things black and white (good or bad) when war and life is not as simple as that. WW2 was awful, I agree, but give it a break and START living in the present! Some producers, IMHO, try to take advantage of WW2's "success" in Hollywood and the film's industry overall to build a name or to be liked by everyone. This sort of propaganda movies are the ones that brainwash people into thinking that some countries or people are evil and some are good without even thinking about the causes and consequences of the actions in the story (specially when is such a delicate subject as this one where the story is actually a part of history and something that affect us all). The film only drives you emotionally through it but it's just that and nothing else what makes it good. I agree the director did a great job with the movie but let us hope this is the last film about this topic or, at least, let us view some new ideas. We are growing with a very flawed perception of the world because of the huge amount of films like this one.
Language
posted on 30 Aug 2009Movies like this one always remind me of the self-centeredness of most Americans (and American movie makers). Apart from this film being a beautiful epic movie (bla bla), isn't it a highly disturbing and even ruining experience to watch a Polish family speak English with an totally non-Polish accent! What is that?! How come the Americans put up with that crap? I'm sure I would scream with laughter when in a Dutch movie about WW2 the Americans would all speak Dutch! That would be totally ridiculous. Then again, The Netherlands is one of the few European countries who do not dub movies (whereas in France and Germany all original voices are replaced by voices in the mother tongue). I just can't accept a French speaking Arnold Schwarzenegger, nor can I accept an American speaking Polish family. Those things pretty much ruin movies for me. I'll eat my hat when the American self-centredness would disappear. My experience is that they just don't care. Poland, Holland, Germany, Hungary, Bosnia: what the hell, it's all the same, innit? Like the word for the Dutch language: 'Dutch'. That means 'Deutsch', which means German. Who cares, we can't understand neither one of 'em, right?Just keep on letting Polish people speak English with each other, that makes the world much easier to understand.