Wladyslaw Szpilman: Adrien Brody
Dorota: Emilia Fox
Capt. Wilm Hosenfeld: Thomas Kretschmann
The Father: Frank Finlay
The Mother: Maureen Lipman
20 April 2003
by Jasmine Park
In times of war, artists and musicians, with their sensitive faces and delicate temperaments, make for the unlikeliest of heroes. Indeed, Roman Polanski's latest film, The Pianist, does not do much to dispel this notion; instead, it depicts the one last experience of the Holocaust survivor that has yet to be told, which is that of the survivor who got by simply on luck. Where Spielberg, for the sake of narrative complexity, halfheartedly gave us an adulterous hero in Oskar Schindler, Polanski elegantly shows Spielberg up by challenging us to admit that not all survivors were heroes, and that, had we been there, we might not have behaved as nobly as we would like to think. In the midst of the war, the hero of The Pianist is in fact the prototypical un-hero, desperate to go unnoticed and interested only in his own survival.
The film is based on the autobiographical experience of Wladyslaw Szpilman (played impeccably by Adrian Brody), a young classical pianist from a well-to-do Jewish family who was popular on the local Polish radio. In the beginning, Szpilman shows little interest in the war; as bombs rain down upon the studio where he records, he calmly brushes plaster off his coat sleeve and continues playing, and while his stubborn, headstrong brother aspires to join the Resistance, Szpilman sides with his sister and mother, insisting that the war will end quickly. The war, of course, defies Szpilman's comfortable existence, and soon his family is relocated to the Warsaw ghetto and reduced to poverty. Various injustices are visited upon many around them, and eventually they are herded onto trains bound for concentration camps.
But at the last possible moment, Szpilman's life is spared when a friend working as an officer for the Germans pulls Szpilman away and urges him to run. As his family boards the train, Szpilman is left behind in Warsaw to fend for himself, and his family is never mentioned again, not even in Szpilman's thoughts; after this point, the film focuses only upon Szpilman's survival, as if pondering anything more might destroy what little chance he has left. He joins a group of Jewish laborers in the ghetto but eventually escapes and goes underground in the city, protected by various members of the Polish resistance, shuffled from location to location, living for years in silence, fear, and eventually starvation as the war rages on around him. Polanski maintains a careful distance from Szpilman during this entire narrative; even while we become vested in him as the film's protagonist, we can only make assumptions about what he feels, what emotions course through him at any moment. This narrative distance has unfortunately been misinterpreted by some critics as a lack of emotion altogether, yet it is integral to the purpose of the film; in the absence of narrative specificity, the audience is forced to consider what we would have done in the same situation.
In a remarkable turn, The Pianist defies the norm by having Szpilman's life depend upon the kindness of a high-ranking Nazi officer, Wilm Hosenfeld (played by Thomas Kretchsmann, who resembles a younger, gentler William Hurt). Hosenfeld discovers Szpilman hiding in a bombed-out mansion and tends to him until the war ends. The irony of their relationship is beautiful, and the sense of objectivity that allows for it makes Schindler's List look overwrought and pretentious by comparison. The famous, horrible scene in Schindler's List where a Nazi officer plays Bach while backlit by gunshots stands in stark contrast to the climax of The Pianist when, after having been discovered, Szpilman sits at a dusty piano and plays Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor. With this scene, Polanski gently refutes the dangerous argument put forth by Schindler's List - that the nobility of classical music is somehow connected to Nazi ideals of aesthetic supremacy - by showing that art can in fact serve as the delicate common ground between assassin and victim. As the officer watches Szpilman play, one can see the weariness creep onto his face; after the terrors of war, he recalls art and beauty with the same sweet longing as Szpilman.
Holocaust films often suffer from a certain revisionist pretentiousness; perhaps in the face of something so unimaginably horrible, a mundane hero would seem unworthy of a lead role. But Szpilman's story is exactly what the history of Holocaust experiences lacks in film. It is all too easy to create Jewish characters of unflagging morality and Nazi characters who are no more than one-dimensional monsters; in Schindler's List, Ralph Fiennes played the role to its best as the fictitious Amon Goeth, but never once were we able to consider Goeth as anything else. Polanski instead challenges us to consider the fate of a Nazi officer who was no doubt responsible for many deaths but was also capable of extraordinary kindness. There is a beautiful scene when Szpilman opens a package Hosenfeld has brought him and finds bread, a can opener, and, of all things, a bit of jam; the kindness of the gesture is enough to make one weep. Where a more typical film would mention the fates of Szpilman's family members in its closing credits, we only find out the last true details of Hosenfeld's life.
With The Pianist, Polanski unambiguously declares that the Holocaust survivor's narrative is, first and foremost, about survival, and that religious or intellectual analysis is, at best, merely a luxury. At a time when politics mimic Hollywood movies that temper declarations of war with lofty moral preachiness, The Pianist is the blessed, much-needed anomaly.
Focus Features presents a film directed by Roman Polanski. Written by Ronald Harwood. Based on the book by Wladyslaw Szpilman. Running time: 148 minutes. Rated R (for violence and brief strong language).
Adrian Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman
in The Pianist.
Thomas Kretschmann as Wilm Hosenfeld.
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