The Pianist (2002), directed by Roman Polanski, tells the story of Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman and how he survived World War II, which began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. It is a true story based on the book written by Szpilman himself. He died when he was 88, in the year 2000 (so he never saw the film). The movie starts when the Nazis force the pianist and his family to live in the ghetto in the Polish capital, Warsaw ( ghettos were the shut-off areas in some cities where the Jews were made to live).
Polanski knows what he is talking about: he suffered the horrors of Nazism himself. He is a Polish Jew and he also lived in this ghetto when he was a boy during the war. Both his parents were sent to the concentration camps where the Nazis gassed millions of Jews, and his mother died in the Auschwitz camp. When his parents left for Auschwitz on the train they didn’t know that Hitler was carrying out the genocide of the Jews and they thought they would return: Polanski never said goodbye to his mother.
Much of the music you will hear in this film is by Frederic Chopin, a nineteenth century Polish composer (Romantic piano music).
Activities to complete while you are watching the film.
You can do them in rough, then write them up in full sentences after the film.
A) 1) Take notes during the film of examples of diegetic and non diegetic music. Here is a start:
Diegetic music
|
Non diegetic music
|
- Szpilman plays the piano when the radio station is bombed
- Etc.
|
- A wind instrument plays a sad tune while he is waiting for his brother to be set free
- Etc.
|
2) Also during the film, jot down the following:
- a) Examples of how the German soldiers start to discriminate the Jews.
- b) Examples of solidarity during the film.
B) Answer the following questions while you watch. They are in order.
1) In what year does the story start?
2) What piece of news does the family hear on the radio?
3) What instrument does Szpilman’s girlfriend play? Is she Jewish? What is her opinion about what the soldiers are doing?
4) Give an example of how the Nazi soldiers use music in a cruel way.
5) What happens to the family in 1942? Where do the Nazis send them?
6) How does Szpilman escape? What job does he get afterwards?
7) Why can we say that music saves him?
Activities to complete after watching the film
1) What do you think about the use of music in this film?
Here are some ideas:
- How does music in general contrast with war? What do you associate music with, and what do you associate war with? And therefore, how does the music highlight the scenes and the themes in this film?
- Do you think there is a lot of non diegetic music or not very much? (Are there quite a lot of scenes without any music?) And what effect do you think this produces?
2) In general, did you like The Pianist? Why or why not? Give good reasons in your answer!
|