The Pianist [HD DVD]
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Movie Reviews of The Pianist [HD DVD]
Movie Review: Superb - must see
Summary: 5 Stars
A few weeks ago, my daughter and I watched The Pianist by Roman Polanski, on DVD. This 2002 Polish-French-German-British production, is an Academy award-winning movie was based on the life of Polish-Jewish pianist Wadysaw Szpilman, a famous pianist who recorded with Polish radio at the beginning of World War II.
the movie is based on Szpilman's book that he comprised of the journals he kept during the war; Polanski hired Ronald Harwood to write the screenplay.
Polanski, who is Jewish (his father changed the family name), was a boy in Krakow during World War II, and Polanski drew heavily on his own experiences to give this movie the incredibly realistic feel, costuming, and and setting that it has. The movie was filmed entirely in Germany and Poland. Massive sets were built in Warsaw, to recreate how Warsaw used to look, and parts of the movie were filmed in the reconstructed old town of Warsaw. (Warsaw was flattened and most of Warsaw consists of high-rise apartment buildings built in the 1950s.)
There is a scene in the movie in which a family friend selects Szpilman to leave the line, which saves his life. Szpilman's journal says "Run," but Polanski shared his own experience of a similar event in the bonus features. In Polanski's life, a Nazi officer helped save Polanski's own life when the boy was age 6 by saying, "Don't run," so that the young Polanski would not create a disturbance or to make it obvious that Polanski was a Jewish boy on the run for his life.
So Szpilman's book was changed from "Run" to "Don't run" in the movie.
Very telling, that stage direction.
In Polanski's life, he and his parents saw the erection of the wall in Krakow that separated the Jewish ghetto from the rest of Krakow. His parents were sent to concentration camps where his mother, then pregnant, died. His father eventually escaped to France, where Polanski lived as a young child before returning to Poland to begin his film career. Polanski now lives in France and is a French citizen.
This film is superb and is wholly deserving of the awards and accolades it received. It won the the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Oscars for Best Director, Best Actor (Adrien Brody), and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won seven French Cesars, including Best Actor for Brody, who became the only American actor to win a Cesar.
Even though the movie concerns the absolutely horrific events Szpilman and his family lived and died through, it is uplifting at the end, in that Szpilman survives due to help from a German officer.
Szpilman died in 2000 (1911-2000).
Adrien Brody lost weight to play the role of the waif-like Szpilman, and took months of additional piano lessons to increase his proficiency as a pianist. Polanski is nothing if not a stickler for realistic details. No trickery for Polanski's films. All scenes that show Brody playing the piano, are in fact, Brody playing the piano.
Other scenes that do not show Brody playing are played by pianist Janusz Olejniczak, who also provided the soundtrack. Featured music includes Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach.
If you do not see any other Polanski movie or any other movie about the Holocaust, you must see this one.
I have deliberately left out much of the story of how Szpilman survives against all odds, who helps him, who does not, who lives, who dies, where he goes and what he sees, because you have to witness this event first-hand. The incredible scenery, the destruction, the realistic costume design, everything about this movie is riveting without depressing the heck out of you. This is as riveting a story as that of Anne Frank.
A+. An asbolutely superb movie.
Movie Review: Polanski comes back with a masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not sure if I've submitted a review on this film but here goes. After a series of disappointing films, director Roman Polanski came back with a vengeance with this personal tale of survival during the Holocaust. Winner of several Cesars and Oscars for Best Director & Best Actor (Adrian Brody), Polanski's dispassionate tone is just right for this film, never falling into sentimentality the way Spielberg did in "Schindler's List" (the only flaw in that Oscar winner) and Brody himself is consumatively excellent in the title role (he stated that he lost weight, his apartment & his girlfriend but kissed Halle Berry!!). I am planning on acquiring the HD DVD version of this superb film which also touches on the irony of war. The episode involving a Nazi officier (Thomas Kreutzman, who later reteam with Brody in "King Kong") befriending Spilzman is touching. Recommended for all lovers of great cinema!!Movie Review: Okay...
Summary: 5 Stars
Can we go ahead and not interject our very narrow modern political opinions into a historical tale about another government and country, rockygreen? thank you.
This is a great movie about another place in time, concerning a government that was not run by officials who were elected regularly by the people of the country. These citizens had no say in the political process, and could not change things if they didn't like them. And there were no human rights, because the people weren't in charge; they couldn't be electing and re-electing when the leaders didn't suit them. The citizens of this time could not popularly elect, by their own will, a candidate whose main political platform was to fix the insurance fiasco in a democratic country. :)
Movie Review: Never Expected Such a Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I have know little about the way the Germans treated the Jewish people in that war. I learned a lot about how the Jewish people suffered, and my heart goes out to them all.
I could not take my eyes off the screen. How this man suffer and his family and all the Jewish people.
From the title of the movie I did not expect such an intense movie. My applause to the director and actors/actresses.
Great movie to learn from; lots of truth about what happen back then to the Jewish people.
I sent my oldest sister a copy of the DVD, The Pianist. I'm sure she's going to love it. It's a tear jerkier.
May God Bless All The Jewish People That lost Family Due to the War.
Vivianne
Movie Review: Graphic but moving film
Summary: 5 Stars
Knowing that this was based off of memoirs I expected the film to overemphasize or exaggerate the events - like most memoirs-turn-movies do. As if memoirs don't tend to exaggerate memories enough.
During the first viewing of the movie, I thought that some of the more graphic/violent scenes were a bit gratuitous. Though as I kept watching in my second viewing, watching the graphic scenes seemed justified, and all the while likely horrifically accurate in depicting the time and place. In the end, I didn't feel like the story even memoirs was overexaggerated. They went with simple, and it worked.