PIANIST, THE 247
Pianist, The (2002)
Synopsis
The Pianist, a co- production between France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and
Poland, is a war survival drama. Scripted by Ronald Harwood, co- produced and
directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Adrien Brody, the film is based on the
World War II memoirs of Polish Jewish pianist- composer Władysław Szpilman,
who managed to survive the Warsaw Ghetto.
Background
Władysław Szpilman (1911–2000), a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jew-
ish descent, was a popu lar performer in concert and on Polish radio before and
after World War II. He miraculously survived the Warsaw Ghetto, the Ghetto Upris-
ing, and final destruction of the Ghetto (19 April–16 May 1943). After the war,
Szpilman resumed his career on Polish radio and wrote a memoir about his war
years that was published under the title Śmierć Miasta [Death of a City] (1946), but
it was suppressed by the Stalinist Polish authorities. With de- Stalinization in the
mid-1950s the book was republished and became known to a wider readership.
De cades later, Szpilman’s son, Andrzej, again republished his father’s memoir, first
in German as Das wunderbare Überleben [The Miraculous Survival] and then in
Adrian Brody as Władysław Szpilman, a Polish- Jewish pianist- composer and Holocaust
survivor, in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002). (Focus Features/Photofest)