248 PIANIST, THE
En glish as The Pianist. Translations into 30 other languages soon followed. When
director Roman Polanski, also of Polish Jewish extraction, read Szpilman’s book,
he saw deep affinities to his own story. After his parents were sent to concentration
camps (his father survived Mauthausen, but his mother did not survive Aus-
chwitz), Polanski escaped from the Kraków Ghetto and lasted out the war by hiding
out in the countryside. He had always wanted to make his own film about the Holo-
caust; Szpilman’s book presented the perfect source material. After putting
together $35 million in financing from a dozen Eu ro pean production companies,
Polanski hired playwright/screenwriter Ronald Harwood (Cry, The Beloved Country)
to adapt Szpilman’s memoir to the screen. Polanski wanted Joseph Fiennes for the
lead role, but Fiennes was unavailable. Over 1,400 actors auditioned for the role of
Szpilman at a casting call in London but none proved suitable. In the end, Polanski
cast Adrien Brody (The Thin Red Line) for the part. To prepare for the six- month
shoot, Brody spent six weeks dieting (and lost 35 pounds), growing a beard, work-
ing on a dialect, and learning to play the piano, of which he already had a basic
knowledge. Władysław Szpilman met with Polanski socially a few times but did not
make any specific suggestions as to how the movie should be filmed. Sadly, Szpil-
man did not get to see the film of his life; he died in Warsaw on 6 July 2000 at the
age of 88, while the movie was still in its pre- production phase.Production
Principal photography on The Pianist began on 9 February 2001 in Babelsberg Stu-
dio in Potsdam, Germany. The film’s first scenes were shot at a complex of multi-
story Soviet Army barracks buildings. Already slated for de mo li tion, the barracks
were selectively wrecked by Polanski’s production designer, Allan Starski, to sim-
ulate the ruins of Warsaw. The film crew then moved to a villa in Potsdam, which
served as the house where Szpilman meets Hosenfeld. On 2 March 2001, filming
relocated to an abandoned Soviet military hospital in Beelitz, Germany, near Pots-
dam, where scenes featuring German soldiers destroying a Warsaw hospital were
shot. Between 15 and 26 March, filming took place on a backlot of Babelsberg Stu-
dios, where Starski skillfully re- created streets in the Warsaw Ghetto as they
would have looked during World War II. On 29 March 2001, the production moved
to Warsaw for the final three months of filming. The rundown district of Praga,
on the east side of the Vistula River, was the location chosen because of its many
pre- WWII buildings (the rest of Warsaw, completely destroyed during the war, had
been rebuilt). Polanski’s art department added WWII- era signs and posters. The
Umschlagplatz scene where Szpilman, his family, and hundreds of other Jews wait
to be deported to the death camps was filmed at the War Studies University of
Warsaw. Principal photography ended in July 2001, followed by months of post-
production in Paris.Plot Summary
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish Jewish pianist,
is playing a Chopin piece live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed
by the Luftwaffe during Hitler’s invasion of Poland. At home with his family,