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Polanski's Parallels
The film The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski is both a way for the film industry to
give us a window into an unpleasant past, and the perseverance of the persecuted. Roman
Polanski has had several award winning films which have done well in the American market.
The success is peculiar considering he remains in exile as a fugitive from justice. Apparently he
has good people working for him who have helped him shape the movies he has produced to fit a
broad target audience. My initial impression of the movie was somewhat mixed. For face value, I
did not think it was a very well put together film considering the scope of the story. On deeper
reflection and as more information is gained, another story comes out in this film. Mr. Polanski
has tied in parts of peoples' personal past into the story, which are certainly meaningful. I
imagine this includes a bit of his own story. The memories of those who survived such a dark
moment in human history are sure to have twisted their lives and haunted them since.
In reading about Mr. Polanski, one can easily find that has had a complicated life. He is a
polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. His family had moved to Krakow in 1936, just a few
years before the Blitzkrieg attacks took place against Poland and other European countries. Much
like the main character in this film, both of his parents were sent off to camps while those left
behind watched helplessly. He was just a little boy when he saw them go-maybe five or six
years old. His parents did not survive their imprisonment. As with the main character in the film,
he was hidden by and lived with several Polish families. He continued his education in Poland
leading to his career in film. Source: http://www.biography.com/people/roman-polanski9443411#synopsis.
His troubles did not end after the war. He divorced his first wife, but unfortunately his
second marriage ended more tragically. His second wife, Sharron Tate, was pregnant when she
was murdered by Charles Manson's followers in 1969. In 1978, the troubled director was
convicted of having sex with a minor. The girl, Samantha Gailey, was 13 years old and he was 43
in an encounter which happened in the home of Jack Nicholson. He fled the United States to
France where he has been residing as a fugitive from justice. He has since produced several films
which have made it to US theaters, however The Pianist has been his largest success in a single
film since his exile, which brought in $120 million in comparison to its $35 million production
budget. source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=pianist.htm
In the film The Pianist, there are three main groups of people which are represented:
The Jews and Mr. Szpilman's family, the Germans, and the Polish citizens. During the German
occupation of Poland, undoubtedly there were hardships faced by all. Mr. Polanski's film appears
to bring to theater, the suffering of a man and a people. Perhaps there was a lack of humanity and
indignity on all sides which is hard to write into a script and a cast to portray on camera. There
seems to be flaws with the people and emotion in the film. Mr. Szpilman, played by Adrien
Brody-whose father was also a Polish Jew, his family and the Jewish community seem
uninvolved and callus as everything around them seems to slowly devolve. Although the
numbers are not exact, there were supposedly up to 20,000 Polish Jewish partisans involved in
the resistance. Source:

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http://www.jewishpartisans.org/t_switch.php?pageName=map+main&country=Poland. This is
only briefly depicted in the movie and his acquaintances involved appear to be regarded as
against the popular opinion.
The Polish are almost left out of the film completely. There was an unfavorable opinion
of the Jews in Europe after the first world war, however it would be hard to imagine that there
was little attempt to help the Jews, as seen in the film, even with the risk of death. Such is the
case in the history of these times, but little is mentioned. The burden appears to rest solely on the
Jewish community. The Poles may have been left out on screen, but the fact was that there were
three million Polish Jews and possibly up to three million Polish Christians killed by the
Germans. In total, there may have been up to five million non-Jewish people killed by the Nazis
during the Holocaust. Perhaps they were not persecuted the same way as the Jews, but others
also suffered. Sources:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/NonJewishVictims.html
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473
The Germans are also depicted as having a singular rotten demeanor. Soldiers forced into
battle struggle with morale as had been seen with this war, those before and those after; but these
men were still people. It is difficult to think that all of those soldiers with the exception of
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, had negative feelings toward the Jews or wished such cruelty on them.
There is no mistake people like that existed, however one can imagine that a majority of people,
including the German people of the day, do not condone murder of civilians. Perhaps all of these
things would have been difficult to put into a two hour movie as would the suffering, persecution
and systematic disappearing and execution of a people as was what happened to the Jews of
Europe during the Second World War.
On a deeper level, this movie only scratches the surface of events which permanently
altered the course of many lives and ended it for millions. The level of fear which these people
must have endured at times is not portrayed perhaps as realistically as it could have been. In that
respect, the scene where Mr. Szpilman was discovered by the Captain Hosenfeld most certainly
leaves out the racing heartbeats, sweaty nervelessness, terror and the shear amount of adrenalin
he must have experienced. Imagine if it were another German officer that day. Would Mr
Szpilman's life have been spared? Perhaps he himself could not believe what had happened.
Captain Hosenfeld does represent the humanity in war in the film to a degree. Here is a
man who has likely seen horrible things during the war, who remembers who he is. Like many
German soldiers, sailors and airmen likely did not subscribe to the idea of the genocide of
millions of civilians. Unfortunately the Nazi party had, in a way taken the German people as
prisoners. Outside the German town of Wiemar to the northwest, there is a place called
Gedenksttte Buchenwald (Buchenwald Memorial). That was one of the first SS concentration
camp and the largest on German soil. The first prisoners at Buchenwald were Germans who
opposed the Nazis. In this place there were large mass graves and ash pits from those executed
and thousands of unmarked graves at these camps which were dug and filled with German
bodies after the war had officially ended. The Russians had continued to operate the camps after

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the war to punish their German captives and seek their own revenge. Buchenwald was renamed
Soviet Special Camp No 2 and was one of ten camps the Soviets operated. More than 28,000
prisoners died between 1946 and 1947. Source: http://www.buchenwald.de/en/73/. Such was the
fate of Captain Hosenfeld, who died in another camp in what is now the Ukraine. This is a little
known fact about the camps which were in the territories claimed by the Soviets.
As a matter of personal opinion of the film, I believe it was a good story. Mr. Polanski
must have dug deep within himself to bring this film to light. I imagine Mr. Polanski has had
many hours reflecting on what had happened to his community, his family and himself. The
sadness and anger of past events must resonate withing the deepest parts of his being. This has
surely twisted him in ways which most would not understand. It would seem his later life was
also filled with hardship and controversy. I could only imagine that this film meant much more to
him than the average person seeing the story unfold on screen. There were terrible things which
took place not even 100 years ago which many Americans, including myself, will hopefully
never experience. In that regard, I wish Mr. Polanski could have been able to put more of this
into his film to perhaps make others think about how well so many people today have it and how
things may change. Let us hope that our children and the generations to come do not share Mr.
Polanski's and Mr. Szpilman's experiences other than what we can see in films or learn from
media.