The life of a concert pianist demands hours, days, and months of solitary
practice before reaching a level high enough to endure and attract public
scrutiny. But then the years of a career allow no less time for frequent trips
to the cell of the practice studio where technique and repertoire must be
continuously revisited or, like a New Year’s diet that slips into the dessert
tray, will soon permit the art to laugh at its proponent.
Seeing Wladyslaw Szpilman (brilliantly portrayed by Adrien Brody) perform
Chopin live-to-air as Warsaw began its horrific occupation by the Nazis—the
music cut off in a phrase that would not be completed until the systematic
elimination of those who love art was finally halted by the same oppressors
that horrified Poland’s most famous son a century earlier—established the
non-musical theme for Roman Polanski’s deeply disturbing, but beautifully
crafted film.
As his family was forced from upper middle-class security into life in the
arm-banded ghetto to their final journey on the train with no baggage car,
Szpilman survived—saved by his fame, his friends and, ironically, by the
Jewish ghetto; police looking uncomfortable as they rationalized their “privileged” position even as they herded less compromising compatriots
into the rolling pens of death.
But even in his seclusion (arranged by the husband of the beautiful Gentile
amateur musician, drew the completely out-of-character line “You’d look so good
playing the cello,” from Szpilman in the early going) locked into a “safe” room was fraught with unexpected peril. For his minder (echoing the theme of Philanthropy—cross-reference below) leaves him to starve even as he
accepts donations from manipulated supporters.
Polanski’s penchant for unstinting detail (the atrocities presented in cold,
detached understatement) and his first-rate collaborators including Pawel
Edelman’s fearless camera, and Allan Starski’s magnificent design—particularly
the forever-haunting moonscape of the gutted ghetto as seen through Szpilman’s
lonely eyes after scaling the brick barricade, searching for safety in Warsaw’s
backyard of misery (the opening measures of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata,
like Barber’s Adagio for Strings during the helicopter killings in Apocalypse Now,
will be forever welded to this scene—making this account simultaneously revolting
and mesmerizing).
As the story progresses, the pianist—deprived of his art—morphs into the
role of silent observer, always near the action but unable to use his skill to
make a difference.
Brody has done his homework: when his fingers are required, either on the
keys or flying by rote just above them—the ultimate playing by memory—he is
entirely convincing. But, ultimately, it is the musical track beneath his
tour de force portrayal that robs this work of true greatness. With all of the
vividness of life and death, trappings and styles and even the weather in every
scene, I was astonished at what was allowed to be heard while Szpilman—literally—plays for his life, having been discovered by a German officer. After years
of neglect, both the pianist and his dust-covered piano combine for a near
note-perfect, in-tune performance. That could not have happened; the entire
spell was broken.
Polanski, like so many performers and artists’ managers of the present day,
makes the classic mistake of not trusting the art: He believes that unless the Nocturne “sounds” beautiful, the audience will not accept the Nazi’s
decision to spare the performer. But imagine the scene where wrong notes abound,
the pitch is off, the pedals malfunction, yet the inner conviction of the music
and the musician produce the same result: freedom to live and play again. That
would be compelling.
Still, this film will linger in the minds of all who experience it; the
notion that war is the absence of art in our dealings with one another will
remain as timeless as a well-written phrase. JWR