Click to read the article
The Pianist (2002)
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work ![]()
Reviews Counted: 165
Fresh: 157
Rotten:8
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Consensus: Well-acted and dramatically moving, The Pianist is Polanski's best work in years.
Runtime: 2 hrs 30 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Roman Polanski's THE PIANIST is based on the memoirs of the talented pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrian Brody), a Polish Jew, who miraculously survived World War II. The first half of the film transports viewers to 1939 Poland, and brings... Roman Polanski's THE PIANIST is based on the memoirs of the talented pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrian Brody), a Polish Jew, who miraculously survived World War II. The first half of the film transports viewers to 1939 Poland, and brings it to life clearly and believably. Szpilman is a tall, handsome, winsome man who is revered for his piano performances on public radio. He lives with his family--an intelligent, loving, and spirited bunch--in an upscale flat in central Warsaw. Bombings have begun to torment the citizens of Warsaw, and step by step, the Nazis infiltrate, the Jews are branded and set apart from their neighbors, imprisoned in a ghetto, and slowly exterminated. The story is told through Szpilman's eyes, and thus carries as much confusion and fear as disgust and torment. Polanski paints Warsaw in bleak shades of gray and black, expressing the helplessness of the Jewish people and the cruelty of the Nazis with captivating photography. In the second half of the film, which takes place in the early 1940s, Szpilman is alone, having managed to avoid the trains to the death camps. His struggle to survive, with some help from non-Jews but mostly his own will to thrive, takes place in long, silent, languid stretches filled with the imagined piano music that inspires Szpilman to live. In a climactic scene of immense beauty and spine-tingling tension, Szpilman must actually perform for a German soldier who is inexplicably patrolling the near-deserted and utterly dilapidated Warsaw ghetto. THE PIANIST, in the subtlety of its sublime and heartbreaking tale, is carried by the intensely moving performance of Brody, whose transformation is truly unforgettable. [More]
Starring: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay
Starring: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Michael Zebrowski, Ed Stoppard, Jessica Kate Meyer, Julia Rayner, Ruth Platt
Director: Roman Polanski
Director: Roman Polanski
Screenwriter: Ronald Harwood
Producer: Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
Composer: Wojciech Kilar
Studio: Focus Features
Reviews for The Pianist
Here Polanski looks back on those places he saw at childhood, and captures them by freeing them from artefact, and by showing them heartbreakingly drably.
Une belle réussite fait menant à une réflexion honnête sur un sujet face auquel on aurait pu croire que tout aavait déjà été dit.
[I]t takes six or seven people to keep one half-dead Jew alive.... Wladyslaw's situation is extraordinary but what's happening on screen doesn't really feel so extraordinary. There's almost no emphasis, no point of view.
We have been to these ghettos before, seen the skeletons (both alive and dead), smelled the burning. It's not a movie at all for us, is it?
I get the feeling that Polanski is expressing through this movie how he deals with such painful scars, haunting memories, and lasting grief.
Polanski, like so many performers and artists’ managers of the present day, makes the classic mistake of not trusting the art.
Latest News for The Pianist
November 09, 2007:
Damian Chapa Preps Polanski Biopic
Love him or hate him, Roman Polanski has definitely led an interesting life -- a life that will soon receive the biopic treatment. More...
February 26, 2007:
How Does "The Departed" Rank Among Oscar's Best?
So Martin Scorsese finally has his long-overdue, much-deserved Oscar. But where does "The Departed" stack up in the annals of Academy history? More...
February 13, 2007:
Adrien Brody in the Running for "Hulk" Sequel?
It's just another piece of casting gossip at this point, but I found it amusing enough to spread around. How would you Marvel maniacs feel about Adrien Brody as Bruce Banner in... More...
November 10, 2006:
The Weekly Ketchup: "Borat" Great Success, A New Sarah Connor, "Transformers" Travails, And More!
In this week's Ketchup, "Borat" blows away the box office competition, a new Sarah Connor is set for the small screen "Terminator," and Shia LaBoeuf... More...
Related Forums for The Pianist

by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/19/04

by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/19/04

by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/19/04
More DVDs
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| Iron Man | |
| Forgetting Sarah Marshall | |
| Sex and the City - The… | |
| Leatherheads | |
| Made of Honor |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| You Don't Mess with the Zohan | |
| The Happening | |
| Paranoid Park | |
| The Visitor | |
| Stuck |

Top Critic


