The Pianist
Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece.
Country
Production
Budget
$35 000 000
Box office
$120 072 577
Director
Actors
Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer, Michal Zebrowski, Wanja Mues
All actors and roles (10)
All actors and roles (10)
Scenario
Producer
Camera operator
Composer
Artist
Allan Starski
Audition
Celestia Fox, Heta Mantscheff, Brendan Donnison
Short description
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the deportation scenes, Daniel Szpilman—Władysław Szpilman’s grandson—played one of the children in the extras, and his father and Władysław’s son, Andrzej Szpilman, played one of the Jewish policemen.
- The music that plays at the end of the film from the truck driving through the ruins is the Polish national anthem. That is why Szpilman understands that he is saved.
- During filming of the scene where Brody's character had to jump out the window, despite a safety mat below, Brody hesitated and asked, "Has anyone actually tried jumping out of this window?" Everyone shook their heads. "Really, no one has jumped?" he asked again. And then Polanski just jumped. From below, he shouted, "Well, someone tried it. Now it's your turn!" Brody jumped, hitting his face hard and scraping his ribs.
- Władysław Szpilman, a former prisoner of the Warsaw Ghetto and a real Polish pianist, died in 2000.
- The scene where Szpilman is saved from being sent to a camp and is told "Just don't run" is inspired by events that took place in Polanski's own life.
- This is the first film to win a César Award for Best Film in which no words were spoken in French.
- To understand what his character was feeling, Brody moved out of his apartment, sold his car, and stopped watching television.
- During the filming of the movie, in Krakow, Polanski met a man who helped his family during the war.
- Adrien Brody lost 14 kilograms for the role of Władysław Szpilman, following a diet of two boiled eggs and green tea for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and a piece of fish or chicken with boiled vegetables for dinner for 6 weeks. He initially weighed 73 kilograms (at 185 cm).
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