The Pianist

Name: The Pianist
Genre: Biography, Music, Drama
Released: 2002
Duration: 150 min
Cast: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Michal Zebrowski, Ed Stoppard, Maureen Lipman

Roman Polanski20022h 30mBiography, Music, Drama

Why we chose it

Roman Polański’s film about a Jewish musician in the Warsaw Ghetto won Oscars, Césars and the Palme d’Or, and Adrien Brody’s performance is as hard to forget as Wojciech Kilar’s score. In September 1939 Szpilman is playing Chopin live on the radio, and alongside the piano you can hear the bombs.

Synopsis

In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman is playing Chopin in Warsaw when bombs hit the radio studio. The city’s Jews are forced into the ghetto, where Szpilman finds work playing piano in a café, but in 1942 his family is loaded onto a train heading east. Someone pulls him out of the line.