MrVette99

I watch my DVD version yesterday, and I'm impressed. I haven't seen "Schindler's List" since it's veiwing at the theathers, but I'd say that "The Pianist" is as good or better. The 2.5 hours goes fast!

PalmerJoss

Definitely not. The Pianist was without question a good movie, and very harrowing and difficult to watch at a lot of parts, but it is in no way better than Schindler's List. I cringe every time I watch Schindler's List--especially when Ralph Fiennes Amon Goethe pulls out his sniper rifle and starts picking off Jews at random while everybody goes about their business as if this is a daily occurence.

Rypro 525

Is this a spoiler? I have not seen this movie yet and for the most part don't know much about it, so unless this event isn't important, spoiler tag it.
Thanks.

Iron_Giant

Great Movie!

These kinds of movies should be made every 5 to 10 years so we will not forget how one mad man can destory others and himself.

A must to Rent, but it would be great to buy.

One last question: Where is Schindler's List!!!!!

stu pedasso

Just rented it last night, and am I ever glad I did not buy it. What was the point of this movie? To show that an artsy-musician type can hide and stay alive in Nazi-occupied Poland?. Wow - big deal. I am happy for him, but why bother making a movie about it? The lead character did not do anything - he relied on his friends and other strangers to stay alive.

Don't get me wrong, I did not expect him to turn into Rambo or Bruce Willis and become the head of the resistance and start blowing up stuff. I just think he was a weak character who did not do much - he kind of let everything happen to him and was at the mercy of others for the entire movie.

The acting and cinematrography was good, but in my opinion, the character left a lot to be desired.

Thank goodness for rentals.

TELawrence

I sort of agree with Stu on the lead character but I just finished reading "Masters of Death" which is a book (does anyone read these things besides me?) which was a detailed examination of how the Nazi party "did what they did." Anyway this movie is very accurate in many parts depicting the various methods that Nazis used to segregate the Jewish population and then get them out of the cities for extermination without really causing massive revolts and what not. Have you ever thought about that? How would you do it? It's pretty amazing that they pulled it off... Anyway, The movie is good in this regard and I don't think it's been explained at that level anywhere else in cinema (maybe I'm wrong.) I agree that Brodys story was pretty soft but for the purposes of the story he didn't really need to do much...

audrey

W/o playing my daddy can beat up your daddy, I think the beauty of the Pianist is in its quiet portrayal of one individual’s story of survival. Polanski defines the atrocities in personal terms; even when we do not know the names of the aggressors or the victims, we see that these appalling acts are committed by individuals against individuals.

The point is that all of the survivors have stories; they are all heroes and each deserves to be heard. What makes the movie work for me is its matter-of-fact tone—the brutality of the Nazi’s is neither sensationalized, nor trivialized and the citizens who risk their lives to help the Jews are not gun-slinging superheroes, they just ordinary people reaching out to other human beings.

Groucho

I agree. What a terrible character. Why couldn't the REAL LIFE GUY act in a more cinematic fashion when these events WERE ACTUALLY HAPPENING? Selfish jerk.

Flynn

LOL Groucho.

I also think some of you were missing the point. This movie is incredible!

Chew

MrVette99

We should each vow to live our lives in a cinematic fashion in case we become a movie plot. I plan to script out the rest of my days, with clever dialog, daring acts, and engage in dramatic social dialog with beautiful and powerful people.

theneobez

I thought it was excellent, very moving. It's been a long time since I've seen Schindler's List, as I believe the last time I saw it was when it was shown uncensored on network television, I think ABC or NBC. Since it's been so long, I won't make any comparisons between the two.

stu pedasso

Good for you - I hope some day Mr Polanski can make a better movie about you than the Pianist.

Seriously, if you re-read my post, you will note that I said I did not expect the guy to be Rambo - I just think he is a weak character. Lots of movies use historical backdrops to set the stage for character studies/love stories/etc. I think this movie had an excellent backdrop, but the purpose of the movie was unclear. What was the message they were trying to get across?

Anyways, I guess I am still bitter that this wuss beat out Daniel Day Lewis for the Oscar. I expected more.

MrVette99

I wasn't making fun of you, in particular. Just continuing a funny thread that Groucho started.

When I was a kid (5 or 6) I asked my dad, why didn't the Jews leave Germany (and in this case Poland)? His answer was "because that is where they lived". I still don't buy into that. But I suppose your question is why didn't they fight back. Neither of those questions is what this movie is about. This movie gives a historical insight into how the world and the Jewish faith were swept up, in the inexplicable happenings of the times.

It's an important story that needs to be told to every generation from here on out, and this one does it admirably.

You might like this film a lot more in a few years. I think you just expected something different.

eedoon

I saw this movie last night and I think, while there's no way it can be compared with Schindler's List, The Pianist is still a very good movie.

Achtung

So getting away from a plot review for a second, how are the extras on the US version? Also is the transfer pretty good? I hear the transfer of the Canadian version sucks, so I'm wondering how this one stacks up as a DVD.

eedoon

The documentary in the disc is quite interesting, better than the average "Behind the Scene" POS that only shows cast and crew interview describing how great everyone are. Well, it doesn't happens here. I was quite interested by Polanski's recollection on his own experience during WWII, and he also describe the making of his film. All in all, the documentary gives me quite a few information about the filmmaking itself, and I have nothing to complain about the extra.

As for the transfer, I find it quite satisfying. It's a clean print, sharp and vivid. Good sounds too, even though you can't ask for something mind-blowing in this kind of movie.

Pants

I just wanted to jump in to say that:

1. The Pianist is a brilliant film
2. That it is better than Schindler's List which is too sentimentalized and too earnest for its own good

Schindler's List is Platoon: All realism, all earnest, and w/ all the trappings of "importance"

Where as The Pianist is Apocalypse Now: Surreal, phantasmagoric, twistedly funny, nightmarishly sick.

Pants

Here's a compendium of everything I said in the Movie Talk Pianist thread (a sort of greatest hits if you will):

It is a truely stunning film. WWII through a keyhole.

It's In the great tradition of claustraphobic, apartment dwelling Polanski suspense. With generous nods to Rear Window.

Tense, brutal, unsentimental violence, just like Come and See (one of my favorites).

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I think it is Polanski's best film in a loooong time and perhaps IS his very best. Better than Rosemary's Baby? It just might be.

What did you guys make of the scene early in the film where the little boy that Szpielman pulls out from under the wall is being beaten to death by some unseen person on the other side of the wall? I read this as being autobiographical. Polanski is either trying to comment on his own escape from the Warsaw ghetto (I understand his father pushed him through a hole in the barb wire) or is making a statement about the Tate murder where his unborn child was killed (something he also referenced in Macbeth). The image of the boy ariving headfirst under the wall is symbolic of a birth (or re-birth) but at the same time the child is dead. He is being delivered into a world already dead, or something like that. I'm not trying to turn up the pretentious cinaeste meter too high, but I find that scene, which at first seems like an odd throughaway moment, to possibly be the key to the whole film.


And that's why, more than anything, Polanski's film is autobiographical. Polanski is a survivor. Not just of the Holocaust, but of many tragedies and mistakes throughout his life.

He may never have been a hero of his own life, but he made it out alive (so far). As unheroic as that is, isn't that all that any of us can hope to do

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Not to pick on YOU in particular Badger, but it is bothersome when films THIS good get nominated for Oscars because instead of focusing on just HOW TRUELY EXCELLENT the film is, everybody just deflects the conversation over to, "was Brody really as good as Nicholas Cage...", "Does the Pianist have broad enough appeal to win", etc.

Enough w/ the Oscar talk already! This is the best film not of 2003, NOT OF 2002, but of the last 5 years. It is an extraordinary achievement. As each day passes I'm more and more convinced that it is Polanski's best film, even beter than Rosemary's Baby. It is a true work of art.

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What other holocaust movies? I can think of one: Schindler's List. And since the Pianist is in many ways beter than Schindler's List, then I think it is worthy of distinction.

I also admire the Pianist for having a dark sense of humor and not being afraid to have laughs in a holocaust film. Something that the achingly earnest Schindler's List could barely attempt.

The truth is that the Pianist's subject (the holocaust) is of minimal importance to me. What I like about it more is the range of sensation that it transmits to me. The only film that comes close is the Russian film Come and See

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Ignore the subject matter completely, like I said the fact that this is about the Holocaust ranks third in importance. Number one is that the Pianist has some of the most exquisetly crafted suspense scenes I've seen in a long, LONG time. Second is that subtextually the film is more about Polanski and his own life than it is about the Holocaust

The Antipodean

Yeah, those Jews were such wimps. I think you overlook that this is based on an actual person, and as the film quite well displays, the Holocaust was almost upon the Jews of Poland before they could react. I know we all like to think "if it were me," I'd be different, but I think in its own way "The Pianist" portrays the average Jewish survivor's experience very well. You did what you had to survive. One point in the movie I particularly noticed was,

Decker

You're right, your dad was not. Many Jews tried in despiration to escape the reign of the Nazis early on and were refused permission to emigrate to places like England, South America and the good ol' US of A. The dirty truth was that most nations were complicit in this in the sense that they turned their back on the plight of the Jews of Europe. After the war, of course, the UN established the state of Israel so that (at least in theory) something like that could never happen again.

Getiing back to the movie, I liked it a lot. Yes, it was pretty low-key and understated, but I though it was very interesting and a different view of a well-covered period in history. For all the comparisons with Schindler's List, they really are no more alike than Saving Private Ryan and Bridge on the River Kwai. Very different films, both excellent.

folgersnyourcup

I also think that another big thing that Polanski was trying to get across is that many Holocaust survivors such as the main characters of this film made it through solely through luck. The lineups, random picking of people to be killed got this across well.

I thought Adrian Brody was wonderful. He had to rely on friends and slowly making his way and hiding because that's all he had.

Pants

There's a great review of The Pianist in this month's Film Comment magazine. Puts the film in perspective of Polanski's entire output.

pro-bassoonist

"What other holocaust movies? I can think of one: Schindler's List. And since the Pianist is in many ways beter than Schindler's List, then I think it is worthy of distinction."


I am going to make a rather bold statement here that many will not like.....

First off, I believe that Polanski did an outstanding job with the Piainist, in my view the film was much more powerful than the Shindler's List.

I am however a bit intrigued why is it that only Holocaust films tend to be nominated for Oscars and are given the attention they rightfully deserve. In fact I would like to go on record here and say that in many respects I liked Adrien Brody’s performance in Harrrison’s Flowers much better. A film as brutal as the Pianist and as honest as one could expect a movie can be. However, it was never given the attention that it deserves…would it be because the subject (the recent genocide in Serbia) is a topic that “appeals” to a rather smaller audience? Ask yourself for a second…….

Whether you want to call it a Holocaust or genocide it is all the same to me, therefore to answer one of the questions above- Yes, other “Holocaust” films are being made!!

Fact of the mater is- Adrien Brody got the recognition (that he rightfully deserves) for a role that was “politically correct”. Somehow I do not recall too many movies being exposed to the general audience that deal with subjects other than the Holocaust, still having the war elements in them, and being recognized for it. Perhaps I am wrong….

Six months ago when I first analyzed Harrison’s Flowers and the outstanding job Adrien Brody did in it…no one seem to care. Yet, now when the time and subject are “right” people tend to notice how human suffering is an awful tragedy…Seems rather sad to me that war, pain, and human loss could be dealt with in such a manner.

With this said, I believe that Polanski deserved the Oscar for an outstanding film that shows the madness of human nature…truly an unforgettable work of art that stays with you long after the credits roll over. The film exposes its viewers to a period of our history that many wish to forget....and never discuss!! Therefore the making of the movie is well justified. One HAS to remember!!

Perhaps, one of Polanski’s best….perhaps!