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Lauren Rebuth
ENG 101
Final Draft
December 10 2014
The Pianist
The movie The Pianist made in 2002 is about a Polish Jewish musician struggling to
survive during World War II. Szpilman, the pianist, deals with the events in history that
happened during the war. He is very lucky to have survived the holocaust. He found a job so his
family would not starve, and also escaped the concentration camp by finding people who were
willing to help him survive. Overall, the movie was entertaining and held my attention.
The film is portrayed accurately. The setting did not seem to appear fake at all, it felt real.
All of the events that happened were based on historical facts. The movie started out in Warsaw
1939, showing the scenery and a feel for the time period. During the movie, the year for each
scene would pop up, for example when the Jews were forced to move out by 1940. By 1942 they
people built a bridge and were relocating again. While watching the movie, the scenes felt real
rather than just being acted out. All of the historical events that happened were true, from the
locations, Nazis, invasions, ghettos and concentration camps. The film uses pathos to make the
emotions feel real. Seeing Nazis burn dead bodies in the street is very sad and horrifying, which
affects the viewers. This adds to the realism and makes the viewer horrified that these acts truly
occurred.

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Throughout the movie person vs. person is seen. Most people were going against the
Jews. When Szpilman is hiding in an apartment he accidentally drops something and the
neighbor next door hears. She tells him to come out and when he does she starts yelling out that
he is a Jew for everyone to hear. Everyone was trying to do what they can to survive, including
Szpilman. Many average people were influenced by the Nazis and the ideal race, which led them
to hate Jews. Another example of person vs person is when Szpilmans dad was walking down
the street and the soldier asked him why he did not bow to him. The dad then bowed but the
soldier still ended up hitting him.
The main actor (Adrien Brody) plays the role of Szpilman very well. Throughout the
movie one can see his struggle to survive. He starts off as a normal average looking guy but then
ends up losing a lot of weight and becomes weak. While all of these horrible things are
happening, music was always a comfort to Szpilman. The music in the movie felt accurate given
the circumstances. There was never any happy and cheerful music. The music throughout the
movie is more solemn and sad. Even while the main character is playing the piano that he loves,
you can hear the struggles and sadness at the time in his music. While he is suffering, you can
see his love for playing the piano. Whenever there was an opportunity to play he did. Music was
his saving grace. Music truly did end up saving him, such as at the end when he played for the
Nazi soldier who ended up helping him.
The movie shows that humanity is full of great acts of kindness, such as when the soldier
helped Szpilman hide and gave him food, but also great acts of horror, such as the Nazis killing
innocent people. Certain scenes in the film highlight the atrocities that take place within war and
allow us as viewers to witness these horrible events as if we are Szpilman ourselves. While these

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events were horrible, they are portrayed well. It is important to get history portrayed accurately;
every holocaust movie shows death, sadness, and struggle.