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What do actors do for their art? Well, they gain weight (Robert De Niro in _Raging Bull_), train excessively (Demi Moore in G. I. Jane) and now, for his role as pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, Adrien Brody lost about 30 pounds. It has the effect of making Brody look skeletal and just about right for World War II Poland. Director Roman Polanski gives us an exquisitely painful look at a musician who tries to survive a war with only his music skills for company. Brody also learned to play enough piano so that his Chopin hands are passable.

The Pianist could almost be subtitled The Perils of the Pianist because Szpilman goes through so much trauma. Just when we think it can't get any worse--it does. As the story begins, Szpilman is a Jewish concert pianist who regularly plays live on a Polish radio station. As the Germans begin to close in, he stays and soon finds himself imprisoned inside the Warsaw Ghetto. He decides he can't live this way, so finds it easy enough to leave the Ghetto but increasingly difficult to survive outside. This puzzles me as to why he didn't help others, instead, depending on others to care for him. Through the kindness of gentile friends, he goes from one hiding place to another. This man had several guardian angels looking over him, but he evades capture time and time again. Guards look the other way at convenient times, people give refuge, food is discovered and a kindly doctor treats an illness. Left alone for long periods of time, Szpilman silently practices on a table top, the music running through his mind. A devastating scene is when he emerges from a harrowing hiding place to discover his part of Warsaw in ruins. He seems like the last man alive on Earth. People come and go through his war existence. The Nazis can be brutal to the extreme or--at surprising moments--helpful.

Adrien Brody's performance is perceptive and concise. Here is a man who wants to survive but begins to wonder if it is worth it. He is in the scenes most of the time, plus witnessing atrocities yet can't cry out. One memorable moment has him playing the piano with light peering over his left shoulder. By this time, he has lost so much weight, we can see the light coming through his nose. Yet, the music consumes him.

Roman Polanski, who lives outside the United States, escaped the Nazis, but part of his family did not. This is his best film in years, and one can sense the feeling of longing here. Pawel Edelman's photography is first-rate. The Pianist is also "The Survivor" and "The Storyteller." There has to be someone to document what happens, and in The Pianist (from Szpilman's book of the same title) it is a musician. In this film, music is nourishment for body and soul.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner
Submitted 12/26/02