Directed by Roman Polanski
A Reflection by Christine Young
The Pianist was excellent. It is a film starring Adrien
Brody, based on the autobiographical book The Pianist (1946), a memoir by the
Polish-Jewish pianist, composer, and Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman.
I saw this film on January 4, 2003, at the Cinema Arts
Center, Huntington, NY 12:30 pm.
“I was bound to the screen as though I was a prisoner of
war, a war against mankind in the flesh, on behalf of mankind’s iniquity. And
in the midst of the atrocities was a melody for the heart to hold on to—music
for the soul. Within the days and the months and the years of hell on earth,
the pianist struggled for survival along with his family; bound to their fate
like a photograph is bound to its instance in time. Herded like cattle from one
place to another; one foot in front of the other; one death and then
another, all for their own eyes to see and their senses to feel. And along the
way the pianist now and again played the love of his life; his fingers moving
ever so slightly, side by side, over the ebony and ivory keyboard of his mind.
And there was I, the fingertips of my right hand touching my lips ever so
slightly, as I witnessed again what I had seen so many times before, in so many
other films and documentaries dealing with the Holocaust. But those were films
depicting the horrible reality of a time before I was born, and I was safe
within the borders of my own time and space. The reality of my world is different now, and the detail of this film today seems more
odious to me. Perhaps it’s the realization that mankind is so
profoundly good and so appallingly evil, and time is
of no consequence at all.”
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