The Pianist is the amazing true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s life and struggles during the holocaust. The book was published right after the war ended but was suppressed quickly thereafter. Later Roman Polanski, a fellow holocaust survivor, made a movie based on the book. While I felt that the movie captured the general ideas from the book and showed similar scenes, there is an obvious difference between hearing the story from the first person perspective versus seeing it from the third person point of view.
One of the things that differs between the two perspectives is that in the book Szpilman describes everything in great detail. This gave me the impression that he was very attentive and always alert to his surroundings. In the movie is seems like he glazes by everything without paying very much attention. One of the scenes in the book that showed Szpilman’s attention to detail in the ghetto was his description of the “lady with the feather.” He meticulously describes her appearance and the color of the garments she is wearing. He analyzes her actions and even remarks on the tone with which she talks to people on the street. In the movie we are not given this insight because from a third person perspective is appears that he is simply brushing past this odd woman in the marketplace.
Another thing that is different between the movie and the book is Szpilman’s relationship with his brother. In the movie we are once again only able to see the outside perspective of their relationship. It appears harsh and competitive, it seems to go beyond brotherly quarrels. However, in the book we are given Szpilman’s perspective of their relationship and the reader sees that him and Henryk do care about each other and how they understand that their quarrels are insignificant. In this way we can see that while Szpilman doesn’t appear to have a very close relationship with any of his siblings, in the book we know how much he thinks about them. We are shown a side of understanding as he discusses how each of his siblings thinks and why they act the way they do.
The one large difference I see between the movie and the book is Szpilman’s thoughts about death. In the movie we see how he has to walk by dead bodies in the street all the time. However, it doesn’t seem to affect him very much. He might give them a glance once in a while but doesn’t appear to pay much attention to them. The movie portrays him as being desensitized to the corpses on the sidewalks. I felt that this took away the humanity that we see in him throughout the book. In the text I think that he shows how he never truly got used to seeing so much death. He mentions dead bodies frequently in the book. He describes their appearance, smell and how other people ignore them. I think the movie lacks when showing how the war is truly affecting him. The book paints him as being a much warmer and compassionate person while in the movie I thought he was shown as having been damaged by the ongoing war to the extent that he has lost his humanity and has now grown accustomed to the inhuman actions taking place around him.
I feel the same way you do about the scenes within the movie about the woman with the feather in her hat. In the book Szpilman is watching her from a window with a friend and gives a detailed description of what is so odd about her asking about her husband. While in the film she is someone he runs into personally twice and the fact that her husband is dead isn't even broached, which makes it seems like she is just some woman looking for her husband who is at a bar or something. When you mentioned the difference between the relationship with Szpilman and his brother it made me remember something else that bothered me about the movie. When his family is getting marched to the train he looks to his sister and says that he really didn't know her and wishes that he did. Even though that line is used in the book it is explicit that he never got the chance to say that to her which made they're parting more tragic, while the movie tried to coat a hallmark moment over the tragedy.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I thought the guy was more observing what was going on rather than feeling. Szpilman just goes with the flow. He honestly was extremely lucky. Hollywood’s skewed version still reveals how lucky he was. He more of an observer, but did a great job of describing everything that was going on around him. It is possible that he just takes everything in, but really isn’t showing any emotion or looking as if he see’s anyone as any different than he is.
ReplyDeletePeople take in everything differently, it just interesting to know how different each person’s experience was or how much Hollywood tries to skew the information, they still cannot show how horrible the Holocaust really was. They cannot because none of us has experienced it all first hand. Everyone can explain what exactly happened, what they felt, and show everything in complete detail. But we still wouldn’t be close to what they we=e going through.
Szpilman was too weak to do physical labor, but do we know what it was like to feel that inferior. The idea what it felt like to know because he couldn’t do a specific task someone else was going to have to fill in and take his place. Yes, he risked his life by smuggling in weapons, but he did nothing. Overtime standing back and observing everything going on can take a toll on the human body. Its hard to think of having little or no control of your very own life at that time.
"The movie portrays him as being desensitized to the corpses on the sidewalks. I felt that this took away the humanity that we see in him throughout the book." I didn't even think about this element until I read your post, but I completely agree. I think we lose a greater sense of how affected Szpilman was by this entire event. Something I considered though was whether or not this was done intentionally. Perhaps, Polansky left this element out intentionally since films typically lack the strong depth that books possess due to the need for mass audience appeal. I think in losing this, it's not as easy to see how difficult Szpilman's survival of the Holocaust truly was.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are significant differences between the film and book. I like how you compared Szpilman with his family in the book versus the film. It is true that the movie really does portray him as passive to his family. However in the book, one can get into Szpilman's head, thanks to the first person perspective, and actually hear how much he thinks about them.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie, I still see Szpilman as being very attentive. He goes through the entire movie practically watching everyone else. Even though the audience cannot hear him describe every detail, I did still notice his attention to his surroundings. As far as being desensitized to the corpses on the sidewalk, I agree with you! Similar to the comment above me, I really did like what you said about this element taking away from the humanity, "The movie portrays him as being desensitized to the corpses on the sidewalks. I felt that this took away from the humanity that we see in him throughout the book."
I do think that each medium has its advantage and that usually when one is adapted to the other, certain elements will always be lost.