100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #96: The Pianist (2002)
Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Adrien Brody.
The tragic events of the Holocaust are no stranger to the big screen. Acts of heroism, self-sacrifice, and survival abound in this particularly dark chapter of human history. Such subject matter has lent itself to some incredibly poignant films, from Steven Spielberg’s lauded Schindler’s List to our recently featured Life is Beautiful. Pulling off an effective Holocaust film takes a certain level of restraint and delicacy, as it is easy to fall into the trap of leaning too heavily into melodrama and cinematic flourishes. These are true stories about real people. Many films try to fashion their characters into something larger than life for the sake of emotional resonance and narrative thrust, often getting caught up in the large-scale political events at hand. Roman Polanski’s 2002 biographical film The Pianist recounts the events of the Holocaust entirely through the perspective of one man, Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman, grounding the story in a deeply personal, lived-in experience while reflecting elements of Polanski’s own childhood in the Warsaw ghetto.
Many will be familiar with Roman Polanski through the controversy surrounding the particularly heinous acts he committed with a minor in the 1970s, along with the numerous other allegations of abuse associated with his name. A promising directorial career, including the universally acclaimed 1974 hit Chinatown, faltered as he faced criminal charges, ultimately rendering him a fugitive from the U.S. justice system. After several uneven decades of output, he decided to return to his roots and incorporate his own experiences of the Holocaust, including the loss of his mother in a concentration camp, into The Pianist—a film whose protagonist shares many common experiences with Polanski. As deeply flawed and in need of God’s mercy as Polanski was, he was able to channel the pain and tragedy of his Holocaust upbringing into a beautiful piece of art that ultimately speaks to the goodness of humanity and the transcendent power of art. One of the dichotomies of art involves the scenario of fallen, sinful men creating works that are truly beautiful and uplifting, a clear sign of the greater power of God’s grace at work. In his essay, The Responsibility of the Artist, Jacques Maritain speaks to this apparent contradiction between the state of the artist and the art itself, using Aquinas as his guide:
