Something tells me that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences does not think the timing is right to give an Oscar to yet
another movie about the Holocaust. As war becomes more imminent and
the news continues to be dominated by the likes of Saddam Hussein
and Osama bin Laden, this country is more in the mood for the
”
he had it coming
”
message of the gutsy musical
”
Chicago
”
than the victim as survivor story of
”
The Pianist.
”
Something tells me that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not think the timing is right to give an Oscar to yet another movie about the Holocaust. As war becomes more imminent and the news continues to be dominated by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, this country is more in the mood for the “he had it coming” message of the gutsy musical “Chicago” than the victim as survivor story of “The Pianist.”
In fact, as the lights dimmed and Director Roman Polanski’s name appeared on the screen, I found myself wondering what I, the same person who had vowed not to attend one more performance of the delightful but over-produced “Fiddler On The Roof” until I turned 120 or until I was blessed with grandchildren who would be curious where their great-grandparents were born, was doing in this movie theater on a perfectly lovely evening. Hollywood and television studios have saturated our culture with World War II stories, and our hearts have been broken over and over again as we watch Jews attempt to live normal lives, knowing full well the ending to this story before the first clip starts.
No doubt the audience’s familiarity with the horrors and brutality of Nazi Germany has translated into low box office returns for “The Pianist” and probably no Oscar statue. This is really a shame because a Holocaust film by Roman Polanski, whose personal history is closely associated with this time period, has been anticipated for a long time, and the result is a masterpiece that truly offers a different story because Polanski is telling it.
In many Holocaust movies, for example Steven Spielberg’s benchmark “Schindler’s List,” there are heroes and heroics; the unusual is what makes a story so intriguing. The sad truth, however, is that anti-Semitism was the norm and that vibrant, large Jewish communities like Warsaw, the setting for “The Pianist,” were almost totally annihilated. The answer that Polanski gives to the question of how a Jew like himself managed to survive the war rings true: not acts of courage but flukes, sheer dumb luck and the benevolence of strangers.
What also makes Polanski’s depiction so creditable is that all evil is not on one side and all good on the other. As in real life, moral lines are fuzzy; there are good Jews and there are bad Jews; there are inhumane German soldiers and there are humane German soldiers. Polanski does not shirk from showing Nazi atrocities but neither is he afraid to point the finger at American Jews who, in his opinion, did not do enough to save their Eastern European counterparts from the gas chambers. It is the ordinariness of people’s lives and conversations and ultimately the random acts that determined their fate that makes “The Pianist” so believable.
Though Polanski has documented his harrowing childhood experiences in Nazi-controlled Poland in his 1984 autobiography “Roman,” he chooses to base his film on the memoirs of another survivor, Wladyslaw Szpilman, a renowned classical pianist whose career was interrupted by the war. Polanski, by pure chance, was saved from spending his childhood in concentration camps. By the time he was 8 years old, he was wandering alone in the Polish countryside; he witnessed the horrors of war and experienced the kindnesses of Catholic farm families. Similarly, Szpilman, unexpectedly saved by a family friend who is a member of the despised Jewish police, spends his war years hiding, cowering before the ubiquitous enemy, and totally dependent on others. From apartment windows and hideouts, he watches the war and is witness to such extraordinary events as the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but is not a participant.
Adrien Brody, who plays Szpilman, hardly ever leaves the screen. His performance is a convincing one as he transforms from a rather self-absorbed musician who fancies himself quite the lady’s man into a skeletal human being whose only concern is survival. Like so much in this movie, Szpilman’s comments are understated. One of my favorite lines in the film is said near the end when Szpilman is questioned by a Nazi officer as to what he will do after the war is over.
The musician answers, without much hesitation, that he will play the piano on Polish radio, or, in other words, he will do exactly what he did before the war began. Despite life’s upheavals and losses, people return to the familiarity of their everyday lives.
If you want to catch “The Pianist” on the big screen, you’ll have to move quickly and travel to theaters outside of Gilroy. Last count it was playing in just a couple of movie houses in San Jose and, unless it gets a boost on Oscar night, will probably disappear soon before it appears in video stores. With the price of gas increasing daily, however, you may be looking for entertainment closer to home.
The newest theater company in town, The Pintello Comedy Theater, will be opening its second show, “Let’s Murder Marsha,” tonight. “After 20 years of giving directors major worries, I figured it was time to don another hat,” says Rod Pintello regarding his directorial debut. The cast includes Rebecca Little as Marsha and John Fletcher, Steve Bauman, Cara Kaiser, Joline Grimes, Rosemary Benevento and Peter Svensson in supporting roles.
The good news is not only can we expect a lot of laughs from this play about a woman who misinterprets an overheard conversation by her husband about her surprise birthday present but we can also expect to find our popular hosts, Rod and Marion Pintello, still in excellent humor despite the trials and tribulations of running their own theater company. Their first show was enthusiastically received by the public, and the facility they are sharing with a church is just what they envisioned, a theater space that feels something like a nightclub without theater-style seating. For ticket information, call 776-8004 or email pi******@ga****.com.
Finally, thank you to the Board of Directors of the South Valley Symphony for hosting a wonderful concert last weekend. The audience simply would not let Pacific Brass, a British-style brass band, leave the stage last weekend. Gilroy musicians are well-represented in this 35-member band that, with the exception of the trombones, plays only instruments of a conical bore, such as tenor horns, flugelhorns and tubas. The repertoire and quality of the performance were excellent, and our own Howard Miyata, a Gilroy Unified School District music educator, brought the house down with an unbelievable tuba solo.
Hopefully, the powers-that-be on the symphony board will bring Pacific Brass to town again.
