The Pianist

The Pianist (2002)

Timing: 2:30 (150 min)

8.376/10
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8.473/10
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8.5/10
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All about film

Video 8

Photo 70

Actors and characters

Release date

2002-09-17

Country

France, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom

Production

Studio Babelsberg, StudioCanal, Canal+, FFF Bayern, FFA, TVP, R.P. Productions, Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg (FBB), Bac Films, Runteam, Canal+ Polska, Heritage Films, Agencja Produkcji Filmowej

Genre

Drama, War

Budget

$35 000 000

Revenue

$120 098 945

Website

Director

Roman Polanski

Actors

Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer, Michal Zebrowski, Wanja Mues
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde, Timothy Burrill, Lew Rywin, Henning Molfenter

Operator

Paweł Edelman

Composer

Wojciech Kilar

Artist

Audition

Celestia Fox, Heta Mantscheff, Brendan Donnison

Editing

Hervé de Luze, Henning Molfenter
All team (55)

• Adrien Brody lost 14 kilograms for the role of Władysław Szpilman, following a diet of two boiled eggs and green tea for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and a piece of fish or chicken with boiled vegetables for dinner for 6 weeks. He initially weighed 73 kilograms (at 185 cm).
• To understand what his character was feeling, Brody moved out of his apartment, sold his car, and stopped watching television.
• During the filming of the movie, in Krakow, Polanski met a man who helped his family during the war.
• This is the first film to win a César Award for Best Film in which no words were spoken in French.
• Władysław Szpilman, a former prisoner of the Warsaw Ghetto and a real Polish pianist, died in 2000.
• In the deportation scenes, Daniel Szpilman—Władysław Szpilman’s grandson—played one of the children in the extras, and his father and Władysław’s son, Andrzej Szpilman, played one of the Jewish policemen.
• The scene in which Szpilman is saved from being sent to the camp and is told “Just don’t run” is based on events that took place in Polanski’s own life.
• The music that plays at the end of the film from the truck driving through the ruins is the Polish national anthem. That is why Szpilman understands that he is saved.
• During filming of the scene where Brody's character had to jump out the window, despite a safety mat below, Brody hesitated and asked, "Has anyone actually tried jumping out of this window?" Everyone shook their heads. "Really, no one has jumped?" he asked again. And then Polanski just jumped. From below, he shouted, "Well, someone tried it. Now it's your turn!" Brody jumped, hitting his face hard and scraping his ribs.
• The scene where Szpilman is saved from being sent to a camp and is told "Just don't run" is inspired by events that took place in Polanski's own life.