Today’s random movie is DVD 1794, The Pianist. It’s a fitting random movie for this week leading up to the Academy Awards, since this heartbreaking and at times gut-wrenching film was nominated for six awards, and won three, including Best Actor (Adrien Brody). Brody is still the youngest man in history to win the Best Actor statuette. Here’s our summary of the movie:
Based on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, who was a brilliant pianist. He watched as his family was shipped off to Nazi labor camps. He managed to escape and lived for years in the
ruins of Warsaw, hiding from the Nazis.
This movie is, of course, supposed to make the viewer think about the Holocaust, but not in a black-and-white, good versus evil sense. Instead, the film’s director, Roman Polanski, highlights the shades of grey and the frailty and strength of human nature in the worst of situations.
While this film is definitely a one of the best of the 21st century, I always feel a little guilty about watching it. It’s personally hard for me to wrestle with how powerful this film is, and how good it is, with the character of its director, Roman Polanski. He has been a fugitive from justice since 1977, when he plead guilty to sexual assault of a minor, and has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault since then. How can you separate the art from the artist?