Morally Flawed

Rating: 6/10 (27 April 2003)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***
Some Are Born Great Some Achieve Greatness Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them. Szpilman, on the hand, stayed home.
In about the first half of this film Polanski manages to follow Ezra Pound's dictum--Make It New!--to powerful effect. Although the imposition of anti-Jewish laws in Poland and the herding of Jews into the ghetto have been done many times before, Polanski has somehow made them freshly frightening and has added new (to me) details that underline the terror. Excellent--so far.
But then we have to deal with the pianist himself, Mr. Szpilman. There's a real problem here: Szpilman is an utterly unworthy person. I'm not suggesting unworthy of life but unworthy of this film. A film is myth-making by nature and Szpilman is a shabby person indeed. As portrayed here he is singularly uninvolved in anything except his music--morally adrift, in fact. At one point he half-heartedly offers to help in printing/distributing anti-Nazi leaflets but is quickly told, essentially, "you're an artist--not right for this job." Possibly that's true but Szpilman accepts the judgment too easily--almost leaps for it. (Who amongst us wouldn't at least put up an argument if told "Sorry, sonny--you're just a kid. Leave this stuff to us big boys"?
Szpilman does help a tiny bit as the ghetto Jews begin to arm themselves, but not much and not for long. He soon asks one of the leaders to help him escape and doesn't seem to notice that no one even tries to talk him into staying on to join in the uprising. Outside the ghetto Szpilman is--with the help of friends who risk their lives for him--stashed in a safe house as the ghetto erupts and then is destroyed. He knows he should be involved, even says so out loud to one of those friends--but again readily accepts the judgment that, well, he's an artist--fighting is for other people. Szpilman is happy to sit tight and read magazines until almost the very end, when he has to survive on his own. The ending is rather too pat for credibility. I was struck immediately by the fact that Szpilman never even asked the name of the German officer who let him live and showed almost no response to the news that he'd been captured. Then the war ends and he goes back to playing Chopin on the radio.
Under the same circumstances, I freely admit, I might have done exactly what Szpilman did. And I too would be unworthy. ---------
As an aternaive, I suggest Fania Fenelon's "Playing for Time" (book or movie).