Essay on Essay on The Pianist

The most of films about the World War II are often built around the story of the hero – a warrior, a fighter, a savior. If the speech is going not about the fighting, but about the horrors of the occupation and concentration camps then the main place of the hero is occupied by the victim – an honest and suffering person. Being creative, the film director Roman Polanski placed the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who is neither a hero nor a victim at the center of his military plot. According to the film’s plot, Szpilman lived, if it can be named the life, six years of war in occupied Warszawa, where battles and sufferings were greater than the human mind can hold, but we can not say that Wladislaw was a warrior or a sufferer. All those painful years Szpilman survived as good as he could with the help of friends and fans without making any attempt to fight the situation, but never despair. Thus, the film’s implicit meaning is to show that music is a helpful instrument in human life, which not only helps to experience all the war hardships and pain, but also to harmonize the person’s soul and to become a place where it is possible to hide from real life sufferings.

Discussing the film the Pianist, we can mention that it is the film that has a deep meaning for any person who has experienced sufferings on the own way. There are no battle scenes in the film, as well as the film does not show the life of soldiers. Moreover, Szpilman’s story is a story behind the trenches and barracks, the story where a man is trying to survive believing in a power of music in the case when it is almost impossible to believe and to live. It is a fact that thousands of people were taken away from their homes in small stuffy trailers, thousands were shot, while others were killed by the explosions.

The above mentioned conditions brightly demonstrate the scenes how it was hard the main hero to overcome them. Viewing the film, we see that Wladislaw is in some kind of struggle, but it is hard to say that exactly his attempts to struggle helped him to survive. Regarding the struggle, it can be said that exactly music helped the main character to abstract away from the war horrors. Thus, the music occupies its significant place in Wladislaw’s destiny. In addition, music is undoubtedly important, and belief in its power and beauty certainly helped the Polish-Jewish musician, when he lost everything. It should be noted that he is also survived by coincidence, every time there was a man who helped him, or for some other reason Szpilman avoided death. It seems that someone or something invisible wanted him to survive, led him through all dangers, and maybe this fact can be conditioned by the presence of musical talent in the main hero’s soul.

The central character is completely not responsive, and this Szpilman’s feature would be repulsive, if not to pay an attention to his admirable inner wholeness. He got out of the war almost the same person as he entered it: slightly amorphous, with a confused smile on his face, but he is not smiling to his companions, but he is smiling to music that sounds in his head. The person was so devoted to music that it became his salvation, not only in the metaphysical, but in the most literal sense of the word. Firstly, it was the money hidden in a piano leg, then sale of the piano, then many fans who emerging as if by magic at the required time, then as the apotheosis, a German officer who was a music fan. It can be said that the music protects the main character from existing reality as much as Wladislaw protects his music from all the horrors, devoting many hours and even days to it. Thus, the Polish-Jewish musician filled the film and all the air around by the purity of light flying chords of Chopin, and proved that music can hide any person from existing reality becoming the part of a person’s life and the life goal.

Thereupon, we can note that Szpilman’s music has also a metaphorical meaning because it reflects all the pain of Polish people through the chords of Chopin. The main topic of the film was to show the genocide and humiliation of the Polish people, while the music presents the implicit meaning of the film, giving a contrast to human sufferings. Regarding this, we can express an opinion that all the dark side of human life presented in murders and humiliation is opposed to pure classical music which symbolizes light and salvation.

In conclusion, we have viewed the film The Pianist and proved the claim that the music’s possibility to harmonize people and to be always higher than any conditions despite the war and hardships can be considered the implicit meaning of the film.



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