The Pianist, Au Revoir Les Enfants and Shoah Wikipedia film pages reposted

Au revoir les enfants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Au revoir les enfants
Goodbye, children film.jpg
Film poster

Directed by
Louis Malle
Produced by
Louis Malle
Written by
Louis Malle
Starring
Gaspard Manesse
Raphael Fejtö
Philippe Morier-Genoud
Francine Racette
Music by
Schubert
Saint-Saëns
Cinematography
Renato Berta
Edited by
Emmanuelle Castro
Distributed by
MK2 Diffusion (France)

Release dates
 29 August 1987 (premiere at Venice Film Festival, Italy)
 7 October 1987 (France)
 December 1987 (US)

Running time
 104 minutes
Country
France
 West Germany
Language
French
German
Box office
$4,542,825
Au revoir les enfants (French pronunciation: ​[o ʁə.vwaʁ le zɑ̃.fɑ̃], meaning "Goodbye, Children") is an autobiographical 1987 film written, produced and directed by Louis Malle.[1] The screenplay was published by Gallimard in the same year. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Actual events
4 Reception
5 Awards and nominations
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
During the winter of 1943-44, Julien Quentin, a student at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France, is returning to school from vacation. He acts tough to the students at the school, but he is actually a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Saddened to be returning to the tedium of boarding school, Julien's classes seem uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano.
One night, Julien wakes up and discovers that Bonnet is wearing a kippah and is praying in Hebrew. After digging through his new friend's locker, Julien learns the truth. His new friend's name is not Bonnet, but Jean Kippelstein. Père Jean, a compassionate, sacrificing priest of the old school, had agreed to grant a secret asylum to hunted Jews. After a game of treasure hunt, however, Julien and Jean bond and a close friendship develops between them.
When Julien's mother visits on Parents' Day, Julien asks his mother if Bonnet, whose parents could not come, could accompany them to lunch at a gourmet restaurant. As they sit around the table, the talk turns to Julien's father, a factory owner. When Julien's brother asks if he is still for Marshal Pétain, Madame Quentin responds, "No one is anymore." However, the Milice arrive and attempt to expel a Jewish diner. When Julien's brother calls them, "Collabos," the Milice commander is enraged and tells Madam Quentin, "We serve France, madam. He insulted us." However, when a Wehrmacht officer coldly orders them to leave, the Milice officers grudgingly obey. Julien's mother comments that the Jewish diner appears to be a very distinguished gentleman. She insists that she has nothing against Jews, but would not object if the socialist politician Léon Blum were hanged.
Shortly thereafter, Joseph, the school's assistant cook, is exposed for selling the school's food supplies on the black market. He implicates several students as accomplices, including Julien and his brother, François. Although Père Jean is visibly distressed by the injustice, he fires Joseph but does not expel the students for fear of offending their wealthy and influential parents.
On a cold morning in January 1944, the Gestapo raid the school. As his classroom is being searched, Julien unintentionally gives away Bonnet by looking in his direction. As the other two Jewish boys are hunted down, Julien encounters the person who denounced them, Joseph the kitchen hand. Trying to justify his betrayal in the face of Julien's mute disbelief, Joseph tells him, "Don't act so pious. There's a war on, kid."
As the students are lined up in the school courtyard, a Gestapo officer denounces the illegal nature of Père Jean's actions. He further accuses all French people of being weak and undisciplined. Meanwhile, Père Jean and the three Jewish students are led away by the officers. Père Jean shouts: "Au revoir, les enfants! À bientôt!" to the children and they respond: "Au revoir, mon père!"
The film ends with an older Julien providing a voiceover epilogue:
"Bonnet, Negus and Dupre died at Auschwitz; Father Jean at Mauthausen. The school reopened its doors in October. More than 40 years have passed, but I'll remember every second of that January morning until the day I die."
Cast[edit]
Gaspard Manesse as Julien Quentin
Raphaël Fejtö as Jean Kippelstein, alias "Jean Bonnet"
Francine Racette as Mme Quentin (Julien's mother)
Stanislas Carré de Malberg as François Quentin (Julien's older brother)
Philippe Morier-Genoud as Father Jean/Père Jean
François Berléand as Father Michel/Père Michel
François Négret as Joseph (kitchen helper)
Peter Fitz as Muller
Pascal Rivet as Boulanger
Benoît Henriet as Ciron
Richard Leboeuf as Sagard
Xavier Legrand as Babinot
Arnaud Henriet as Negus
Actual events[edit]
The film is based on events in the childhood of the director, Louis Malle, who at age 11 was attending a Roman Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau. One day, he witnessed a Gestapo raid in which three Jewish students and a Jewish teacher were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The school's headmaster, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring them and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. He died shortly after the camp was liberated by the U.S. Army, having refused to leave until the last French prisoner was repatriated. Forty years later Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, granted Père Jacques the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
Reception[edit]
The movie was extremely well received by critics and has a 96% positive rating at the critics-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.[2] [3][4][5][6]
The film was also a box office success having 3,488,460 admissions in France and grossing $4,542,825 in North America.[7]
Awards and nominations[edit]
The film won the Golden Lion award at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. At the 1988 César Awards, it won in seven categories, including Best Director, Best Film and Best Writing. It was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 60th Academy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1988 Golden Globe Awards.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Champlin, Charles (18 February 1988). "'Au Revoir Les Enfants' Rooted in the Memory of Louis Malle". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
2.Jump up ^ Thomas, Kevin (16 December 1987). "Movie Review: Les Enfants, Malle's Tale of Occupied France". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
3.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (18 March 1988). "Au Revoir Les Enfants". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
4.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (12 February 1988). "Au revoir, les enfants (1987)". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
5.Jump up ^ Corliss, Richard (1988). "Cinema: Hard Rites Of Passage". TIME. Retrieved 29 June 2012.(subscription required)
6.Jump up ^ Rotten Tomatoes (2012). "Au Revoir, les Enfants". Rottentomatoes.com. Flixster. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Klady, Leonard (8 January 1989). "Box Office Champs, Chumps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
External links[edit]

Portal icon France portal
Au revoir les enfants at the Internet Movie Database
Au revoir les enfants at AllMovie
Au Revoir les Enfants screenplay at Google Books
Criterion Collection essay by Philip Kemp


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Louis Malle





















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
French submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film


















































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
César Award for Best Film



















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Golden Lion winning films







































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year













































  


Categories: 1987 films
1980s drama films
West German films
Films about Roman Catholicism
Films about the French Resistance
Films directed by Louis Malle
French films
French coming-of-age films
French-language films
French war films
Holocaust films
Leone d'Oro winners
The Holocaust in France
War drama films
Louis Delluc Prize winners




Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Català
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
עברית
ქართული
Nederlands
日本語
Polski
Português
Русский
Suomi
Edit links
This page was last modified on 22 December 2014, at 12:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_revoir_les_enfants























Au revoir les enfants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Au revoir les enfants
Goodbye, children film.jpg
Film poster

Directed by
Louis Malle
Produced by
Louis Malle
Written by
Louis Malle
Starring
Gaspard Manesse
Raphael Fejtö
Philippe Morier-Genoud
Francine Racette
Music by
Schubert
Saint-Saëns
Cinematography
Renato Berta
Edited by
Emmanuelle Castro
Distributed by
MK2 Diffusion (France)

Release dates
 29 August 1987 (premiere at Venice Film Festival, Italy)
 7 October 1987 (France)
 December 1987 (US)

Running time
 104 minutes
Country
France
 West Germany
Language
French
German
Box office
$4,542,825
Au revoir les enfants (French pronunciation: ​[o ʁə.vwaʁ le zɑ̃.fɑ̃], meaning "Goodbye, Children") is an autobiographical 1987 film written, produced and directed by Louis Malle.[1] The screenplay was published by Gallimard in the same year. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Actual events
4 Reception
5 Awards and nominations
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
During the winter of 1943-44, Julien Quentin, a student at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France, is returning to school from vacation. He acts tough to the students at the school, but he is actually a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Saddened to be returning to the tedium of boarding school, Julien's classes seem uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano.
One night, Julien wakes up and discovers that Bonnet is wearing a kippah and is praying in Hebrew. After digging through his new friend's locker, Julien learns the truth. His new friend's name is not Bonnet, but Jean Kippelstein. Père Jean, a compassionate, sacrificing priest of the old school, had agreed to grant a secret asylum to hunted Jews. After a game of treasure hunt, however, Julien and Jean bond and a close friendship develops between them.
When Julien's mother visits on Parents' Day, Julien asks his mother if Bonnet, whose parents could not come, could accompany them to lunch at a gourmet restaurant. As they sit around the table, the talk turns to Julien's father, a factory owner. When Julien's brother asks if he is still for Marshal Pétain, Madame Quentin responds, "No one is anymore." However, the Milice arrive and attempt to expel a Jewish diner. When Julien's brother calls them, "Collabos," the Milice commander is enraged and tells Madam Quentin, "We serve France, madam. He insulted us." However, when a Wehrmacht officer coldly orders them to leave, the Milice officers grudgingly obey. Julien's mother comments that the Jewish diner appears to be a very distinguished gentleman. She insists that she has nothing against Jews, but would not object if the socialist politician Léon Blum were hanged.
Shortly thereafter, Joseph, the school's assistant cook, is exposed for selling the school's food supplies on the black market. He implicates several students as accomplices, including Julien and his brother, François. Although Père Jean is visibly distressed by the injustice, he fires Joseph but does not expel the students for fear of offending their wealthy and influential parents.
On a cold morning in January 1944, the Gestapo raid the school. As his classroom is being searched, Julien unintentionally gives away Bonnet by looking in his direction. As the other two Jewish boys are hunted down, Julien encounters the person who denounced them, Joseph the kitchen hand. Trying to justify his betrayal in the face of Julien's mute disbelief, Joseph tells him, "Don't act so pious. There's a war on, kid."
As the students are lined up in the school courtyard, a Gestapo officer denounces the illegal nature of Père Jean's actions. He further accuses all French people of being weak and undisciplined. Meanwhile, Père Jean and the three Jewish students are led away by the officers. Père Jean shouts: "Au revoir, les enfants! À bientôt!" to the children and they respond: "Au revoir, mon père!"
The film ends with an older Julien providing a voiceover epilogue:
"Bonnet, Negus and Dupre died at Auschwitz; Father Jean at Mauthausen. The school reopened its doors in October. More than 40 years have passed, but I'll remember every second of that January morning until the day I die."
Cast[edit]
Gaspard Manesse as Julien Quentin
Raphaël Fejtö as Jean Kippelstein, alias "Jean Bonnet"
Francine Racette as Mme Quentin (Julien's mother)
Stanislas Carré de Malberg as François Quentin (Julien's older brother)
Philippe Morier-Genoud as Father Jean/Père Jean
François Berléand as Father Michel/Père Michel
François Négret as Joseph (kitchen helper)
Peter Fitz as Muller
Pascal Rivet as Boulanger
Benoît Henriet as Ciron
Richard Leboeuf as Sagard
Xavier Legrand as Babinot
Arnaud Henriet as Negus
Actual events[edit]
The film is based on events in the childhood of the director, Louis Malle, who at age 11 was attending a Roman Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau. One day, he witnessed a Gestapo raid in which three Jewish students and a Jewish teacher were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The school's headmaster, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring them and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. He died shortly after the camp was liberated by the U.S. Army, having refused to leave until the last French prisoner was repatriated. Forty years later Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, granted Père Jacques the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
Reception[edit]
The movie was extremely well received by critics and has a 96% positive rating at the critics-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.[2] [3][4][5][6]
The film was also a box office success having 3,488,460 admissions in France and grossing $4,542,825 in North America.[7]
Awards and nominations[edit]
The film won the Golden Lion award at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. At the 1988 César Awards, it won in seven categories, including Best Director, Best Film and Best Writing. It was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 60th Academy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1988 Golden Globe Awards.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Champlin, Charles (18 February 1988). "'Au Revoir Les Enfants' Rooted in the Memory of Louis Malle". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
2.Jump up ^ Thomas, Kevin (16 December 1987). "Movie Review: Les Enfants, Malle's Tale of Occupied France". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
3.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (18 March 1988). "Au Revoir Les Enfants". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
4.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (12 February 1988). "Au revoir, les enfants (1987)". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
5.Jump up ^ Corliss, Richard (1988). "Cinema: Hard Rites Of Passage". TIME. Retrieved 29 June 2012.(subscription required)
6.Jump up ^ Rotten Tomatoes (2012). "Au Revoir, les Enfants". Rottentomatoes.com. Flixster. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Klady, Leonard (8 January 1989). "Box Office Champs, Chumps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
External links[edit]

Portal icon France portal
Au revoir les enfants at the Internet Movie Database
Au revoir les enfants at AllMovie
Au Revoir les Enfants screenplay at Google Books
Criterion Collection essay by Philip Kemp


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Louis Malle





















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
French submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film


















































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
César Award for Best Film



















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Golden Lion winning films







































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year













































  


Categories: 1987 films
1980s drama films
West German films
Films about Roman Catholicism
Films about the French Resistance
Films directed by Louis Malle
French films
French coming-of-age films
French-language films
French war films
Holocaust films
Leone d'Oro winners
The Holocaust in France
War drama films
Louis Delluc Prize winners




Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Català
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
עברית
ქართული
Nederlands
日本語
Polski
Português
Русский
Suomi
Edit links
This page was last modified on 22 December 2014, at 12:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_revoir_les_enfants
























The Pianist (2002 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

"Le Pianiste" redirects here. For the 2001 French film originally titled La Pianiste, see The Piano Teacher (2001 film).


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2012)

The Pianist
150m
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Roman Polanski
 Robert Benmussa
Alain Sarde
Screenplay by
Ronald Harwood
Based on
The Pianist
 by Władysław Szpilman
Starring
Adrien Brody
Thomas Kretschmann
Frank Finlay
Maureen Lipman
Emilia Fox
Michał Żebrowski
Music by
Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography
Paweł Edelman
Edited by
Hervé de Luze

Production
 company

Studio Canal+
Canal+
Studio Babelsberg

Distributed by
Universal Studios

Release dates

24 May 2002 (Cannes)
6 September 2002 (Poland)
6 March 2003 (UK)


Running time
 150 minutes
Country
France
 United Kingdom
 Poland
 Germany
Language
English
 Polish
 German
 Russian
 French
 Turkish
Budget
$35 million
Box office
$120,072,577
The Pianist is a historical film drama of 2002 co-produced and directed by Roman Polanski, scripted by Ronald Harwood, and starring Adrien Brody.[1] It is based on the autobiographical book The Pianist, a World War II memoir by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman. The film was a co-production between the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland.
The Pianist met with significant critical praise and received multiple awards and nominations. It was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[2] At the 75th Academy Awards, The Pianist won Oscars for Best Director (Polanski), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood), and Best Actor (Brody), and was also nominated for four other awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film and BAFTA Award for Best Direction in 2003 and seven French Césars including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Brody.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception
5 Home release
6 Music
7 Accolades
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland which caused the outbreak of World War II. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman rejoices with his family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. But Poland's allies do not live up to their promises of aid, and with both the German and Russian armies invading Poland at the same time on different fronts, fighting lasts for just over a month. German troops soon enter Warsaw, where life for Jews deteriorates as the Nazi authorities prevent them from working or owning businesses and force them to wear blue Star of David armbands.



 Photograph of Władysław Szpilman
By November 1940, Szpilman and his family are forced from their home into the overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto, where conditions only get worse. People starve, the guards are brutal, and dead bodies are left lying in the streets. On one occasion, the Szpilmans witness the SS kill an entire family during a round-up in an apartment across the street.
On 16 August 1942 the family are deported to Treblinka extermination camp, but Wladyslaw survives at the Umschlagplatz, due to an intervention from a friend in the Jewish Ghetto Police. Szpilman becomes a slave labourer and learns of a coming Jewish revolt. He helps by smuggling weapons into the ghetto, narrowly avoiding a suspicious guard. He then manages to escape and goes into hiding with help from a non-Jewish friend, Andrzej Bogucki, and his wife Janina.
In April 1943 Szpilman watches from his window the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that he aided and its ultimate failure. After a neighbor discovers him hiding, Szpilman is forced to flee and is provided with a second hiding place. He is shown into a room with a piano yet is compelled to keep quiet while beginning to suffer from jaundice.
In August 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish resistance attacks a German building across the street from Szpilman's hideout. A tank shells his apartment, forcing him to flee and hide elsewhere. Over the course of the following months, the city is destroyed and abandoned, leaving Szpilman alone to search desperately for shelter and supplies among the ruins. He eventually makes his way to an abandoned house, where he finds a can of peaches. While trying to open it he is discovered by the Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld, who learns that Szpilman is a pianist and asks him to play on a grand piano in the house. The decrepit Szpilman plays Chopin's Ballade in G minor, which moves Hosenfeld enough that he allows Szpilman to hide in the attic of the empty house, where the German officer regularly brings him food.
In January 1945, the Germans are forced to retreat due to the advance of the Red Army. Hosenfeld meets Szpilman for the last time and promises he will listen to him on Polish Radio after the war. He gives Szpilman his greatcoat to keep warm and leaves. However, this has almost fatal consequences for Szpilman when he is mistaken for a German officer, when trying to hug the Polish soldiers and is shot at by Polish troops liberating Warsaw, who then find he's Polish and save him. In Spring 1945, former inmates of a Nazi concentration camp pass a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp holding captured German soldiers and verbally abuse them. Hosenfeld, among those captured, overhears a released inmate lament over his former career as a violinist. He asks the violinist if he knows Szpilman, which he confirms. Hosenfeld wishes for Szpilman to return the favor and help release him. Sometime later, the violinist is able to bring Szpilman back to the site but they find it has been long abandoned.
Later, Szpilman works for Polish Radio and performs Chopin's Grand Polonaise brillante to a large and prestigious audience. An epilogue states that Szpilman died at the age of 88 in the year 2000 while Hosenfeld died in Soviet captivity in 1952.
Cast[edit]
##Adrien Brody as Władysław Szpilman
##Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld
##Frank Finlay as Father Szpilman
##Maureen Lipman as Mother Szpilman
##Emilia Fox as Dorota
##Ed Stoppard as Henryk
##Julia Rayner as Regina
##Jessica Kate Meyer as Halina
##Ronan Vibert as Andrzej Bogucki
##Ruth Platt as Janina Bogucki
##Michał Żebrowski as Jurek
##Roy Smiles as Itzhak Heller
##Richard Ridings as Mr. Lipa
##Daniel Caltagirone as Majorek
##Valentine Pelka as Dorota's Husband
##Zbigniew Zamachowski as Customer with Coins
Production[edit]
The story had deep connections with director Roman Polanski because he escaped from the Kraków Ghetto as a child after the death of his mother. He ended up living in a Polish farmer's barn until the war's end. His father almost died in the camps, but they reunited after the end of World War II.
Joseph Fiennes was Polanski's first choice for the lead role, but he turned it down due to a previous commitment to the theatre. Over 1,400 actors auditioned for the role of Szpilman at a casting call in London. Unsatisfied with all who tried, Polanski sought to cast Adrien Brody, whom he saw as ideal for the role during their first meeting in Paris.
Principal photography on The Pianist began on 9 February 2001 in Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam, Germany. The Warsaw Ghetto and the surrounding city were recreated on the backlot of Babelsberg Studio as they would have looked during the war. Old Soviet Army barracks were used to create the ruined city, as they were going to be destroyed anyway.
The first scenes of the film were shot at the old army barracks. Soon after, the film crew moved to a villa in Potsdam, which served as the house where Szpilman meets Hosenfeld. On 2 March 2001, filming then moved to an abandoned Soviet military hospital in Beelitz, Germany. The scenes that featured German soldiers destroying a Warsaw hospital with flamethrowers were filmed here. On 15 March, filming finally moved to Babelsberg Studios. The first scene shot at the studio was the complex and technically demanding scene in which Szpilman witnesses the ghetto uprising.
Filming at the studios ended on 26 March and moved to Warsaw on 29 March. The rundown district of Praga was chosen for filming because of its abundance of original buildings. The art department built onto these original buildings, re-creating World War II–era Poland with signs and posters from the period. Additional filming also took place around Warsaw. The Umschlagplatz scene where Szpilman, his family and hundreds of other Jews wait to be taken to the extermination camps was filmed at the National Defence University of Warsaw.
Principal photography ended in July 2001 and was followed by months of post-production in Paris, France.
Reception[edit]
The Pianist received high critical acclaim and Brody's performance received extreme praise. It has a 96% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 178 reviews with an average rating of 8.2/10 and the consensus, "Well-acted and dramatically moving, The Pianist is Polanski's best work in years."[3] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, gave the film a score of 85/100, based on 40 reviews from critics.[4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a positive review of the film, noting that "perhaps that impassive quality reflects what [director Roman] Polanski wants to say... By showing Szpilman as a survivor but not a fighter or a hero—as a man who does all he can to save himself, but would have died without enormous good luck and the kindness of a few non-Jews—Polanski is reflecting... his own deepest feelings: that he survived, but need not have, and that his mother died and left a wound that had never healed."[5] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune said that the film "is the best dramatic feature I've seen on the Holocaust experience, so powerful a statement on war, inhumanity and art's redemption that it may signal Polanski's artistic redemption." He would later go on to say that the film "illustrates that theme and proves that Polanski's own art has survived the chaos of his life -- and the hell that war and bigotry once made of it."[6] Richard Schickel of Time called it a "raw, unblinkable film" and said that "We admire this film for its harsh objectivity and refusal to seek our tears, our sympathies."[7] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the film "contains moments of irony, of ambiguity and of strange beauty, as when we finally get a look at Warsaw and see a panorama of destruction, a world of color bombed into black-and-white devastation." He also said that "In the course of showing us a struggle for survival, in all its animal simplicity, Polanski also gives us humanity, in all its complexity."[8] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said that Szpilman "comes to resemble one of Samuel Beckett's gaunt existential clowns, shambling through a barren, bombed-out landscape clutching a jar of pickles. He is like the walking punchline to a cosmic jest of unfathomable cruelty." He also felt that "Szpilman's encounter, in the war's last days, with a music-loving Nazi officer... ...courted sentimentality by associating the love of art with moral decency, an equation the Nazis themselves, steeped in Beethoven and Wagner, definitively refuted."[9]
Home release[edit]
The Pianist was released on DVD on 26 May 2003 in a double-sided disc Special Edition DVD, with the film on one side and special features on the other. Some Bonus Material included a making-of, interviews with Brody, Polanski, and Harwood, and clips of Szpilman playing the piano. The Polish DVD edition included an audio commentary track by production designer Starski and director of photography Edelman.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on HD-DVD on 8 January 2008 with extras comprising the featurette "A Story of Survival" and rare footage of the real Władysław Szpilman playing his piano, as well as additional interviews with Adrien Brody and other crew.
Optimum Home Entertainment released The Pianist to the European market on Blu-ray as part of their StudioCanal Collection on 13 September 2010,[10] the film's second release on Blu-ray. The first was troublesome due to issues with subtitles; the initial BD lacked subtitles for spoken German dialogue. Optimum later rectified this[11] but the initial release also lacked notable special features. The StudioCanal Collection version includes an extensive Behind the Scenes look as well as several interviews with the makers of the film and Szpilman's relatives.[12]
Music[edit]
Further information: The Pianist (soundtrack)
##The piano piece heard at the beginning of the film is Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor Lento con gran espressione, Op. posth.
##The first measures of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Allegro maestoso) are played by Szpilman in the Restaurant. The Concerto is improvised on the theme Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą (I Have a Date with Her at Nine), a Polish tango composed by Henryk Wars in 1937.
##The piano piece that is heard being played by a next door neighbour while Szpilman was in hiding at an apartment is also an arrangement of Umowilem sie z nia na dziewiata.
##The piano music heard in the abandoned house when Szpilman had just discovered a hiding place in the attic is the Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight Sonata) by Beethoven. It would later be revealed that German officer Hosenfeld was the pianist. The German composition juxtaposed with the mainly Polish/Chopin selection of Szpilman.
##The piano piece played when Szpilman is confronted by Hosenfeld is Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, but the version played in the movie was shortened (the entire piece lasts about 10 minutes).
##The cello piece heard at the middle of the film, played by Dorota, is the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.
##The piano piece heard at the end of the film, played with an orchestra, is Chopin's Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22.
##Shots of Szpilman's hands playing the piano in close-up were performed by Polish classical pianist Janusz Olejniczak (b. 1952), who also performed on the soundtrack.
##Since Polański wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, any scene showing Brody playing was actually his playing overdubbed by recordings performed by Janusz Olejniczak. In order for Brody's playing to look like it was at the level of Władysław Szpilman's, he spent many months prior to and during the filming practicing so that his keystrokes on the piano would convince viewers that Brody himself was playing. It was never specified whether or not it was actually Adrien Brody playing at certain points in the film, such as the beginning where Władysław Szpilman's playing is interrupted by German bombing.
Accolades [edit]
Wins##Academy Award for Best Actor – Adrien Brody
##Academy Award for Best Director – Roman Polanski
##Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay – Ronald Harwood
##Palme d'Or, 2002 Cannes Film Festival[2]
##BAFTA Award for Best Film
##BAFTA Award for Best Direction – Roman Polanski
##César Award for Best Actor
##César Award for Best Director
##César Award for Best Film
##César Award for Best Music Written for a Film
##César Award for Best Cinematography
##César Award for Best Production Design
##César Award for Best Sound
##Goya Award for Best European Film
Nominations##Academy Award for Best Cinematography – Paweł Edelman
##Academy Award for Best Costume Design – Anna B. Sheppard
##Academy Award for Film Editing – Hervé de Luze
##Academy Award for Best Picture
##BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role – Adrien Brody
##BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay – Ronald Harwood
##BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography – Paweł Edelman
##BAFTA Award for Best Sound – Jean-Marie Blondel, Dean Humphreys, Gérard Hardy
##Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama – Adrien Brody
##Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
See also[edit]
##List of Holocaust films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Hare, William (2004). LA Noir: Nine Dark Visions of the City of Angels. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland and Company. p. 207. ISBN 0-7864-1801-X.
2.^ Jump up to: a b "Festival de Cannes: The Pianist". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
3.Jump up ^ "The Pianist". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
4.Jump up ^ "The Pianist". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
5.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (3 January 2003). "The Pianist". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Wilmington, Michael (January 5, 2003). "Polanski's `Pianist' may put `profligate dwarf' in better light". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Schickel, Richard (December 15, 2002). "Have a Very Leo Noel". Time. p. 4. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
8.Jump up ^ LaSalle, Mick (January 3, 2003). "Masterpiece / Polanski's 'The Pianist' is a true account of one man's survival in the Warsaw ghetto". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
9.Jump up ^ Scott, A.O. (December 27, 2002). "Surviving the Warsaw Ghetto Against Steep Odds". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
10.Jump up ^ "StudioCanal Collection". Retrieved 24 June 2010.
11.Jump up ^ "Problems with initial BD release". Retrieved 1 August 2010.
12.Jump up ^ "The Pianist on BD". Retrieved 1 August 2010.
External links[edit]
##The Pianist at the Internet Movie Database
##The Pianist at AllMovie
##The Pianist at Box Office Mojo
##The Pianist at Metacritic
##The Pianist at Rotten Tomatoes
##Wladyslaw Szpilman's personal Website: The Pianist - The book
##Szpilman's Warsaw: The History behind The Pianist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
##The Pianist at culture.pl

Awards
Preceded by
Amélie Goya Award for Best European Film
 2002 Succeeded by
Good Bye Lenin!


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Roman Polanski




















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Palme d'Or winning films




























































































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
César Award for Best Film



















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
BAFTA Award for Best Film

















































































  


Categories: 2002 films
2000s biographical films
2000s drama films
Best Film César Award winners
British films
British war drama films
British biographical films
English-language films
Films about pianos and pianists
Films about classical music and musicians
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films based on biographies
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance
Films featuring a Best Actor César Award winning performance
Films set in Poland
Films set in Warsaw
Films shot in Poland
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in the 1940s
Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Focus Features films
French films
French drama films
French war films
German films
German drama films
German war films
German-language films
Holocaust films
Jewish Polish history
Musical films based on actual events
Palme d'Or winners
Polish films
Russian-language films
StudioCanal films
War drama films
World War II films based on actual events
Babelsberg Studio films
Film scores by Wojciech Kilar
Władysław Szpilman
Polish biographical films
German biographical films








Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
العربية
Azərbaycanca
বাংলা
Български
Bosanski
Català
Čeština
Cymraeg
Dansk
Deutsch
Ελληνικά
Español
Esperanto
Euskara
فارسی
Français
Galego
한국어
Հայերեն
हिन्दी
Hrvatski
Bahasa Indonesia
Italiano
עברית
ქართული
Latina
Magyar
Македонски
മലയാളം
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Oʻzbekcha
Polski
Português
Română
Русский
Slovenčina
Српски / srpski
Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
Suomi
Svenska
தமிழ்
ไทย
Türkçe
Українська
Tiếng Việt
中文
Тыва дыл
Edit links
This page was last modified on 13 January 2015, at 18:40.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pianist_(2002_film)




















The Pianist (2002 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

"Le Pianiste" redirects here. For the 2001 French film originally titled La Pianiste, see The Piano Teacher (2001 film).


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2012)

The Pianist
150m
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Roman Polanski
Produced by
Roman Polanski
 Robert Benmussa
Alain Sarde
Screenplay by
Ronald Harwood
Based on
The Pianist
 by Władysław Szpilman
Starring
Adrien Brody
Thomas Kretschmann
Frank Finlay
Maureen Lipman
Emilia Fox
Michał Żebrowski
Music by
Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography
Paweł Edelman
Edited by
Hervé de Luze

Production
 company

Studio Canal+
Canal+
Studio Babelsberg

Distributed by
Universal Studios

Release dates

24 May 2002 (Cannes)
6 September 2002 (Poland)
6 March 2003 (UK)


Running time
 150 minutes
Country
France
 United Kingdom
 Poland
 Germany
Language
English
 Polish
 German
 Russian
 French
 Turkish
Budget
$35 million
Box office
$120,072,577
The Pianist is a historical film drama of 2002 co-produced and directed by Roman Polanski, scripted by Ronald Harwood, and starring Adrien Brody.[1] It is based on the autobiographical book The Pianist, a World War II memoir by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman. The film was a co-production between the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland.
The Pianist met with significant critical praise and received multiple awards and nominations. It was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.[2] At the 75th Academy Awards, The Pianist won Oscars for Best Director (Polanski), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood), and Best Actor (Brody), and was also nominated for four other awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film and BAFTA Award for Best Direction in 2003 and seven French Césars including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Brody.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception
5 Home release
6 Music
7 Accolades
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland which caused the outbreak of World War II. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman rejoices with his family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. But Poland's allies do not live up to their promises of aid, and with both the German and Russian armies invading Poland at the same time on different fronts, fighting lasts for just over a month. German troops soon enter Warsaw, where life for Jews deteriorates as the Nazi authorities prevent them from working or owning businesses and force them to wear blue Star of David armbands.



 Photograph of Władysław Szpilman
By November 1940, Szpilman and his family are forced from their home into the overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto, where conditions only get worse. People starve, the guards are brutal, and dead bodies are left lying in the streets. On one occasion, the Szpilmans witness the SS kill an entire family during a round-up in an apartment across the street.
On 16 August 1942 the family are deported to Treblinka extermination camp, but Wladyslaw survives at the Umschlagplatz, due to an intervention from a friend in the Jewish Ghetto Police. Szpilman becomes a slave labourer and learns of a coming Jewish revolt. He helps by smuggling weapons into the ghetto, narrowly avoiding a suspicious guard. He then manages to escape and goes into hiding with help from a non-Jewish friend, Andrzej Bogucki, and his wife Janina.
In April 1943 Szpilman watches from his window the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that he aided and its ultimate failure. After a neighbor discovers him hiding, Szpilman is forced to flee and is provided with a second hiding place. He is shown into a room with a piano yet is compelled to keep quiet while beginning to suffer from jaundice.
In August 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish resistance attacks a German building across the street from Szpilman's hideout. A tank shells his apartment, forcing him to flee and hide elsewhere. Over the course of the following months, the city is destroyed and abandoned, leaving Szpilman alone to search desperately for shelter and supplies among the ruins. He eventually makes his way to an abandoned house, where he finds a can of peaches. While trying to open it he is discovered by the Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld, who learns that Szpilman is a pianist and asks him to play on a grand piano in the house. The decrepit Szpilman plays Chopin's Ballade in G minor, which moves Hosenfeld enough that he allows Szpilman to hide in the attic of the empty house, where the German officer regularly brings him food.
In January 1945, the Germans are forced to retreat due to the advance of the Red Army. Hosenfeld meets Szpilman for the last time and promises he will listen to him on Polish Radio after the war. He gives Szpilman his greatcoat to keep warm and leaves. However, this has almost fatal consequences for Szpilman when he is mistaken for a German officer, when trying to hug the Polish soldiers and is shot at by Polish troops liberating Warsaw, who then find he's Polish and save him. In Spring 1945, former inmates of a Nazi concentration camp pass a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp holding captured German soldiers and verbally abuse them. Hosenfeld, among those captured, overhears a released inmate lament over his former career as a violinist. He asks the violinist if he knows Szpilman, which he confirms. Hosenfeld wishes for Szpilman to return the favor and help release him. Sometime later, the violinist is able to bring Szpilman back to the site but they find it has been long abandoned.
Later, Szpilman works for Polish Radio and performs Chopin's Grand Polonaise brillante to a large and prestigious audience. An epilogue states that Szpilman died at the age of 88 in the year 2000 while Hosenfeld died in Soviet captivity in 1952.
Cast[edit]
##Adrien Brody as Władysław Szpilman
##Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld
##Frank Finlay as Father Szpilman
##Maureen Lipman as Mother Szpilman
##Emilia Fox as Dorota
##Ed Stoppard as Henryk
##Julia Rayner as Regina
##Jessica Kate Meyer as Halina
##Ronan Vibert as Andrzej Bogucki
##Ruth Platt as Janina Bogucki
##Michał Żebrowski as Jurek
##Roy Smiles as Itzhak Heller
##Richard Ridings as Mr. Lipa
##Daniel Caltagirone as Majorek
##Valentine Pelka as Dorota's Husband
##Zbigniew Zamachowski as Customer with Coins
Production[edit]
The story had deep connections with director Roman Polanski because he escaped from the Kraków Ghetto as a child after the death of his mother. He ended up living in a Polish farmer's barn until the war's end. His father almost died in the camps, but they reunited after the end of World War II.
Joseph Fiennes was Polanski's first choice for the lead role, but he turned it down due to a previous commitment to the theatre. Over 1,400 actors auditioned for the role of Szpilman at a casting call in London. Unsatisfied with all who tried, Polanski sought to cast Adrien Brody, whom he saw as ideal for the role during their first meeting in Paris.
Principal photography on The Pianist began on 9 February 2001 in Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam, Germany. The Warsaw Ghetto and the surrounding city were recreated on the backlot of Babelsberg Studio as they would have looked during the war. Old Soviet Army barracks were used to create the ruined city, as they were going to be destroyed anyway.
The first scenes of the film were shot at the old army barracks. Soon after, the film crew moved to a villa in Potsdam, which served as the house where Szpilman meets Hosenfeld. On 2 March 2001, filming then moved to an abandoned Soviet military hospital in Beelitz, Germany. The scenes that featured German soldiers destroying a Warsaw hospital with flamethrowers were filmed here. On 15 March, filming finally moved to Babelsberg Studios. The first scene shot at the studio was the complex and technically demanding scene in which Szpilman witnesses the ghetto uprising.
Filming at the studios ended on 26 March and moved to Warsaw on 29 March. The rundown district of Praga was chosen for filming because of its abundance of original buildings. The art department built onto these original buildings, re-creating World War II–era Poland with signs and posters from the period. Additional filming also took place around Warsaw. The Umschlagplatz scene where Szpilman, his family and hundreds of other Jews wait to be taken to the extermination camps was filmed at the National Defence University of Warsaw.
Principal photography ended in July 2001 and was followed by months of post-production in Paris, France.
Reception[edit]
The Pianist received high critical acclaim and Brody's performance received extreme praise. It has a 96% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 178 reviews with an average rating of 8.2/10 and the consensus, "Well-acted and dramatically moving, The Pianist is Polanski's best work in years."[3] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, gave the film a score of 85/100, based on 40 reviews from critics.[4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a positive review of the film, noting that "perhaps that impassive quality reflects what [director Roman] Polanski wants to say... By showing Szpilman as a survivor but not a fighter or a hero—as a man who does all he can to save himself, but would have died without enormous good luck and the kindness of a few non-Jews—Polanski is reflecting... his own deepest feelings: that he survived, but need not have, and that his mother died and left a wound that had never healed."[5] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune said that the film "is the best dramatic feature I've seen on the Holocaust experience, so powerful a statement on war, inhumanity and art's redemption that it may signal Polanski's artistic redemption." He would later go on to say that the film "illustrates that theme and proves that Polanski's own art has survived the chaos of his life -- and the hell that war and bigotry once made of it."[6] Richard Schickel of Time called it a "raw, unblinkable film" and said that "We admire this film for its harsh objectivity and refusal to seek our tears, our sympathies."[7] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the film "contains moments of irony, of ambiguity and of strange beauty, as when we finally get a look at Warsaw and see a panorama of destruction, a world of color bombed into black-and-white devastation." He also said that "In the course of showing us a struggle for survival, in all its animal simplicity, Polanski also gives us humanity, in all its complexity."[8] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said that Szpilman "comes to resemble one of Samuel Beckett's gaunt existential clowns, shambling through a barren, bombed-out landscape clutching a jar of pickles. He is like the walking punchline to a cosmic jest of unfathomable cruelty." He also felt that "Szpilman's encounter, in the war's last days, with a music-loving Nazi officer... ...courted sentimentality by associating the love of art with moral decency, an equation the Nazis themselves, steeped in Beethoven and Wagner, definitively refuted."[9]
Home release[edit]
The Pianist was released on DVD on 26 May 2003 in a double-sided disc Special Edition DVD, with the film on one side and special features on the other. Some Bonus Material included a making-of, interviews with Brody, Polanski, and Harwood, and clips of Szpilman playing the piano. The Polish DVD edition included an audio commentary track by production designer Starski and director of photography Edelman.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on HD-DVD on 8 January 2008 with extras comprising the featurette "A Story of Survival" and rare footage of the real Władysław Szpilman playing his piano, as well as additional interviews with Adrien Brody and other crew.
Optimum Home Entertainment released The Pianist to the European market on Blu-ray as part of their StudioCanal Collection on 13 September 2010,[10] the film's second release on Blu-ray. The first was troublesome due to issues with subtitles; the initial BD lacked subtitles for spoken German dialogue. Optimum later rectified this[11] but the initial release also lacked notable special features. The StudioCanal Collection version includes an extensive Behind the Scenes look as well as several interviews with the makers of the film and Szpilman's relatives.[12]
Music[edit]
Further information: The Pianist (soundtrack)
##The piano piece heard at the beginning of the film is Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor Lento con gran espressione, Op. posth.
##The first measures of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Allegro maestoso) are played by Szpilman in the Restaurant. The Concerto is improvised on the theme Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą (I Have a Date with Her at Nine), a Polish tango composed by Henryk Wars in 1937.
##The piano piece that is heard being played by a next door neighbour while Szpilman was in hiding at an apartment is also an arrangement of Umowilem sie z nia na dziewiata.
##The piano music heard in the abandoned house when Szpilman had just discovered a hiding place in the attic is the Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight Sonata) by Beethoven. It would later be revealed that German officer Hosenfeld was the pianist. The German composition juxtaposed with the mainly Polish/Chopin selection of Szpilman.
##The piano piece played when Szpilman is confronted by Hosenfeld is Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, but the version played in the movie was shortened (the entire piece lasts about 10 minutes).
##The cello piece heard at the middle of the film, played by Dorota, is the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.
##The piano piece heard at the end of the film, played with an orchestra, is Chopin's Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22.
##Shots of Szpilman's hands playing the piano in close-up were performed by Polish classical pianist Janusz Olejniczak (b. 1952), who also performed on the soundtrack.
##Since Polański wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, any scene showing Brody playing was actually his playing overdubbed by recordings performed by Janusz Olejniczak. In order for Brody's playing to look like it was at the level of Władysław Szpilman's, he spent many months prior to and during the filming practicing so that his keystrokes on the piano would convince viewers that Brody himself was playing. It was never specified whether or not it was actually Adrien Brody playing at certain points in the film, such as the beginning where Władysław Szpilman's playing is interrupted by German bombing.
Accolades [edit]
Wins##Academy Award for Best Actor – Adrien Brody
##Academy Award for Best Director – Roman Polanski
##Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay – Ronald Harwood
##Palme d'Or, 2002 Cannes Film Festival[2]
##BAFTA Award for Best Film
##BAFTA Award for Best Direction – Roman Polanski
##César Award for Best Actor
##César Award for Best Director
##César Award for Best Film
##César Award for Best Music Written for a Film
##César Award for Best Cinematography
##César Award for Best Production Design
##César Award for Best Sound
##Goya Award for Best European Film
Nominations##Academy Award for Best Cinematography – Paweł Edelman
##Academy Award for Best Costume Design – Anna B. Sheppard
##Academy Award for Film Editing – Hervé de Luze
##Academy Award for Best Picture
##BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role – Adrien Brody
##BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay – Ronald Harwood
##BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography – Paweł Edelman
##BAFTA Award for Best Sound – Jean-Marie Blondel, Dean Humphreys, Gérard Hardy
##Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama – Adrien Brody
##Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
See also[edit]
##List of Holocaust films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Hare, William (2004). LA Noir: Nine Dark Visions of the City of Angels. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland and Company. p. 207. ISBN 0-7864-1801-X.
2.^ Jump up to: a b "Festival de Cannes: The Pianist". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
3.Jump up ^ "The Pianist". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
4.Jump up ^ "The Pianist". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
5.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (3 January 2003). "The Pianist". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Wilmington, Michael (January 5, 2003). "Polanski's `Pianist' may put `profligate dwarf' in better light". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Schickel, Richard (December 15, 2002). "Have a Very Leo Noel". Time. p. 4. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
8.Jump up ^ LaSalle, Mick (January 3, 2003). "Masterpiece / Polanski's 'The Pianist' is a true account of one man's survival in the Warsaw ghetto". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
9.Jump up ^ Scott, A.O. (December 27, 2002). "Surviving the Warsaw Ghetto Against Steep Odds". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
10.Jump up ^ "StudioCanal Collection". Retrieved 24 June 2010.
11.Jump up ^ "Problems with initial BD release". Retrieved 1 August 2010.
12.Jump up ^ "The Pianist on BD". Retrieved 1 August 2010.
External links[edit]
##The Pianist at the Internet Movie Database
##The Pianist at AllMovie
##The Pianist at Box Office Mojo
##The Pianist at Metacritic
##The Pianist at Rotten Tomatoes
##Wladyslaw Szpilman's personal Website: The Pianist - The book
##Szpilman's Warsaw: The History behind The Pianist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
##The Pianist at culture.pl

Awards
Preceded by
Amélie Goya Award for Best European Film
 2002 Succeeded by
Good Bye Lenin!


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Roman Polanski




















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Palme d'Or winning films




























































































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
César Award for Best Film



















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
BAFTA Award for Best Film

















































































  


Categories: 2002 films
2000s biographical films
2000s drama films
Best Film César Award winners
British films
British war drama films
British biographical films
English-language films
Films about pianos and pianists
Films about classical music and musicians
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films based on biographies
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance
Films featuring a Best Actor César Award winning performance
Films set in Poland
Films set in Warsaw
Films shot in Poland
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in the 1940s
Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Focus Features films
French films
French drama films
French war films
German films
German drama films
German war films
German-language films
Holocaust films
Jewish Polish history
Musical films based on actual events
Palme d'Or winners
Polish films
Russian-language films
StudioCanal films
War drama films
World War II films based on actual events
Babelsberg Studio films
Film scores by Wojciech Kilar
Władysław Szpilman
Polish biographical films
German biographical films








Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
العربية
Azərbaycanca
বাংলা
Български
Bosanski
Català
Čeština
Cymraeg
Dansk
Deutsch
Ελληνικά
Español
Esperanto
Euskara
فارسی
Français
Galego
한국어
Հայերեն
हिन्दी
Hrvatski
Bahasa Indonesia
Italiano
עברית
ქართული
Latina
Magyar
Македонски
മലയാളം
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Oʻzbekcha
Polski
Português
Română
Русский
Slovenčina
Српски / srpski
Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
Suomi
Svenska
தமிழ்
ไทย
Türkçe
Українська
Tiếng Việt
中文
Тыва дыл
Edit links
This page was last modified on 13 January 2015, at 18:40.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pianist_(2002_film)

























Shoah (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Shoah
Shoah film.png
film poster

Directed by
Claude Lanzmann
Starring
Simon Srebnik
Mordechaï Podchlebnik
 Motke Zaidl
 Hanna Zaidl
 Jan Piwonski
 Richard Glazar
Rudolf Vrba
Cinematography
Dominique Chapuis
 Jimmy Glasberg
 William Lubtchansky
Edited by
Ziva Postec
 Anna Ruiz
Distributed by
New Yorker Films

Release dates

23 October 1985


Running time
 France 613 minutes (10 hours 13 minutes)
 US 503 minutes
 UK 566 minutes
 Sweden 544 minutes
Language
French
 German
Hebrew
 Polish
Yiddish
 English
Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann about the Holocaust. The film primarily consists of his interviews and visits to Holocaust sites across Poland, including three extermination camps. It presents testimonies by selected survivors, witnesses, and German perpetrators, often secretly recorded using hidden cameras.[1]
As Claude Lanzmann does not speak Polish, Hebrew, or Yiddish, he depended on translators to work with most of his interviewees. This process enlarged the scale of the documentary, which is nine hours and twenty-three minutes long.[1] While winning notable awards, the film also aroused controversy and criticism, particularly in Poland, but also in the US. A number of historians criticized it for failing to show and discuss the many Poles who rescued Jews, or to recognize the millions of Poles who were killed by the Germans in an extermination campaign.


Contents  [hide]
1 Synopsis
2 Production
3 Reception and awards
4 Criticism 4.1 Reception in Poland
5 Outtakes
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

Synopsis[edit]
The film is concerned chiefly with four topics: Chełmno, where mobile gas vans were first used to exterminate Jews; the death camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau; and the Warsaw Ghetto, with testimonies from survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators.
The sections on Treblinka include testimony from Abraham Bomba, who survived as a barber;[2] Richard Glazar, an inmate; and Franz Suchomel, an SS officer who worked at the camp, who reveals intricate details of the camp's gas chamber. Bomba breaks down while describing how a barber friend of his came across his wife while cutting hair outside the gas chamber. Suchomel states he did not know about extermination at Treblinka until he arrived there. This section includes Henryk Gawkowski, who said he drove one of the transport trains while intoxicated with vodka. Gawkowski's photograph appears on the poster used for the film's marketing campaign.
Testimonies on Auschwitz are provided by Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from the camp before the end of the war; and Filip Müller, who worked in an incinerator burning the bodies from the gassings. Müller recounts what prisoners said to him, and describes the experience of personally going into the gas chamber. He breaks down as he recalls the prisoners starting to sing while being forced into the gas chamber. Accounts include some from local villagers, who witnessed trains heading daily to the camp and returning empty; they quickly guessed the fate of those on board.
Lanzmann also interviews bystanders. He asks whether they knew what was going on in the death camps. Their answers reveal that they did but they justified their inaction by the fear of death. Two survivors of Chełmno are interviewed: Simon Srebnik, who was forced to sing military songs to entertain the Nazis; and Mordechaï Podchlebnik. Lanzmann also has a secretly filmed interview with Franz Schalling, a German security guard, who describes the workings of Chełmno. Walter Stier, a former Nazi bureaucrat, describes the workings of the railways. Stier insists he was too busy managing railroad traffic to notice his trains were transporting Jews to their deaths.
The Warsaw ghetto is described by Jan Karski, who worked for the Polish government-in-exile and Franz Grassler, a Nazi administrator who liaised with Jewish leaders. A Christian, Karski, snuck into the Warsaw ghetto and escaped to England to try to convince the Allied governments to intervene more strongly on behalf of the Jews, but failed to do so. Memories from Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising conclude the documentary.
Lanzmann also interviews Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, who discusses the historical significance of Nazi propaganda against the European Jews, and the Nazi development of the Final Solution. The complete text of the film was published in 1985.
Production[edit]
Lanzmann was commissioned by the Israeli officials to make what they thought would be a two-hour film, delivered in 18 months, about the Holocaust from "the viewpoint of the Jews".[3][4] As time went on, Israeli officials withdrew as his original backers.[3] Over 350 hours of raw footage were recorded, including the verbatim questions, answers and interpreters translations. Shoah took eleven years to make.[5] It was plagued with financial problems, difficulties in tracking down interviewees and threats to Lanzmann's life. The film was unusual in that it did not include any historical footage, relying instead on interviewing witnesses and visiting the crime scenes.[6] Four feature length films have since been released from the outtakes.
Some German interviewees were reluctant to talk, and refused to be filmed so Lanzmann resorted to using a hidden camera. Some of the most controversial interviews were obtained in this way, conspicuous by their grainy, black and white appearance.[6] During one interview, the covert recording was discovered and Lanzmann was physically attacked. He was hospitalized for a month and charged by the authorities with "unauthorized use of the German airwaves".[4]
Lanzmann arranged many of the scenes, but not the testimony, before filming witnesses. For example, Bomba was interviewed while pretending to cut the hair of a friend in a working barbershop; a steam locomotive was hired to recreate the journey the conductor had taken while transporting Jews; the opening scene shows Srebnik singing in a rowboat, similar to how he had "serenaded his captors".[4]
The first six years of production were devoted to the recording of interviews with the individuals who appear in the film; these were conducted in 14 different countries.[5] Lanzmann worked on the interviews for four years before first visiting Poland. After the shooting had been completed, editing for the film continued for five years, as it was cut from 350 hours of raw footage to the 91⁄2 hours of the final version.[5] Lanzmann frequently replaced the camera shot of the interviewee with modern footage from the site of the relevant death camp. The matching of testimony to places became a "crucial trope of the film".[4]
The film was made without subtitles or voice-overs. The questions and answers were kept on the soundtrack, along with the voices of the interpreters.[4] Transcripts of the interviews, in original languages and English translations, are held by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Videos of excerpts from the interviews are available for viewing online, and linked transcripts are available for reading and download from the museum website.[7]
Reception and awards[edit]
Hailed as a masterpiece by many critics, Shoah was described in the New York Times as "an epic film about the greatest evil of modern times."[6] In 1985, the year the documentary was released, Critic Roger Ebert described it as "an extraordinary film" and "one of the noblest films ever made".[8] It is not a documentary, not journalism, not propaganda, not political. It is an act of witness."[9] Gene Siskel named it as his choice for the best movie of the year, later naming it the second best film of the 1980s. Ebert declined to rank Shoah, saying that it belonged in a class to itself and no film should be ranked against it.[10]
In 1985 Shoah won Best Documentary and Special Award at the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, respectively.[11] The following year, Shoah won Best Documentary at the National Society of Film Critics Awards and International Documentary Association. Shoah has also been nominated and awarded various other awards at film festivals around the world.[12]
In a 2014 Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted Shoah the second best documentary film of all time.[13]
Criticism[edit]
The documentary by Lanzmann was the subject of considerable controversy almost from the day of its theatrical release. Pauline Kael, the most influential American film critic of her day,[14] described Shoah in The New Yorker as "logy and exhausting right from the start..."[1] "[S]itting in a theatre seat – wrote Kael – for a film as full of dead spaces as this one seem[ed] to [her] a form of self-punishment". Lanzmann did all the questioning himself, while putting pressure on people in a discursive manner, which gave the film a deadening weight, she said.[1] Relevant to the subject-matter of her inquiry, Kael's parents were American Jewish immigrants from Poland.[14]
Reception in Poland[edit]
In spring of 1985 Lanzmann told the French Libération that his documentary is an indictment of Poland's complicity in the Holocaust.[15] The Socio-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne Żydów w Polsce) called it a political provocation, and delivered a protest letter to the French embassy in Warsaw.[15] A columnist for The New Yorker wrote that the "Polish government asked France" to ban the film after its première in 1985.[4]
The film provoked strong criticism against Lanzmann's vision of "dark, drab, poor, and anti-Semitic Poland."[16] The official government-run newspapers and state television criticized it, as did the writers of the unofficial Second Circulation of the Polish anti-communist press. Almost no one defended the film. Most intellectuals referred to it as tendentious, and inherently anti-Polish.[16] Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and an honorary citizen of Israel, criticized Lanzmann for choosing to ignore the many thousands of Polish rescuers of Jews. He said the director instead focused his camera on impoverished rural Poles in rags, selected to conform with his preconceived notions. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, an eminent Polish-Jewish writer and dissident, was puzzled by Lanzmann's deliberate omission of anybody in Poland with advanced knowledge of the Holocaust.[17]
In his book Dziennik pisany nocą, Herling-Grudziński wrote that the thematic construction of Shoah, allowed Lanzmann to exercise a reduction method so extreme that the plight of the non-Jewish Poles must remain a mystery to the viewer. Grudziński asked a rhetorical question in his book: "Did the Poles live in peace, quietly plowing farmers' fields with their backs turned on the long fuming chimneys of death-camp crematoria? Or, were they exterminated along with the Jews as subhuman?" According to Grudziński, Lanzmann leaves this question unanswered, but the historical evidence shows that Poles also suffered widespread massacres at the hands of the Nazis.[17]
Professor Robert D. Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska wrote in Rethinking Poles and Jews

Lanzmann's purpose in making the film is revealed by his comments that he "fears" Poland and that the death camps could not possibly have been constructed in France because the "French peasantry would not have tolerated them." He has admitted he intended to indict the Poles in Shoah and has made no films about the Holocaust in France where, presumably, anti-Jewish sentiments are not to be found. The observation of Eva Hoffman, a Polish Jew, that antisemitism was neither fundamental to Polish culture nor "exceptional" in its virulence is utterly lost on Lanzmann. Not surprisingly, many Poles bitterly condemned the film as tendentious and manipulative, including Jan Karski and Jerzy Turowicz.
— Robert D. Cherry; Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Rethinking Poles and Jews [18]
Outtakes[edit]
Lanzmann has released four feature-length films based on unused material shot for Shoah. The first three are included as bonus features in the recent Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release of the film.
A Visitor from the Living (fr) (1997) about Maurice Rossel, a Red Cross representative who in 1944 wrote a favourable report about Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Sobibor, 14 October 1943, 4 p.m. (2001) about Yehuda Lerner who took part in an uprising against the camp guards and managed to escape.
The Karski Report (fr) (2010) about Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski's visit to Franklin Roosevelt in 1943.[4]
The Last of the Unjust (2013) about Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial Jewish rabbi in the Theresienstadt ghetto during World War II.[19]
See also[edit]
Felix Frankfurter
List of Holocaust films
List of longest films by running time
List of films shot over several years
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d Pauline Kael (30 December 1985). "Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1)" (Archived by WebCite). The Current Cinema, “Sacred Monsters”. The New Yorker. pp. 1 of 3. Retrieved 2013-05-10. "See also: archived page 2 and page 3 of 1985 article by Kael."
2.Jump up ^ William Baker (2005-09). "Abraham Bomba: Witness and Technique". Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection. University of California, Davis campus. Retrieved 6 September 2014. Check date values in: |date= (help)
3.^ Jump up to: a b Larry Rohter (6 December 2010). "Maker of 'Shoah' Stresses Its Lasting Value". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Richard Brody (19 March 2012). "Witness; Claude Lanzmann and the making of Shoah". The New Yorker. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Austin, Guy (1996). Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Manchester University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-7190-4610-6.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Bernstein, Richard (20 October 1985). "An Epic Film About The Greatest Evil Of Modern Times". The New York Times.
7.Jump up ^ Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed 22 May 2013
8.Jump up ^ "Reviews" at www.rogerebert.com personal webpage.
9.Jump up ^ "Shoah". Chicago Sun-Times.
10.Jump up ^ Siskel and Ebert, Best of the year TV show (Ebert excluded). Retrieved 23 May 2013.
11.Jump up ^ "Shoah (1985)". The New York Times.
12.Jump up ^ IMDb Community: Shoah (1985); Awards.
13.Jump up ^ "Silent film tops documentary poll". BBC News. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
14.^ Jump up to: a b Lawrence van Gelder (4 September 2001). "Pauline Kael, Provocative and Widely Imitated New Yorker Film Critic, Dies at 82". The New York Times. p. 2 of 3. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
15.^ Jump up to: a b Szczęsna, Joanna (2010-03-24). "25 lat sporów o 'Shoah'" (in Polish). Warsaw: Gazeta Wyborcza. Archived from the original on 18 Sep 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2013. "Translation: Szymon Szurmiej, spokesman for TSKŻwP informed the French embassy that the Jewish community in Poland is saddened by such cinematic provocation and an anti-Polish campaign. Polish original: Szymon Szurmiej jako przedstawiciel Towarzystwa Społeczno-Kulturalnego Żydów w Polsce złożył w ambasadzie francuskiej oświadczenie, że "społeczność żydowska jest zbulwersowana tą filmową prowokacją i antypolską kampanią"."
16.^ Jump up to: a b Michael Meng. "Rethinking Polish-Jewish Relations..." (PDF file, direct download 145 KB). Department of History. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. pp. 1–10. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
17.^ Jump up to: a b Joanna Szczęsna (2010-03-24). "25 lat sporów o "Shoah" (Twenty five years of the film Shoah controversy)" (archived from GW Teksty) (in Polish). Gazeta Wyborcza. Archiwum. Retrieved 2013-05-11.
18.Jump up ^ Robert D. Cherry, Anna Maria Orla-Bukowska (2007). "Poland and the Poles in the Cinematic Portrayal of the Holocaust". Rethinking Poles and Jews: troubled past, brighter future. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 36. ISBN 0742546667. Retrieved 2013-05-11.
19.Jump up ^ Rob Nelson (25 May 2013). "Cannes Film Review: 'The Last of the Unjust'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
References[edit]
Felman, Shoshana (1994). "Film as Witness: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah". In Hartman, Geoffrey. Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 1-55786-125-0.
Hirsch, Marianne; Spitzer, Leo (1993). "Gendered Translations: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah". In Cooke, Miriam; Woollacott, Angela. Gendering War Talk. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06980-8.
Lanzman, Claude (1985). Shoah. New Yorker Films.
Loshitzky, Yosefa (1997). "Holocaust Others: Spielberg's Schindler's List versus Lanzman's Shoah". In Loshitzky, Yosefa. Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler's List. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33232-X.
External links[edit]
Official website
Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, video excerpts of all interviews done for the film Shoah, with links to transcripts in original languages and English
Shoah at AllMovie
Shoah at Box Office Mojo
Shoah at the Internet Movie Database
Shoah at Metacritic
Shoah at Rotten Tomatoes
SHOAH - Claude Lanzmann's revised 2007 edition
Ziva Postec - Lanzmann's Editor of Shoah
  


Categories: 1985 films
1980s documentary films
French films
French documentary films
Documentary films about the Holocaust
Holocaust films
Films directed by Claude Lanzmann
Peabody Award winning broadcasts
French-language films
German-language films
Hebrew-language films
Polish-language films
Yiddish-language films
English-language films







Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
עברית
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Polski
Русский
Svenska
Edit links
This page was last modified on 30 January 2015, at 10:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)























Shoah (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Shoah
Shoah film.png
film poster

Directed by
Claude Lanzmann
Starring
Simon Srebnik
Mordechaï Podchlebnik
 Motke Zaidl
 Hanna Zaidl
 Jan Piwonski
 Richard Glazar
Rudolf Vrba
Cinematography
Dominique Chapuis
 Jimmy Glasberg
 William Lubtchansky
Edited by
Ziva Postec
 Anna Ruiz
Distributed by
New Yorker Films

Release dates

23 October 1985


Running time
 France 613 minutes (10 hours 13 minutes)
 US 503 minutes
 UK 566 minutes
 Sweden 544 minutes
Language
French
 German
Hebrew
 Polish
Yiddish
 English
Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann about the Holocaust. The film primarily consists of his interviews and visits to Holocaust sites across Poland, including three extermination camps. It presents testimonies by selected survivors, witnesses, and German perpetrators, often secretly recorded using hidden cameras.[1]
As Claude Lanzmann does not speak Polish, Hebrew, or Yiddish, he depended on translators to work with most of his interviewees. This process enlarged the scale of the documentary, which is nine hours and twenty-three minutes long.[1] While winning notable awards, the film also aroused controversy and criticism, particularly in Poland, but also in the US. A number of historians criticized it for failing to show and discuss the many Poles who rescued Jews, or to recognize the millions of Poles who were killed by the Germans in an extermination campaign.


Contents  [hide]
1 Synopsis
2 Production
3 Reception and awards
4 Criticism 4.1 Reception in Poland
5 Outtakes
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

Synopsis[edit]
The film is concerned chiefly with four topics: Chełmno, where mobile gas vans were first used to exterminate Jews; the death camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau; and the Warsaw Ghetto, with testimonies from survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators.
The sections on Treblinka include testimony from Abraham Bomba, who survived as a barber;[2] Richard Glazar, an inmate; and Franz Suchomel, an SS officer who worked at the camp, who reveals intricate details of the camp's gas chamber. Bomba breaks down while describing how a barber friend of his came across his wife while cutting hair outside the gas chamber. Suchomel states he did not know about extermination at Treblinka until he arrived there. This section includes Henryk Gawkowski, who said he drove one of the transport trains while intoxicated with vodka. Gawkowski's photograph appears on the poster used for the film's marketing campaign.
Testimonies on Auschwitz are provided by Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from the camp before the end of the war; and Filip Müller, who worked in an incinerator burning the bodies from the gassings. Müller recounts what prisoners said to him, and describes the experience of personally going into the gas chamber. He breaks down as he recalls the prisoners starting to sing while being forced into the gas chamber. Accounts include some from local villagers, who witnessed trains heading daily to the camp and returning empty; they quickly guessed the fate of those on board.
Lanzmann also interviews bystanders. He asks whether they knew what was going on in the death camps. Their answers reveal that they did but they justified their inaction by the fear of death. Two survivors of Chełmno are interviewed: Simon Srebnik, who was forced to sing military songs to entertain the Nazis; and Mordechaï Podchlebnik. Lanzmann also has a secretly filmed interview with Franz Schalling, a German security guard, who describes the workings of Chełmno. Walter Stier, a former Nazi bureaucrat, describes the workings of the railways. Stier insists he was too busy managing railroad traffic to notice his trains were transporting Jews to their deaths.
The Warsaw ghetto is described by Jan Karski, who worked for the Polish government-in-exile and Franz Grassler, a Nazi administrator who liaised with Jewish leaders. A Christian, Karski, snuck into the Warsaw ghetto and escaped to England to try to convince the Allied governments to intervene more strongly on behalf of the Jews, but failed to do so. Memories from Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising conclude the documentary.
Lanzmann also interviews Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, who discusses the historical significance of Nazi propaganda against the European Jews, and the Nazi development of the Final Solution. The complete text of the film was published in 1985.
Production[edit]
Lanzmann was commissioned by the Israeli officials to make what they thought would be a two-hour film, delivered in 18 months, about the Holocaust from "the viewpoint of the Jews".[3][4] As time went on, Israeli officials withdrew as his original backers.[3] Over 350 hours of raw footage were recorded, including the verbatim questions, answers and interpreters translations. Shoah took eleven years to make.[5] It was plagued with financial problems, difficulties in tracking down interviewees and threats to Lanzmann's life. The film was unusual in that it did not include any historical footage, relying instead on interviewing witnesses and visiting the crime scenes.[6] Four feature length films have since been released from the outtakes.
Some German interviewees were reluctant to talk, and refused to be filmed so Lanzmann resorted to using a hidden camera. Some of the most controversial interviews were obtained in this way, conspicuous by their grainy, black and white appearance.[6] During one interview, the covert recording was discovered and Lanzmann was physically attacked. He was hospitalized for a month and charged by the authorities with "unauthorized use of the German airwaves".[4]
Lanzmann arranged many of the scenes, but not the testimony, before filming witnesses. For example, Bomba was interviewed while pretending to cut the hair of a friend in a working barbershop; a steam locomotive was hired to recreate the journey the conductor had taken while transporting Jews; the opening scene shows Srebnik singing in a rowboat, similar to how he had "serenaded his captors".[4]
The first six years of production were devoted to the recording of interviews with the individuals who appear in the film; these were conducted in 14 different countries.[5] Lanzmann worked on the interviews for four years before first visiting Poland. After the shooting had been completed, editing for the film continued for five years, as it was cut from 350 hours of raw footage to the 91⁄2 hours of the final version.[5] Lanzmann frequently replaced the camera shot of the interviewee with modern footage from the site of the relevant death camp. The matching of testimony to places became a "crucial trope of the film".[4]
The film was made without subtitles or voice-overs. The questions and answers were kept on the soundtrack, along with the voices of the interpreters.[4] Transcripts of the interviews, in original languages and English translations, are held by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Videos of excerpts from the interviews are available for viewing online, and linked transcripts are available for reading and download from the museum website.[7]
Reception and awards[edit]
Hailed as a masterpiece by many critics, Shoah was described in the New York Times as "an epic film about the greatest evil of modern times."[6] In 1985, the year the documentary was released, Critic Roger Ebert described it as "an extraordinary film" and "one of the noblest films ever made".[8] It is not a documentary, not journalism, not propaganda, not political. It is an act of witness."[9] Gene Siskel named it as his choice for the best movie of the year, later naming it the second best film of the 1980s. Ebert declined to rank Shoah, saying that it belonged in a class to itself and no film should be ranked against it.[10]
In 1985 Shoah won Best Documentary and Special Award at the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, respectively.[11] The following year, Shoah won Best Documentary at the National Society of Film Critics Awards and International Documentary Association. Shoah has also been nominated and awarded various other awards at film festivals around the world.[12]
In a 2014 Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted Shoah the second best documentary film of all time.[13]
Criticism[edit]
The documentary by Lanzmann was the subject of considerable controversy almost from the day of its theatrical release. Pauline Kael, the most influential American film critic of her day,[14] described Shoah in The New Yorker as "logy and exhausting right from the start..."[1] "[S]itting in a theatre seat – wrote Kael – for a film as full of dead spaces as this one seem[ed] to [her] a form of self-punishment". Lanzmann did all the questioning himself, while putting pressure on people in a discursive manner, which gave the film a deadening weight, she said.[1] Relevant to the subject-matter of her inquiry, Kael's parents were American Jewish immigrants from Poland.[14]
Reception in Poland[edit]
In spring of 1985 Lanzmann told the French Libération that his documentary is an indictment of Poland's complicity in the Holocaust.[15] The Socio-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne Żydów w Polsce) called it a political provocation, and delivered a protest letter to the French embassy in Warsaw.[15] A columnist for The New Yorker wrote that the "Polish government asked France" to ban the film after its première in 1985.[4]
The film provoked strong criticism against Lanzmann's vision of "dark, drab, poor, and anti-Semitic Poland."[16] The official government-run newspapers and state television criticized it, as did the writers of the unofficial Second Circulation of the Polish anti-communist press. Almost no one defended the film. Most intellectuals referred to it as tendentious, and inherently anti-Polish.[16] Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and an honorary citizen of Israel, criticized Lanzmann for choosing to ignore the many thousands of Polish rescuers of Jews. He said the director instead focused his camera on impoverished rural Poles in rags, selected to conform with his preconceived notions. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, an eminent Polish-Jewish writer and dissident, was puzzled by Lanzmann's deliberate omission of anybody in Poland with advanced knowledge of the Holocaust.[17]
In his book Dziennik pisany nocą, Herling-Grudziński wrote that the thematic construction of Shoah, allowed Lanzmann to exercise a reduction method so extreme that the plight of the non-Jewish Poles must remain a mystery to the viewer. Grudziński asked a rhetorical question in his book: "Did the Poles live in peace, quietly plowing farmers' fields with their backs turned on the long fuming chimneys of death-camp crematoria? Or, were they exterminated along with the Jews as subhuman?" According to Grudziński, Lanzmann leaves this question unanswered, but the historical evidence shows that Poles also suffered widespread massacres at the hands of the Nazis.[17]
Professor Robert D. Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska wrote in Rethinking Poles and Jews

Lanzmann's purpose in making the film is revealed by his comments that he "fears" Poland and that the death camps could not possibly have been constructed in France because the "French peasantry would not have tolerated them." He has admitted he intended to indict the Poles in Shoah and has made no films about the Holocaust in France where, presumably, anti-Jewish sentiments are not to be found. The observation of Eva Hoffman, a Polish Jew, that antisemitism was neither fundamental to Polish culture nor "exceptional" in its virulence is utterly lost on Lanzmann. Not surprisingly, many Poles bitterly condemned the film as tendentious and manipulative, including Jan Karski and Jerzy Turowicz.
— Robert D. Cherry; Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Rethinking Poles and Jews [18]
Outtakes[edit]
Lanzmann has released four feature-length films based on unused material shot for Shoah. The first three are included as bonus features in the recent Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release of the film.
A Visitor from the Living (fr) (1997) about Maurice Rossel, a Red Cross representative who in 1944 wrote a favourable report about Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Sobibor, 14 October 1943, 4 p.m. (2001) about Yehuda Lerner who took part in an uprising against the camp guards and managed to escape.
The Karski Report (fr) (2010) about Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski's visit to Franklin Roosevelt in 1943.[4]
The Last of the Unjust (2013) about Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial Jewish rabbi in the Theresienstadt ghetto during World War II.[19]
See also[edit]
Felix Frankfurter
List of Holocaust films
List of longest films by running time
List of films shot over several years
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d Pauline Kael (30 December 1985). "Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1)" (Archived by WebCite). The Current Cinema, “Sacred Monsters”. The New Yorker. pp. 1 of 3. Retrieved 2013-05-10. "See also: archived page 2 and page 3 of 1985 article by Kael."
2.Jump up ^ William Baker (2005-09). "Abraham Bomba: Witness and Technique". Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection. University of California, Davis campus. Retrieved 6 September 2014. Check date values in: |date= (help)
3.^ Jump up to: a b Larry Rohter (6 December 2010). "Maker of 'Shoah' Stresses Its Lasting Value". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Richard Brody (19 March 2012). "Witness; Claude Lanzmann and the making of Shoah". The New Yorker. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Austin, Guy (1996). Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Manchester University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-7190-4610-6.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Bernstein, Richard (20 October 1985). "An Epic Film About The Greatest Evil Of Modern Times". The New York Times.
7.Jump up ^ Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed 22 May 2013
8.Jump up ^ "Reviews" at www.rogerebert.com personal webpage.
9.Jump up ^ "Shoah". Chicago Sun-Times.
10.Jump up ^ Siskel and Ebert, Best of the year TV show (Ebert excluded). Retrieved 23 May 2013.
11.Jump up ^ "Shoah (1985)". The New York Times.
12.Jump up ^ IMDb Community: Shoah (1985); Awards.
13.Jump up ^ "Silent film tops documentary poll". BBC News. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
14.^ Jump up to: a b Lawrence van Gelder (4 September 2001). "Pauline Kael, Provocative and Widely Imitated New Yorker Film Critic, Dies at 82". The New York Times. p. 2 of 3. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
15.^ Jump up to: a b Szczęsna, Joanna (2010-03-24). "25 lat sporów o 'Shoah'" (in Polish). Warsaw: Gazeta Wyborcza. Archived from the original on 18 Sep 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2013. "Translation: Szymon Szurmiej, spokesman for TSKŻwP informed the French embassy that the Jewish community in Poland is saddened by such cinematic provocation and an anti-Polish campaign. Polish original: Szymon Szurmiej jako przedstawiciel Towarzystwa Społeczno-Kulturalnego Żydów w Polsce złożył w ambasadzie francuskiej oświadczenie, że "społeczność żydowska jest zbulwersowana tą filmową prowokacją i antypolską kampanią"."
16.^ Jump up to: a b Michael Meng. "Rethinking Polish-Jewish Relations..." (PDF file, direct download 145 KB). Department of History. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. pp. 1–10. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
17.^ Jump up to: a b Joanna Szczęsna (2010-03-24). "25 lat sporów o "Shoah" (Twenty five years of the film Shoah controversy)" (archived from GW Teksty) (in Polish). Gazeta Wyborcza. Archiwum. Retrieved 2013-05-11.
18.Jump up ^ Robert D. Cherry, Anna Maria Orla-Bukowska (2007). "Poland and the Poles in the Cinematic Portrayal of the Holocaust". Rethinking Poles and Jews: troubled past, brighter future. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 36. ISBN 0742546667. Retrieved 2013-05-11.
19.Jump up ^ Rob Nelson (25 May 2013). "Cannes Film Review: 'The Last of the Unjust'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
References[edit]
Felman, Shoshana (1994). "Film as Witness: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah". In Hartman, Geoffrey. Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 1-55786-125-0.
Hirsch, Marianne; Spitzer, Leo (1993). "Gendered Translations: Claude Lanzmann's Shoah". In Cooke, Miriam; Woollacott, Angela. Gendering War Talk. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06980-8.
Lanzman, Claude (1985). Shoah. New Yorker Films.
Loshitzky, Yosefa (1997). "Holocaust Others: Spielberg's Schindler's List versus Lanzman's Shoah". In Loshitzky, Yosefa. Spielberg's Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler's List. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33232-X.
External links[edit]
Official website
Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, video excerpts of all interviews done for the film Shoah, with links to transcripts in original languages and English
Shoah at AllMovie
Shoah at Box Office Mojo
Shoah at the Internet Movie Database
Shoah at Metacritic
Shoah at Rotten Tomatoes
SHOAH - Claude Lanzmann's revised 2007 edition
Ziva Postec - Lanzmann's Editor of Shoah
  


Categories: 1985 films
1980s documentary films
French films
French documentary films
Documentary films about the Holocaust
Holocaust films
Films directed by Claude Lanzmann
Peabody Award winning broadcasts
French-language films
German-language films
Hebrew-language films
Polish-language films
Yiddish-language films
English-language films







Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
עברית
Nederlands
日本語
Norsk bokmål
Polski
Русский
Svenska
Edit links
This page was last modified on 30 January 2015, at 10:50.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)