The Pianist ((No Spoilers))
Yet First, A few words about Polanski himself. This genius has been raked over the coals and made the butt of every joke for years. This man A)Lost all but ONE member of his family in Poland in the Holocaust but survived, though he was but a little boy. With nothing but passion and raw talent, he begins making small Polish films that are so good Hollywood comes calling. In Europe, he was filming 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' (which despite reports and the title is a COMEDY..a Farce, not a horror film) when he met the woman that made him want to end his "swinging sixties", playboy ways, Sharon Tate.
He marries Sharon, makes the classic 'Rosemary's Baby' and Sharon gets pregnant. Despite knowing it would ruin one of Hollywood's perfect figures and leave her out of commission just as her star was soaring upwards, Sharon decided she loved Roman so much that she didn't care, she wanted to have his baby. Yet as we all know now, a couple weeks after she saw the moon landing with her family and a week before Woodstock, The Manson Family brutally killed Sharon's friends, Sharon, and her 8 1/2 month old fetus. It would have been a boy. She begged to be taken by them and kept long enough to have her baby then they could kill her. She said 'I just want to have my baby, you can kill me but first, lemme have my baby!!"
They obviously didn't care. Everybody says 7 people were killed in that one weekend but I say eight because one week later and a baby would be there, breathing on his own. Would they have killed him too?? And all because they got the wrong house. The person(s) they wanted dead (Music Producer Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day, and his Girlfriend Candice Bergman were the intended targets since Terry didn't want to record Manson's F-ed up music.....
Roman was finishing a film in London and got the phonecall. The witnesses, the friend that called and the men in the room said they never heard before nor since a man let out a cry of grief so intense and never saw a man so overcome with grief that they feared for his safety. He'd survived the Holocaust, but he was coming home to his beautiful wife so they could have their son and his house was a BLOODBATH. Those friends were their in case Sharon went into premature labor. Roman wanted a back-up, he was so worried for his wife and didn't want her alone.
Yet once he gets to the states, the press (in one of the most chilling and sad press conferences I have EVER seen) starts to throw out horrible thoughts and innuendos at Roman, their previous media darling. Saying it was 'bound to happen' since 'Satanists' came to his films (I think he did ONE other one besides Rosemary's Baby that was scary. Yet the press heard 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' and instead of watching the comedy as I have, assumed...)
They kept on assuming, saying Sharon was part of an orgy, thus all the friends, that a drug deal went bad, when Sharon didn't use drugs. And this was in an era when pregnant woman drank and smoked, she did health cleanses and was just waiting and planning for their son to come. THEN they let Roman come to the house and SEE the PUDDLES and PILES of his friends and wife's blood and he could still smell the wet paint from the nursery that Sharon had done two days before. Yet until The Manson family was found, Hollywood pointed the finger at Roman.
Fast-Forward five years, Roman makes the Classic "ChinaTown". He says that though it's the sexual 70's, he can "make-love" but not "love" a woman since his wife's murder. Then came the 'incident' that nearly ruined him. You THINK you know what happened. You don't. I will tell you the updated version of events because the girl in question is now middle aged and wanted to go on record to clear Roman's name.
After "Chinatown", he was shooting stills of different young ladies for a book of photography and he also had a couple scrips he was thinking of making movies of and was seeking actresses or a 'star' in the rough. This -particular- girl was almost 16 though looked and partied older. Her MOTHER told her "Do WHATEVER you have to to gain Mr. Polanski's favour. He will make us rich!! He will make you a star!!" The Mother saw dollar signs and dropped the girl off at Roman's Mansion and said hinting things like 'If you need to photograph her in the morning, she can stay the night". Hint Hint..Wink Wink..Say no more.
After the CLOTHED photos were done, the GIRL started teasing, unbuttoning her blouse asking for something stronger than a soda. He opened a bottle of Champagne. Then SHE gave HIM one and a half of the three Quaaludes SHE had with her. As she said ON RECORD recently 'I was a wild girl then'. When Roman seemed out of it, SHE guided them to the hot-tub and seduced him. As he later said, in Europe it is not uncommon for a man in his thirties to have a 17 year old lover or whatever, it's legal, and seen as a sexual passing of knowledge. They both had relations, she remembers more than he because "He said he didn't take Quaaludes and -I- knew what -I- was doing...I was the aggressor."
He took her home the following day as her mother instructed and the girl said he barely remembered anything after the hot-tub. THEN when the mother called about when would he wanna she her daughter again for pictures and Mr. Polanski said he had all he needed and Thank you, I will send you a copy of the book, etc, the MOTHER got Enraged. The grown-up daughter later said "That's when Mom said 'That asshole is going to pay us money one way or the other. So my daughter is good enough to spend the night with but not good enough to star in a movie..we'll show him!!"
The mother called the police and coached the daughter...concocting a "he drugged and raped me" scenario. And thus began America's thirst for Roman Polanski's Blood. Roman didn't realize he did anything morally or legally wrong. She even lied about her age by a couple years. He was PLANNING on going to court, fighting it, he had letters from the girl's mother saying 6 figures (or whatever amount) and she would drop the charges, He would have won probably too, even if the girl was being coach by her mom, her friends knew she sold Quaaludes and bragged she was going to star in Polanski's films.
When blackmail didn't work and they started with the "rape" scenario, the girl had said it was consensual and she practically had to do everything, he was so out of it. Sounds like she raped HIM doesn't it. Especially when you realize that under nourishment during the War as a child stunted his growth and he is shorter than me and I am 5 foot four on a good day. Plus, he was rather slim. Nothing like the 5 foot 10 inch amazon beauties he was photographing. But then people like mean police officers started taunting Polanski and saying "The Holocaust was NOTHING compared to what they do to 'pedophiles' in prison" or even more cruel "Maybe you will get to bunk with Manson or at least eat chew and walk the rec area with him..".
Personally, I don't think the jeers of rape and promises of torture and the knowledge that the preyed on the weak, small, rich, and new bothered him as much as the thought of having to maybe be housed where the man/men that killed his wife and almost newborn son. That little frightened, starved Jewish boy that made it out of Poland alive in him awoke and that little boy deep inside him said "Run". Don't let them take you for something you didn't do, just like the Nazi's took your mother and family..Run, get away from these horrible people. He was bi-coastal anyway, spoke four languages, had most of his money in London, and he didn't need the Hollywood Studio system to make movies. The studios were falling apart anyway. He could be safe in Europe and make movies there, with those that understood him.
And he did. But all those classic Polanski films and not an Oscar.... Until....
Although it's been a Decade since it won best Picture, Best Actor (we all remember an exuberant Adrian Brody kissing Halle Berry in his excitement) and when Roman Polanski won best Director, he was STILL, nearly 30 years in Exile in Europe. He had been told if he ever came back to America, he would be prosecuted for statutory rape and if the statute of limitations had passed (they had), for fleeing the Country on a small ass charge like that. Even the 'girl' in question was now a plump middle-aged woman with a few rug-rats of her own and said she would NOT testify AGAINST him but FOR him since her mother forced her to get Polanski by the balls. "He will make you a star or pay through the nose". Either way, they, especially the teenager's mum, saw Roman as their ticket to fame and riches.
ANYWAY, when Roman was FINALLY recognized by the Academy and got The Best Director award (which Harrison Ford has to collect for him since he was still in a forced exile), A THOUSAND of the BIGGEST, RICHEST, most TALENTED people in that auditorium stood up and gave a two minute long standing ovation for a man who couldn't even be there. Like Hollywood was saying "We Forgive the Past, Roman, and you made another MASTERPIECE." You could hear shouts of "We love you Roman" a few times until the music played Harrison Ford off. Yet still, the A-List Audience stood.
Just as Spielberg made classics and wondrous films before, when he came out with "Schindler's List", it was a punch in the gut that couldn't be ignored, and it's one of only a couple films I had to leave to collect myself during because I was too emotional. 4 times in 3 hours, I had to excuse myself. Mid-way through I whispered to my mother (who took her FOURTEEN year old to see "Schindler's List". WTF!) "Steven just won his first Oscar". She later asked what I meant and I said that Spielberg was the Susan Lucci of awards. Always produces a pristine product but they give to someone else thinking "Oh well, Steven (or Susan) will wow us again next year..maybe next year they'll get the award. But twenty five years of staring in a soap and twenty years of making blockbuster movies and no award to show for the decades of amazing work. Yet after seeing "Schindler's List" in the cinema that year, I knew half way in that no matter what other film got nominated, it wouldn't matter, this would be his year. You can't make a movie like that and NOT have the Academy of Arts and Sciences recognize your work. And I was right.
This was Polanski's 'List'. And not just because they are both about the Holocaust, and not just because both were made by two Jews whom the story touched, not just because Roman had rarely and sometimes REFUSED to discuss the Holocaust and his memories, because he said he told the worst of it to Sharon so his secrets died with his wife. But Because the films are MASTERPIECES.
Don't get me wrong, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and a few other Polanski films are classic, ingenius films, studied frame by frame in film schools the world over. But "The Pianist" is a MASTERPIECE.
Yearrgsworth knows as a history buff I will study a few eras at once and after a couple years, move on to the next historical time of fascination. Lately I have been on a WWII kick and I think when I asked him to watch this with me (I had seen it before, 7 or so years ago, IIRC), he thought 'great, she is going to depress me with Holocaust film and I just don't want to be depressed right now'.
Yet mid-way through he did what I did to my mother almost 20 years ago....said "OMG...No wonder it won all those awards. Best Director, Best Film, and Best Actor, without a doubt...this film is chillingly good and somehow filled with hope." I am glad he saw what I had seen.
This film was based on journals published right after the events (yes, this is a factual story) about the Polish Radio Star and concert Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman. Szpilman came from a well off, large, close, artistic family when out of the blue while playing piano live on the Warsaw Radio, The Germans invade, knocking a hole through the building. Need I tell you more?!?
That's all you need to know and that is how our story begins. Giving you more would deprive you of the sorrow, joys, triumphs, and cruelty that is woven throughout this story. If you are a reader, the paperback is more of a novella in size, you could knock it out in a night. If you are a slower reader, half a week should be sufficient.
Polanski took that amazing material and added in personal memories, so painful it took sixty plus years to recall and share. Combined they made an accurate, heart-wrenching, beautiful yet unmercifully realistic view of a time that must never be forgotten. Just as Roman's work should never be lost or forgotten. Future generations NEED to see films like this. Our heroes and those that remember the war are slowly passing on and soon, this and other art forms are all we will have of their amazing stories.
Well Done, Mr. Polanski. Well Done.
Z.