Note to self - don't watch this move alone ever again...EVER
I knew it was a mistake when I grabbed it off the shelf this afternoon, in an attempt to escape the boredom that had set in... i even double-clutched, and put it back, but grabbed it a second time... that should've been hint #1 to put it back... but do I ever listen to me?!? Doesn't look like it...
Yeah, there's no way to come out of watching The Pianist without being at least somewhat depressed...
I got the movie last year for Christmas. Today was the first time I've watched since seeing it in theatres as part of Dr. Francioci's Culture & The Holocaust course @ GVSU...
Yes, Szpileman manages to make it out of Warsaw alive, surviving over 5 years in Nazi-occupied Poland, but he was one of the extremely lucky few who did. Many, many died in the Ghetto, either by starvation or by random acts of violence by the Nazi officers. Most of the rest (~300,000) received one-way tickets to Treblinka when it was emptied of everybody who didn't have an essential work permit, and those left behind met their fate later on, either killed in the April '43 uprising or the subsequent deportations to Treblinka. Somehow Szpielman managed to avoid all of this. Unlike most of the others in the ghetto, he had enough contact, & was famous enough to manage to get help and escape. No other member of his family or friends (of those who were in the Ghetto, at least) survived.
But that nice, uplifting story that is there someplace is just buried in my mind by all the horrors in this movie that you have to see. The gentleman in the wheelchair across the street on the 4th floor... the random shootings of the work parties. The imagery of the families willingly boarding the train to the "relocation centers" as they thought they were going to... [sighs, stops...unable to go on talking about scenes...]
This movie gets to me in a way that other's can't. It won't really make my cry, as Schindler's List and Life as a House can do at any time (albeit for 2 different reasons)... I think this one hits deeper than that, going to just plain shock at what happens. I sill remember the reaction in the theatre to the wheelchair scene... never heard a theatre with 12 people in it become that loud with screams...
By the end of the movie (and ever since), the only things running through my mind are Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, and the names of the six death camps.
And if anybody is wondering why I've been pretty much silent online tonight, there is your reason... hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, and I can get around to doing some of the things I said I would do today...When I'm in a mood like this, I really should try to talk to somebody, but at the same time I fear starting talking about this and having it crop up all over again... Ah, well, hopefully sleep will let me forget it for a while..
Gute Nacht.
Yeah, there's no way to come out of watching The Pianist without being at least somewhat depressed...
I got the movie last year for Christmas. Today was the first time I've watched since seeing it in theatres as part of Dr. Francioci's Culture & The Holocaust course @ GVSU...
Yes, Szpileman manages to make it out of Warsaw alive, surviving over 5 years in Nazi-occupied Poland, but he was one of the extremely lucky few who did. Many, many died in the Ghetto, either by starvation or by random acts of violence by the Nazi officers. Most of the rest (~300,000) received one-way tickets to Treblinka when it was emptied of everybody who didn't have an essential work permit, and those left behind met their fate later on, either killed in the April '43 uprising or the subsequent deportations to Treblinka. Somehow Szpielman managed to avoid all of this. Unlike most of the others in the ghetto, he had enough contact, & was famous enough to manage to get help and escape. No other member of his family or friends (of those who were in the Ghetto, at least) survived.
But that nice, uplifting story that is there someplace is just buried in my mind by all the horrors in this movie that you have to see. The gentleman in the wheelchair across the street on the 4th floor... the random shootings of the work parties. The imagery of the families willingly boarding the train to the "relocation centers" as they thought they were going to... [sighs, stops...unable to go on talking about scenes...]
This movie gets to me in a way that other's can't. It won't really make my cry, as Schindler's List and Life as a House can do at any time (albeit for 2 different reasons)... I think this one hits deeper than that, going to just plain shock at what happens. I sill remember the reaction in the theatre to the wheelchair scene... never heard a theatre with 12 people in it become that loud with screams...
By the end of the movie (and ever since), the only things running through my mind are Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, and the names of the six death camps.
- Auschwitz II - Birkenau
- Belzec
- Chelmno
- Majdanek
- Sobibor
- Treblinka
And if anybody is wondering why I've been pretty much silent online tonight, there is your reason... hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, and I can get around to doing some of the things I said I would do today...When I'm in a mood like this, I really should try to talk to somebody, but at the same time I fear starting talking about this and having it crop up all over again... Ah, well, hopefully sleep will let me forget it for a while..
Gute Nacht.