History Film / ThePianist

* LesCollaborateurs: The Jewish ghetto police. Szpilman's brother scornfully refuses to join them; one saves Szpilman's life later. In RealLife they were eventually gassed along with the rest of the ghetto. Although interestingly some of the more brutal members of the police are known to have survived the war. Many were charged with war crimes and treason by the Polish state.

* RefugeInAudacity: Disucssed. The Szpilman family argue about where to hide their money from the Germans. Henryk suggest putting the money under a cloth ''in front of the Germans'', thinking they would never look somewhere to obvious.

* ThePianoPlayer: Well, [[CaptainObvious yeah]]. Although he's a classical concert pianist, once the Nazis move in Szpilman is reduced to playing cheap gigs in bars and restaurants, since they didn't allow Jews to be in the arts. (Then things go FromBadToWorse and he isn't able to touch a piano at all.) A rare instance of the trope being PlayedForDrama.

Not to be confused with ''Film/ThePiano'' or ''Film/ThePianoTeacher''.

On September 1, 1939, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII begins with the German attack on Poland. Within a month, the badly outnumbered and outgunned Poles are defeated by the Nazis. Life is worse for everyone but it is particularly terrible for the Jews of Poland, as the Nazis immediately institute a raft of anti-Jewish laws and begin mercilessly persecuting them. Things get worse and worse, as the Jews of Warsaw are crammed into a tiny ghetto and cut off from the rest of the world, and used as slave labor. They begin to starve. Finally the day comes when the Szpilmans are rounded up and put on cattle cars bound for the death camp of Treblinka. However, Szpilman is taken out of the line for the train at the last second by a Jewish ghetto policeman. Three more years of struggle lie ahead for Szpilman as he hides in Warsaw, struggling to survive, helped by his pre-war Gentile friend Dorota (Emilia Fox), and, later, by German officer Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann).

* DestinationDefenestration: A squad of German soldiers raids a house in the Ghetto. A hapless old Jewish man in a wheelchair who's living there is thrown off the house's balcony after the squad's officer absurdly ordered him to stand up, with his family watching and screaming and the Szpilman family watching in terror from the other side of the street.

* MadnessMantra / BrokenRecord: Why did I do it? Why did I do it? Why did I do it? WHY DID I DO IT?
** MostAnnoyingSound: {{Invoked}}; her whining gets on Helena's nerves, before she realizes just why she's been repeating that. The woman had tried to hide her baby from the Germans, but in doing so smothered it and subsequently killed her own baby. The Germans heard the death rattle, and they were found.

* RefugeInAudacity: Discussed. When the war begins, the Szpilman family argue over where to hide their money from the Germans. Henryk suggest placing the money under a cloth, and putting the cloth in plain sight, as it would be the last place where the Germans would look.

Adapted from the memoirs of Władysław Szpilman, the 2002 film ''The Pianist'' was directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and starred Creator/AdrienBrody and Creator/ThomasKretschmann. Both star and director won Oscars (with Brody being the youngest ever Best Actor winner at age 29), as did screenwriter Ronald Harwood. Basically, the film follows Szpilman's struggles in Nazi-occupied Poland as [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII hell breaks loose around him]]. As his family is deported to the German Death camps, Szpilman himself must find it in him to survive.

* LesCollaborateurs: The Jewish ghetto police. Szpilman's brother scornfully refuses to join them; one saves Szpilman's life later. In RealLife they were eventually gassed along with the rest of the ghetto.Although interestingly some of the more brutal members of the police are known to have survived the war.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Wilm Hosenfeld's kindness towards Szpilman was not a whim. At great personal risk, he had been using his position to save numerous Jews and Poles from death as far back as September 1939. He was then captured by the Russians and tortured in captivity til his death in 1952.

* ImprobableAimingSkills: Right when the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising Warsaw Uprising]] starts, unseen Polish fighter manages to shoot a long series out of a machine pistol, mowing down all German soldiers without hitting two nurses standing between them.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: The Germans, and especially the SS, are shown committing numerous atrocities on Polish civilians. The Soviets are also briefly shown treating German prisoners, including Hosenfeld, like cattle.

* LesCollaborateurs: The Jewish ghetto police. Szpilman's brother scornfully refuses to join them; one saves Szpilman's life later. In RealLife they were eventually gassed along with the rest of the ghetto.

Adapted from the memoirs of Władysław Szpilman, the 2002 film ''The Pianist'' was directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and starred Creator/AdrienBrody and Creator/ThomasKretschmann. Both star and director won Oscars (with Brody being the youngest ever Best Actor winner at age 29), as did screenwriter Ronald Harwood. Basically, the film follows Szpilman's struggles in Nazi-occupied Poland as [[WorldWarII hell breaks loose around him]]. As his family is deported to the German Death camps, Szpilman himself must find it in him to survive.

* LaResistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And then the later Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
* LesCollaborateurs: The Jewish ghetto police. Szpilman's brother scornfully refuses to join them; one saves Szpilman's life later. In RealLife they were eventually gassed along with the rest of the ghetto.

** The Nazis address Jews by the familiar you "du", [[HeyYou an insult in German when addressing strangers.]] (This is most notable in a couple of scenes where Nazis are picking Jews out of a line: "du!...du!...du!".) When the Good German, Capt. Hosenfeld, speaks to Szpilman he addresses him with the respectful formal "you", "Sie".

* CreatorCameo: That's Polanski complaining about a Gentile street running through the Jewish ghetto.

* MoodLighting: Many of the scenes (such as those in the ghetto and in Szpilman's apartment near the German hospital) are tinted blue.

* TruthInTelevision: Sadly enough. Polanski supplemented Szpilman's memoirs with some details from his own experience as a Holocaust survivor. The moment where Szpilman is stumbling away from the Treblinka train and the Jewish policeman says "Don't run!" was something that happened to Polanski.

* OscarBait: But still well regarded despite this. Creator/ArtSpiegelman who has been critical of "Holokitsch" films, praised ''The Pianist'' as admirable.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Wilm Hosenfeld's kindness towards Szpilman was not a whim. At great personal risk, he had been using his position to save numerous Jews and Poles from death as far back as September 1939.

* ThePianoPlayer: Well, [[CaptainObvious yeah]]. Although he's a classical concert pianist, once the Nazis move in Szpilman must take cheap gigs in restaurants. (Until things gets worse.) A rare instance of the trope being PlayedForDrama.

* AcademyAward: It won 3 of them: Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

** Subverted somewhat in the character of Hosenfeld. Although the graphic at the end correctly identifies him as a captain, in the film he appears to be a senior combat officer; the men in headquarters stand at attention when he enters and he signs written orders. The real Hosenfeld was in fact only a captain, and served as a [[http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/hosenfeld.asp "sports and culture officer"]].

* BittersweetEnding: Szpilman survives and resumes his career as a pianist. But his whole family was gassed in Treblinka. And as a further kick in the teeth, [[spoiler: Wilm Hosenfeld, the soldier who helped him survive the last few weeks of the war, died in a Soviet prison camp]].

** MostAnnoyingSound: {{Invoked}}; her whining gets on Helena's nerves, before she realizes just why she's been repeating that. [[spoiler: The woman had tried to hide her baby from the Germans, but in doing so smothered it and subsequently killed her own baby. The Germans heard the death rattle, and they were found.]]

* ThePianoPlayer: Well, [[CaptainObvious yeah]]. Although he's a classical concert pianist, once the Nazis move in Szpilman must take cheap gigs in restaurants. (Until it gets worse.) A rare instance of the trope being PlayedForDrama.

* TruthInTelevision: Sadly enough. Polanski supplemented Szpilman's memoirs with some details from his own experience as a Holocaust survivor. (The moment where Szpilman is stumbling away from the Treblinka train and the Jewish policeman says "Don't run!" was something that happened to Polanski.)

* RedsWithRockets: They appear towards the end of the film, [[spoiler: and they almost kill Szpilman because of the coat Hosenfeld gave him.]]

* NaziGermany: Obviously. Just about every Nazi in the movie is a bastard, [[CaptainObvious no surprises there]], except for Hosenfeld, who was a good man both in the movie and IRL (he felt ashamed at his country's actions, and in Warsaw, he used his position to refuge people, and made an effort to learn Polish so he could converse with those he befriended).
* NazisWithGnarlyWeapons: They appear at the beginning and towards the end, being the ones who are shown marching in the former and the ones using flamethrowers and Panzers against the Polish Home Army in the latter.

* WorldWarII