Oscars and Christopher Szpilman Son of 'The Pianist'

[Ulysses]

The Academy Awards should be presented soon. The favorites appear to be Chicago and the Pianist. One movie I wish was nominated for an Oscar was "City of God". Anyone have any favorites?


Newsweek Interview: Christopher Szpilman Son of 'The Pianist' Wladyslaw Szpilman
Sunday March 16, 11:47 am ET
Didn't Learn About Father's Experience In Nazi-Occupied Warsaw Until He Found The Memoir In Attic When He Was A Child
'I Suspect My Father Wrote the Book to Put All His Unbearable Memories Into It, Get Them Out of His Head and Never Return to It'


NEW YORK, March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Christopher Szpilman, the son of pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who survived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation and is the subject of the Oscar-nominated Roman Polanski film, "The Pianist," tells Newsweek International that he didn't learn what his father went through until he found his memoir in the attic when he was 12 or 13 years old. "You see, the book [Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir of the same name on which the movie is based] was published in 1946, but my father never talked about his war experiences. I was born six years after the war ... It was a real shock to [learn] what my father went through and what happened to my grandparents from [reading] it. I suspect my father wrote the book to put all his unbearable memories into it, get them out of his head and never to return to it."
(Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030316/NYSU007 )
"After that, he started concentrating on his work, again, to suppress these unpleasant ideas. Even after I read the book, it was very difficult to broach the subject. He'd have just turned it into a joke. He had a strange way of turning any serious conversation into a joke to avoid it," Szpilman tells Special Correspondent Kay Itoi in the March 24 issue of Newsweek International (on newsstands Monday, March 17).

Szpilman died in 2000 as Polanski searched for an actor to play him. Christopher Szpilman says when the book was republished in 1998, his father was pleased, "but the renewed attention was very painful. By that time he was 87, with less strength to suppress the memories. He was pained by the idea that he survived but not anyone else." The first negotiation for the film took place in late 1999. "My father [passed away] in July 2000. He had been in excellent health but he was gone very suddenly. I can't help feeling that the success of the book and this film talk had something to do with that."

He says he can't imagine that his father would have been able to sit through the whole thing "and have to bear 2 1/2 hours of the memories of his own experiences on the screen."

[Zbyszek]

Hi Ulysses thank you for the quoted fatcs, very interesting indeed.
My mother was a personal witness to horros which took place in Warsaw occupied but Germans in WWII. She was only nine when the war began in 1939. She was born in Warsaw, she witnessed bombing of the Royal Castle in 1939, her own apartment block was bombed and completely destroyed. She was brutally displaced from the burning town in 1944, in the wake of the fall of heroic Warsaw Uprising 1944 which was presented in the film together with the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw 1943. She respects Szpilman's memoir as truthful and honest.
Szpilmans songs are beautiful and famous, every middle aged Varsavian can sing them. One of the most charming one has a puzzling title: "I do not trust a song/Nie wierze piosence".
I am so glad to hear right now that "The Pianist" won three Oscars eventually! What a beautiful, breathtaking film it is. And, paradoxically, it is hopeful in spite of so many horrors presented. My mother recalls how people celebrated the end of war, how happy they were in spite of the bitter fact that EVERY family lost someone dear.
The only sad moment is that the prizes are falling at the same times when bombs are falling on Baghdad.
I would also draw your attention to the wonderful music of the film soundtrack, with Chopin concert in the background.
Wojciech Kilar, the composer born in Lwow, deserves another Oscar for his film music.

[Ulysses]

I really enjoyed the Pianist. Oscar politics is a dirty business. It is amazing to see the smear campaigns some studios undertake. There were some that were trying to judge the lack of judgement Polanski used in the past as an excuse to belittle the quality of his work. The Los Angeles Times had an op-ed letter from Samantha Geimer, the victim of Polanski's crime and she said the film should be judged on the quality of the work... Then something strange happened a few weeks ago, the 1977 grand-jury transcripts of Polanski's case were unsealed, right before the Oscars ballots were submitted? Coincidence?

I'll listen to the soundtrack. They really put a lot of work into this film.

[holland]

his speech was incredible that he acknowledged the war in Iraq and made the similarities to that in his movie...

[Volodya987]

Found another city of god, have ya? Is it the one near Paris, Texas. What did Szpilman spill, someone elses guts?