The omitted truth behind ‘The Pianist’
Adrien Brody became the youngest-ever winner of the Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ at the age of 29 when Roman Polanski’s biographical drama The Pianist won four trophies in total, painting a haunting portrait of a dark period in modern history.
Although the film would lose the ‘Best Picture’ race to Rob Marshall’s musical Chicago, it scooped an additional three Oscars, including ‘Best Director’, with Polanski’s recognition proving controversial for reasons that remain entirely self-explanatory.
Adapted from the autobiography of the same name by Władysław Szpilman, Brody’s radio station pianist can only watch on helplessly as Warsaw begins to undergo drastic structural, societal, and cultural transformations in the face of World War II. Following the protagonist from the streets and into the city’s Nazi-occupied ghettos, Szpilman is separated from his family and hides among the ruins to ensure his own survival.
To fully immerse himself into the character, Brody sold the majority of his personal belongings, bar the absolute essentials, and withdrew from public life to create a sense of isolation. The actor also lost a substantial amount of weight and spent hours training to master the piano, a dedication that was richly rewarded when he took home the top acting prize the industry has to offer.
Despite being ripped straight from the pages of history as written by the man who lived them, though, The Pianist omitted several notable details from Szpilman’s experiences post-war. While it would be unreasonable to expect the entire time to be condensed into a 143-minute feature, one key aspect of his tribulations went noticeably unmentioned.
When Thomas Kretschmann’s Nazi officer Wilm Hosenfeld discovers Szpilman living in an abandoned house, he opts not to turn him in. Showing a rare glimpse of humanity, he instead brings him food and makes a point of ensuring that his fellow soldiers won’t be able to unearth his whereabouts.
In the final moments of The Pianist, it’s revealed that Hosenfeld died in a Soviet camp in 1952, but neglects to mention that Szpilman’s staunch opposition to the Nazi regime had seen him rescue dozens of other people in similar positions before he surrendered himself to the Russian armed forces.
Throughout the war, Hosenfeld would visit Polish churches – which was against the law at the time – and give refuge to local nationals. Over the course of six years, it’s estimated that he prevented at least 60 Jews from being sent to their deaths in concentration camps.
Szpilman even tried to orchestrate Hosenfeld’s release after learning of the good Samaritan’s name in 1950, but the Polish secret police told him that because he was being held prisoner in the Soviet Union, there was nothing he could do about it. Naturally, Szpilman was sceptical of that assessment but was left powerless to try and return the favour.
