In The Pianist, Władysław Szpilman is living in Warsaw when Germany invades Poland.
Roman Polanski’s 2002 film adapts Szpilman’s memoir about surviving the Holocaust in German-occupied Warsaw. Adrien Brody plays Szpilman, a Jewish Polish pianist and composer whose career is interrupted by the German invasion in September 1939. The film follows the progressive restrictions imposed on Warsaw’s Jewish population, the creation and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Szpilman’s solitary efforts to survive amid the city’s ruins.
Warsaw is more than a backdrop: its destruction and changing population shape nearly every stage of the story. Szpilman survived with help from Polish civilians and German officer Wilm Hosenfeld, who discovered him near the end of the war. The film should not be confused with a story set in Kraków, another major Polish city under German occupation. Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.