The pianist is the emotional, impact creating, true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman based on the autobiographical book "The Pianist (1946)". The establishing shot begins with black and white then changes to color. A Jewish pianist in Poland, was caught up in the horrors of World War 2. The Nazis occupied Poland, sent the Jews to a slum area, and then sent them off to jail. There were a lot heartbreaking and violent moments since the start.
Director Roman Polanski has narrated this difficult message in a thought full, and emotional way. After the people being jailed, the pianist escaped for a day and walked through the bright flower stalls in the crowded market outside the restricted area. Men and women were shot in the head for no reason, a man in a wheelchair is tossed off a balcony because he was not able to get up, and a vehicle which crushed man lying injured in the road.
There is also the wartime violence of machine-gun battles, bombed blasts, and explosions everywhere. It shows how far the pianist has been pushed away from a normal life.
Then he moved to an apartment opposite to the hospital from where he can see the things going around the street. There he was safe for a while but then hunger, loneliness, sickness and bomb falls made him run away and then he searches various destructed house for food shelter and to hide himself and finally finds a room where there were some food and a piano.
In one of the strongest scenes, towards the end, a German officer forces the pianist to play for his life, which suddenly brings a moment of surprise to the film.
In most scene camera was played steady and actions were happening before and behind. There was a shot when he jumped the fence and an angle of 180 degree was shown which was an eye-catchy one, and others were simple shots like over the shoulder, close up, mid- close up, reversed, tracking and crane shots. Transitions like fade in, fade out, dissolve and cut to, were used.
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