Adrien brody chopin pianist biography

Dorota and her husband visit Szpilman for the last time, providing him with a doctor to treat his illness. By August , Szpilman recovers, and the Warsaw Uprising begins. The Home Army attacks the Schutzpolizei Hospital across the street from the apartment, while Szpilman's apartment building is destroyed in the fighting, forcing him to flee and hide in the now abandoned hospital.

Over the following months, Warsaw is destroyed. Upon noticing German troops burning the hospital with flamethrowers , Szpilman flees and wanders through the city's ruins. He reaches an empty house where he finds a can of pickled cucumbers. While trying to open the can, Szpilman is discovered by Wehrmacht captain Wilm Hosenfeld , who learns that he is a pianist.

He asks Szpilman to play on a grand piano in the house. The decrepit Szpilman manages to play Chopin 's " Ballade No. Hosenfeld lets him hide in the attic of the house and supplies food for him. In January , as the Germans retreat from the Soviet offensive , Hosenfeld meets Szpilman for the last time, promising he will listen to him on Polish Radio after the war.

Hosenfeld leaves Szpilman with a large supply of food and his greatcoat to keep warm. After Warsaw is liberated, Szpilman narrowly survives an ambush by People's Army troops who mistake him for a German because of the coat. Several months later, surviving concentration camp inmates verbally abuse captured German soldiers being held at a Soviet POW camp, one lamenting over his former career as a violinist.

Hosenfeld, one of the prisoners, approaches the violinist and asks if he knows Szpilman, which he confirms. Hosenfeld asks the violinist if Szpilman can help rescue him. The violinist later brings Szpilman back to the site only to find it abandoned. Szpilman resumes his career, performing Chopin's " Grand Polonaise " with an orchestra to a large, prestigious audience.

A textual epilogue notes that Szpilman died in at the age of 88, while Hosenfeld died in Soviet captivity in He ended up living in a Polish farmer's barn until the war's end. His father almost died in the camps, but they reunited after the end of World War II. Joseph Fiennes was Polanski's first choice for the lead role, but he turned it down due to a previous commitment to a theatrical role.

Eventually, Polanski watched Harrison's Flowers , and then Polanski decided to offer Adrien Brody the leading role during their first meeting in Paris. The Warsaw Ghetto and the surrounding city were recreated on the backlot of Babelsberg Studio as they would have looked during the war. Old Soviet Army barracks were used to create the ruined city, as they were going to be destroyed anyway.

The first scenes of the film were shot at the old army barracks. Soon after, the film crew moved to a villa in Potsdam , which served as the house where Szpilman meets Hosenfeld. On 2 March , filming then moved to an abandoned Soviet military hospital in Beelitz , Germany. The scenes that featured German soldiers destroying a Warsaw hospital with flamethrowers were filmed there.

On 15 March, filming finally moved to Babelsberg Studios. The first scene shot at the studio was the complex and technically demanding scene in which Szpilman witnesses the ghetto uprising. Filming at the studios ended on 26 March, and moved to Warsaw on 29 March. The rundown district of Praga was chosen for filming because of its abundance of original buildings.

The art department built onto these original buildings, re-creating World War II-era Poland with signs and posters from the period. Additional filming also took place around Warsaw. The Umschlagplatz scene where Szpilman, his family, and hundreds of other Jews wait to be taken to the extermination camps was filmed at the National Defence University of Warsaw.

Principal photography ended in July , and was followed by months of post-production in Paris. The Pianist was widely acclaimed by critics, with Brody's performance, Harwood's screenplay, and Polanski's direction receiving special praise. AB: My parents have raised me with a sense of what's really important and have given me decent values, and I'm comfortable, but I haven't lived an excessive lifestyle in the least.

And I've kept my expenses to a minimum so that I have the freedom to wait. CF: I grew up in a house with an illustrator and photographer, and I'm wondering what it was like to grow up in a house with your mother [photojournalist Sylvia Plachy]? AB: I was surrounded with her pictures everywhere, negatives hanging in the bathroom, prints drying on record racks in the hallway, film canisters being rinsed out in the tub.

And I went with her on assignments, or down to the Village Voice offices. And my father [Elliot Brody] was a public school teacher in New York. He's been a great father to me, really encouraging and patient. So all of those things have shaped me, as well as the environment on the streets, which was entirely different. It was difficult, and that too has shaped me.

So, I had this nurturing home life, but I know what's out there too, on a very real level. And unfortunately, my friends who didn't have that home life, it's been more difficult for them. I have friends who went to art school with me, whom I knew from Queens. We'd take the train in together to go to [High School for the] Performing Arts, and they had to let a lot of it go.

Adrien brody chopin pianist biography

First of al, they weren't encouraged, it's very competitive, and they had no money. We didn't have much, but they had none, and so they had to step out into the world and just start supporting themselves. And you lose track. Fortunately, I began acting before supporting myself became an issue. You don't make much money from independent films and theater that's off-off-off Broadway, and workshops at BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music], which I was doing when I was young.

But I did manage to get an occasional commercial that would supplement my income for a while. I didn't have the pressure of being out on my own, studying for years and then arriving in L. I was able to work toward something for a long time. And I'm still working towards it. None of those films with those great directors was presented to me. It was all a struggle to get them.

Looking back on it, it's interesting that I was able to get so many roles like that and be right for them. That's another thing. There are the obstacles of your position as an actor, not being a commodity enough to be hired by the big directors for projects that have some kind of integrity, because the successful actors who've been in the game for a while want those roles.

So there's more competition, so you have to work harder and be right for it. CF: You're almost uncannily right for Wladyslaw Szpilman. On its face, it seems so daunting, not just because it's so large, but also because it's about receding over time, almost caving into yourself. AB: It's hard to describe it. For one thing, I had to shoot it in reverse chronology, and it was hard to be completely involved with that end state of being that this man ended up in, and not taking that journey, even as a character.

And then I had to eliminate all of those feelings that I had cultivated over time, to connect with him, and then make it seem as though, not only had I never experienced them, but they were infeasible for him and everyone around him. What's remarkable is that the character is somewhat detached from everything, and isn't typically heroic.

There were extended periods of silence, where I was just called to react. I'd never had that opportunity in a film, and that's a whole different process. There's not another actor there who's either inspirational or who picks up some of the slack. You have to stay on, and there's no moment to escape being immersed in that state of mind. No moment whatsoever, on set and off.

Roman doesn't even like using a stand-in. Method actor Brody made a lot of personal sacrifices to get into the mindset of the resilient Jewish pianist. To embody a man who had lost everything, Brody left his girlfriend and went on a dangerously extreme diet, losing 30 pounds in weight. His diet consisted of two boiled eggs for breakfast, some chicken for lunch and a small portion of chicken or fish and steamed vegetables for dinner.

Despite having very little energy, starving himself to experience the desperation that comes with hunger, Brody was determined to press on with his piano lessons. Oscar kiss controversy [ edit ]. This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience. Please help by spinning off or relocating any relevant information, and removing excessive detail that may be against Wikipedia's inclusion policy.

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Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Notes [ edit ]. That was that. References [ edit ]. The Talks. Retrieved January 13, United Press International. April 14, Retrieved February 29, Retrieved October 24, The Scotsman. July 4, Retrieved April 27, Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 29, The Jewish Chronicle. The Jewish Daily Forward.

New York City: forward. Retrieved February 3, The New York Sun. Archived from the original on December 29, The Guardian. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 24, The Village Voice. Archived from the original on January 5, Retrieved September 24, January 21, Archived from the original on February 25, New York Times. ProQuest His father took a leave from his teaching job and found an apartment in Beverly Hills, so Adrien could attend high school there.

He dropped out after a semester to move to Los Angeles. Archived from the original on May 28, Retrieved November 13, December 8, Retrieved December 8, Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 21, TV Guide.