Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The Pianist - Period 1
The motion picture, The Pianist is the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who was the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe, in the 1930s. This film does an excellent job of explaining why it became impossible for the Jewish people living in Europe to escape the Nazis and what happened to them during the Holocaust. Post a reflective comment about the film and respond to at least one other student’s comment. Post is due at the end of the day.
Mr. Gallagher
22 comments:
What stood out the most for me was the fact that the Germans treated the Jews like they were animals and the Jews had to accept it and be humiliated or die. The part that stood out to me the most was when the family was having dinner and they Nazis came in and ended up throwing the guy in the wheel chair out the window. It shows how much controle and power the Nazis had over people coming from other people that gave them the ability to treat the Jews that way.
Taylor E.
This movie does an outstanding job at showing the ways the Nazis treated the Jews, along with what the Jews had to deal with day in and day out. There were many moments that stood out. One was when the people were standing in line waiting to get through across the street. The Nazis' wanted entertainment and thought it would be fun to torment the Jewsish people. They grabbed people from the crowd and matched them up oddly with people whom they did not match with or know. Even an older man on crutches was thrown into the mix and made to dance to the music. It showed that the Nazi have little care for how the Jewish people feel, and what pain they are put through.
I agree with Taylor when she says that another moment that stood out was when the Nazis stormed into the house while the family was eating dinner. They told them all to stand and since the older man in the wheelchair could not stand he was brought to the balcony and thrown over. It was a devastating moment and as Taylor said it showed the amount of power the Nazis had and how they treated the Jewish people so poorly.
I think that The Pianist definitely did a great job portraying the situation that the Jews were in under Nazi rule. I think that the shootings that happened at night, how quickly the Nazis built the ghetto's walls, and the child who was beaten to death while trying to get through the wall showed how difficult it was to escape the Holocaust and the segregation in the ghettoes. Also, the man eating the canned food off the dirty pavement and the people's attempts at selling everything they could sell showed how desperate the Jews became because of the situation.
Andy H.
I thought the movie was an accurate and uncensored account of the Nazi take over of Poland. The horrific acts such as the handicapped man being tossed out of a third story window and the little boy beaten to death show how violent the Nazi's were. Also, the conditions for the Jews in Poland, specifically the city of Warsaw which is depicted in the film, is shown to have quickly worsened. More specifically the movies shows how even a famous and accomplished artist like Wladyslaw Szpilman was not safe or immune from the Nazi's rules and brutality.
-Austin Evans
I agree with Taylor's above comment about the Nazi's treatment of the Jewish community in Warsaw, Poland. They were treated as animals by the Germans and either died fighting or accepted there status and groveled at the Nazi's feet. The Nazi's power was on full display in the film Pianist and, like Taylor, I was most disturbed at the part when they eject the man in the wheelchair out the window to his death.
-Austin E.
The heinous crimes the Nazis committed against the Jewish community the ghetto was the most disturbing thing to watch, for me, especially when they mistreated the Jewish people by making them dance and humiliating them. It was also disturbing to watch the Jewish people’s homes being broken into and the children trying to smuggle things into the community and dying. The movie goes to show how bad it really was which is very sad, but important for everyone to watch.
I agree with Austin's point of view of the movie, watching the man in the wheel chair be thrown off the balcany was very disturbing to watch. Also, even though Wladyslaw Szpilman was famous and well known throughout Europe he was not safe, no one was. It goes to show how bad it really was and no one was going to get out easy.
I agree with what Austin said about how much power the Nazis had and how brutal they were in using this power. I also agree that the fact that one of the world's greatest pianists was unable to escape the Nazis shows how strong the Nazis' power really was since Wladyslaw Szpilman was unable to escape the Holocaust.
Andy H
So far, I think The Pianist is a great film. It really gets the idea through your head about the harsh treatment of Jews. And harsh might not be a strong enough word to describe what the Jews went through. The scenes where the pianist's father is hit and told to walk on the road, and the scene where the handicapped grandfather is thrown out the balcony, and the scenes of the starved dead people really made a strong impression to me. The film is very hard to watch at times because of the unreasonable actions the Nazi soldiers took.
And I agree with what Amanda said about the carelessness of the Nazi soldiers. With the way that they treated the Jews, you can tell that Hitler made sure that the German people didn't regard the Jews as human beings.
This film has always had a very deep impression on me. Ever since i watched it back in sophmore year. it does a very good job of illustrating all of the things that the nazis did to dehumanize and segregate the jews, as well as harm them. At times i found myself turning away due to the harsh treatment the jews suffer at the hands of nazi soldiers.
I think that amanda was on to something about the harsh treatment of the jews by the soldiers, but i do not believe it to be carelessness, i consider it heartless, or even spiteful. Fueled by hatred and anti-semitism started by Hitler.
I felt that the film was very powerful. It vividly portrayed the lives of Jewish people who lived in countries Germany had taken over. It really made you think about the lives of the Jewish people during the WW2 and and how horrific the Nazi's crimes were.
Like Austin I think it is amazing how the social status of someone who was famous and well known for his piano playing skills could change so easily.
I thought the movie, from what we saw so far, is very powerful and compelling. It does an amazing job portraying the lives of a typical Jewish families and the harsh times they had to face. Some of the scenes in the movie were very heartbreaking and hard to watch. However, we cannot expect a movie about the holocaust to be easy on the eyes. I am looking forward to finishing it and seeing what happens to the family.
I agree with Austin about how to the Nazi's, an accomplished pianist meaned nothing to them unless they were German.
I think this movie shows the reality of what happened to the jewish people.It is so sad to watch it and know how harm can humans do to one another. It is hard not to feel anything toward the germans while watching this movie. My question is what made them so much better than the Jews to the point that they had the right to invade and throw someone out of the window. I totally agree with alex that this movie is not easy on the eye, because of its reality.
I was surprised by the brutality of the Nazi towards the boy going through the drain. I can believe the troops following orders and thinking that Hitler knew which way to lead the country, but this particular action was unnecessary even to their cause. It is hard to imagine what motivated that Nazi to be so brutal.
Though I wasn't in class today and missed watching the film, I do remember a few things from sophmore year. There are two scenes in particular that are engraved in my mind. The first is the scene in which a crippled old Jewish man is thrown off a balcony for absolutely no reason except for the fact that German soldiers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. The second is the scene in which a group of Jews are told to run by German soldiers. Once they were half way, the soldiers started shooting at them. Only one Jewish man made it to the fence but was shot while trying to jump over it. Both of these scenes demonstrate the cruelty Jews were forced to suffer. It's obvious in the second scene that the Germans soldiers treated the killing of Jews as entertainment/a game.
I also agree with Marufa and her comment about how the word "harsh" cannot be used to describe what the Jews went through. It's completely unbelieveable to the point where a person doesn't know how to react.
-Ilsi D.
similar to austin, i agree that the takeover of Poland seemed very sudden, and that there was no time to prepare. (even though Hitler had been in power for 7 years, i suppose they might have anticipated it eventually. i also thought that it was interesting when the father blamed American Jews. i hadn't considered that before. especially since on a larger scale this would mean that the nazis blame european Jews, then the european Jews blame the american Jews.
This was my second time watching this movie, and, just like the first time, it amazed me and impacted me beyond belief. Just every bit of the take over and watching from a first-hand view of what happened to the Jews in Poland was astonishing. The way the Nazi soldiers treated the Jews was disgusting. What made it even worse was that the Jews had to obey them and be humiliated or else they would face deadly consequences.
I agree with Austin how the film accurately shows how the invasion of Poland took place. It is also sad how no matter who you really were as a person, what you were capable of, what you had a accomplished, or what you acted like, if you were a Jew, then you were basically considered as human as a rat.
So far, The Pianist is a pretty good film. It does a good job of showing how brutal the Nazis were towards the Jews. Seeing an old man in a wheel chair being thrown out of a window is pretty messed up. Then they ran over the family in the car. Clearly Jews were treated as the lowest life form on earth by the Nazis.
Like Fritz, I also wonder how these soldiers began to think the way they did. Obviously they weren't born thinking that way. I'm curious about what Hitler did to condition these guys.
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