The Twelve-inch Pianist

I went to see "The Pianist", Polanski's new film, last night. Long and very sad, not sure if it deserved all the awards it got or will get but who am I to be critical?

I promise I won't go off on another rant, since this movie didn't bother me as much, but I did notice something about the main character and the structure of the movie that made me wonder about Polanski's ultimate message for us.

It is this: throughout the movie Szpilman (the pianist, main character) survives, but he does so only through other people. Despite his frequent vows of defiance (early in the movie when the Germans are first bombing Warsaw, he refuses to join the Army because he would rather die defending his home in Warsaw; in the first ghetto uprising in 1943 he does not participate other than by helping to hide pistols; and in the 1944 uprising he sits and watches the whole thing from the window of the apartment where he has been locked up, escaping only when a German tank blows a hole in the wall of the building) he does not actually do much to defend himself, strike back or even help the other members of his family (other than kissing ass to get his parents work permits that prove useless, and sucking up to a Jewish policeman to get his brother out of the slammer, for which his brother is very ungrateful).

When things go bad for him he relies on others to survive: he lives by playing piano in a restaurant frequented by the rich Jews in the ghetto, he gets tossed out of the lineup of people being loaded onto the train for Treblinka by a Jewish cop, he is hidden and fed in apartments in Warsaw kept by non-Jews, and at the end a German officer takes pity on him and feeds him until the Russians arrive.

So is Polanski's message that artists should be protected and sheltered in time of war (when culture is ostensibly most threatened) because they are artists? Or is he saying that we are all victims, and that it's all one whether we fight back or not, and if other people take care of you, good on ya? Or is he just retelling the story that Szpilman actually lived (the movie was adapted from his autobiography), proving that any life can be seen as a concatenation of random events and lucky or not-lucky breaks?

I also found the movie a little less than historically honest on two points.
One is that in the movie, the Germans are the ones doing all the random killing and beating and making people dance to klezmer music in the streets. What Polanski does not mention in the movie is that of all the occupied countries, Jews were most thoroughly eradicated in Poland, due to the efforts of the Jewish Gentile population who were at least as anti-Semitic as the Nazis. The Germans did not maintain a large garrison in Warsaw - most of their soldiers were off fighting the Russians in the East. Polish police and miscellaneous SS and SS-Polizei units were the most enthusiastic Jew hunters. Another point which is not stated in the movie is that in 1944 the Russian Army, having fought to within 20 miles of the Warsaw city limits, sat down where they were and waited for two months while the Germans were busy putting down the uprising in the ghetto. When the revolt had been crushed they moved forward again and took the city. Stalin's anti-Semitism is an establshed historical fact.

This is not to say the movie was thoroughly historically dishonest (like, say, Amistad, which was a barefaced lie presenting itself as history); by virtue of the medium, no movie can ever be 100% historically accurate.

But I don't want to go off on that much of a riff about it, these are rather minor points. As before, I am left wondering just what exactly Polanski wanted us to bring away from this beautiful and involving movie.


And now, for those of you who didn't catch the reference in the title, here is the joke (which I could not remember until I looked it up just now):

***
A man walks into a bar with a paper bag. He sits down and places the bag on the counter. The bartender walks up and asks:

"So whaddaya got in the bag?"

The man responded by reaching into the bag and pulling out a little man, about one foot high, and he sets him on the counter. He reaches back into the bag and this time pulls out a small piano, setting it on the counter as well. He reaches into the bag once again and pulls out a tiny piano bench, which he placed in front of the piano. The little man sits down at the piano and starts playing a piece by Mozart. Now the bartender is extremely curious about this odd sight, so he asks the man:

"Where the hell'd ya get that?"

The man responded by reaching into the paper bag, but this time he pulls out a magic lamp. He hands it to the bartender and says:

"Here. Rub it."

So the bartender rubs the lamp, and suddenly there's a gust of smoke, then a beautiful genie is standing before him.

"I will grant you one wish," she says.

The bartender gets excited by having a wish from a real genie. He had always dreamed about it, but now it's actually happening. So without even hesitating, he says:

"I want a million bucks."

So the genie nods her head and disappears in another gust of smoke. A few moments later, a duck walks into the bar. It is soon followed by another duck, then another. Pretty soon, the entire bar is filled with ducks. The bartender turns to the man and says:

"Y'know, I think your genie's a little deaf. I asked for a million BUCKS, not a million DUCKS."

To this the man responded:

"No shit! Do you really think, for just one moment, that I would have ever wished for a TWELVE INCH PIANIST?!!"
***

Postmodern Sweeties

My friend Joe and I are planning to go to Burning Man together this summer, and this morning we were talking about logistics - transport, equipment, food - and got talking about bars: ration bars, energy bars, and the kind of chocolate bars they do not have in the US that I could bring down as barter items (no money allowed at Burning Man, it's what they call a "gift economy" which I guess means everything's negotiable).

Examples of Canada-only bars are found at http://www.bookofratings.com/canadiansnacks.html, and the most remarkable I can think of is the Aero Bar. The chocolate inside is all crumbly bubbles, "Big on bubbles" ("Les bulles...on s'y connaît!") is this candy bar's catchphrase, and sure enough when you crack one in half it looks like a chocolatey degenerative bone disease."

Of course, these would melt in the 100+ degree Nevada heat, and Joe suggested drinking them, to which I replied:

"Ugh, sometimes you have the most disgusting ideas, Joseph. Anyway, a melted Aero completely misses the point, and the postmodern premise, of this chocolate bar: its sales are predicated on its offer of nothing, of myriads of minute vacancies inside - in short, you are buying a chocolate bar that promises the absence of chocolate."

"Par les bulles on s'y connait" - you'll know it by the bubbles - heh, the slogan is even in French, Baudrillard would be proud.

I think there's something here for all of us to reflect on. Or Not.