The Pianist Text Analysis

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The idea that the purpose of a text, or representational medium, enables a deeper understanding rather than an ultimate truth is highly reflected in Mark Baker’s 1997 biographical novel The Fiftieth Gate and Roman Polanski’s 2002 autobiography-adapted film The Pianist. Both texts explore how the objective of history and memory focuses on the interaction between these two notions and their limitations rather than the ultimate truth. The deeper understanding gained of these two texts have shown that history is objective but lacks the personal, and memory is subjective and fragmented but complements history in developing the spiritual and psychological effects on the witnesses. Baker attempts to recount and validate his parent’s stories and expand on the memory of the Holocaust of WWII. Similarly, Polanski’s text centers on the life of Polish-Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman and aims to capture the life of Jews during that time. Baker allows a greater understanding of history through establishing the objective nature of it and its flaws. The book’s structure of fifty gates is a Kabbalistic reference to the religious script Talmud and symbolises the mystical notion of redemption. The gates are emblematic of the Jewish culture and religion and are thus significant in their history. In this way, the book’s purpose is to seemingly strive to ‘enlighten’ one with knowledge and to allow an understanding of the Holocaust’s spiritual impact. Other historical discourses, such as archival evidence from the Jewish Historical Institute, eyewitness letters, birth and death statistics are compiled in a bricolage and is used to provide a basis for the accounts, however, this provision of facts sees a removal of the personal. Most notably, in Gate Forty-Two, Hinda Bekiermaszyn’s deportation to Treblinka - a concentration camp - is imaginatively reconstructed. The first-person narrative presents the events in a way that historical discourse cannot and draws upon the confronting experiences. However, as it relies heavily on historical documentation, it is flawed due to the unknown nature of Hinda’s reality, though a more authentic account has been achieved through Baker being informed by the collective history of the Jewish community. As such, a deeper understanding of the limited nature of history is gained from Baker’s text. Similar to Baker, Polanski develops history as objective but flawed through the representation of events. The film is broken into dates and locations - such as Warsaw 1939 in the opening, to document the key historical dates in relation to the Jewish community. Following Szpilman’s escape from the deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto, a long shot captures him walking down a street surrounded by clothing, luggage, and bodies. The shot not only enables Polanski to communicate the scale of the brutal occupation of the Nazis in Poland but acts as a visual tool to allow the audience to empathise with Szpilman, effectively communicating his psychological state of distress. The film shoots from the perspective of Szpilman and places the audience in the perspective of him with eye-level camera shots through the windows, increasing the suspense. Additionally, the selective framing of certain elements of the whole scene limits the audience to a fraction of the whole. Through this, Polanski reflects on a number of unseen qualities and enables a deeper understanding that history, although providing us with an …show more content…
The rejection of the linear narrative of traditional history enabled Baker to explore the relationships between history and memory by incorporating elements of the Midrash (part of the Jewish oral tradition), Talmud and a variety of forms and styles to acknowledge the multitude of perspectives that make up the memories of the past. In addition, Baker demonstrates the fragility of memory through Genia - his mother’s - account. The Polish family which sheltered Genia during the war ‘do not remember the blackness’, however, Genia remembers a ‘little girl hiding in a dark cellar’. The repetition of the image of darkness indicates the void of memory and secrecy which is the gap of the unknown. The family’s memory of Genia looking out of the window differs from Genia’s perception, and it also reflects her mindset of the traumatic past, this contrast furthers the understanding of memory being fragmented and the psychological effect on victims who over time have forgotten these

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