Polanski's THE PIANIST

I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to see Polanski's latest film. There is a fascinating review titled: The Eternal Nazi: Watching Roman Polanski's The Pianist in Germany By William Grim. It was originally published on December 2, 2002.

There are some extreme, even outrageous points made in this review. I not only find them difficult to believe, but think they suggest a characteristic of the German people that is inflamatory — does nothing to promote real understanding.

What are your views?

Find the review at:
http://www.zcportal.com/2002/1202/pianist.asp



The broad U.S. release of THE PIANIST will be January 3rd.

I read the article you referenced and I thought it was poorly written and agenda-driven. I also roamed the web site--it's new and not very compelling--and found a brief bio of the guy who wrote it. His background did not have enough information to justify his take on Germany (oh, I forgot, he lives in Europe so he's an expert) and what credentials he did have did not justify his take on the German Volk, as he calls them.

That said, as a child of two Holocaust survivors (and whose family is either dead at the hands of the Nazis or scattered in pockets all over the world), I do have a knee-jerk reaction to Germans and, unfortunately, have yet to meet one whose buttons couldn't be pushed far enough to finally utter some kind of damning, implicating phrase that told me more than I wanted to know.

Not that I tried hard in pushing those buttons. It just seems that some of the Germans I have come in contact with (some very closely) are thin-skinned and prepared to spout philosophy much easier than others. Others seem blissfully ignorant of their incendiary views, as if it's okay to have them. While expressing dismay over their actions, they don't seem overly obliged to offer an apology.

I don't know what I expect at this point so I realize my family's background (by the way, my parents were Polish and the knee-jerking I feel extends to the Poles as well) implicates me as well. I want very much to forgive and look for some guidance in my faith--which I don't get; Jewish guilt extends far beyond one's mother--to get on with it. (From a purely commercialized standpoint, I want my faith to give me permission to buy a Mercedes and I have lust in my heart for BMWs.) But it's hard to let go of what my parents went through. My mother said "Schindler's List" was accurate but was about one-tenth of what she actually experienced. And I thought "Schindler's List" was pretty harrowing myself.


I think I'd like to give "The Pianist" a chance because Polanski is much more cerebral than Spielberg. But I thought "Schindler's List" was a remarlable undertaking nonetheless. And while Spielberg did try to show the humanity of certain Germans, I think Polanski--who was there--is a pragmatist whose films are nothing if not brutally honest. ("Bitter Moon" comes to mind as a film made by an auteur who couldn't care less what anyone else thinks of him.)

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(From a purely commercialized standpoint, I want my faith to give me permission to buy a Mercedes and I have lust in my heart for BMWs.)

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To quote Clinton, I feel your pain. I ride to work each day with a guy who drives a seven series beemer. Luxury engineering if there ever was... I can only sniff the leather interior. (You know it has a heated glove compartment lined with mouse fur?) My wages allow me to enjoy public transit on a regular basis..

Re: The Pianist, for the first time this year I cried at the movies. Actually, it was on the way home after. This should finally get Polanski some due recognition. PREDICTION: This film will be nominated for best foreign film, but due to Polanski's exile, he won't win. It's OK though, because he got the Palm D'or. I love Cannes. Why the hell don't they let the public attend?

All hail Romek Polanski. (Bitter Moon is my favorite guilty pleasure film. It's no wonder he married that bombshell Seigner)

I plan to read Grim's review and return to this forum after watching THE PIANIST this week. For the time being, I need to say that categorical thinking is erroneous and simplistic when applied to human beings. When you assign a person a certain characteristic based on national origin you are robbing him of his humanity, his unique nature. To approach another with preconceived notions is to deny oneself the chance to really know him. To borrow from Doc, it does nothing to promote understanding.

I'd like to call attention to POLANSKI'S MACBETH, a superb, visually rich film that few have seen due to the director's legal problems when released. MACBETH is now available on DVD(widescreen, great transfer)

I think THE PIANIST cannot be nominated for the foreign language Oscar because this international production is largely in english.

I have the Macbeth DVD, and it IS gorgeous. I remember seeing it in grade 12 english class and thinking: man, this is VIOLENT. (A response to the murder of Sharon?)

I got the DVD the day it came out. Polanski is in my top 5 of fave directors. i've seen all of his films- even Two Men and a Wardrobe & The Fat and the Lean. I actually prefer Repulsion & Knife in the Water to Chinatown, which gets heaps of praise. Bitter Moon and Death & the Maiden are incredible entertainment. Must sees imho.

I liken Roman to Elia Kazan: say what you want about the man's life, the films are what matters, and both are genius incarnate. If I were to go to film school, Lodz would be my choice.

I named REPULSION fave horror film ever in "my top 10 movies" thread. Guy once told me I'm more afraid of my fragile mind than monsters or demons. The tension and dread are masterly sustained by Polanski and Deneuve. Then the final shot revealing succinctly the etiology of her sexual repression and paranoia.

I have enjoyed all of his films but, to be honest, TESS('79) is the last Polanski to make my top 10. I also think CUL-DE-SAC is special, but it's not available in any format. CHINATOWN manages to add political infighting, use of natural resources and social consciousness into typical film-noir narrative. Polanski's intense cameo. Nicholson, Dunaway and Huston. And again, just like in REPULSION, sexual abuse rears its grotesque, ugly head.


I don't want to judge Polanski or Kazan's life. "The films are what matters"(Johann) Now, how do I evaluate THE BIRTH OF A NATION and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, genius in the service of evil?

Hmmmmm.

Birth of a Nation. I always sidestep the racism wholly apparent in the film because it was "the times". If we had cinema back when they burned witches at the stake we would be faced with the same question- should we support such images? Personally I cherish my right to see these films. A bigger issue would be the censoring of these historic movies. But then a studio would chop away at that by giving us The Passion of Joan of Arc, so all would not be lost. (There's always some Oliver Stone ready to hack at the status quo)

Triumph of the Will is a little more difficult to "explain away". Leni was Hitler's favorite filmmaker, and considering the climate in her country, you could hardly fault her for endorsing the reich. At least she made a masterpiece documentary (If she made a shitty film then I don't think we'd be talking about her)

I gather that some of us would recognize that Polanski made some most excellent films in the past--if he has faltered a bit lately. Rather than engage in pointless polemics about Naziism or the guilt of the German people, I'd rather go back to Polanski's "The Pianist," which is where this discussion started. There hasn't been much focus on the film itself. I'd suggest that it presents the experience of Wladyslaw Szpilman (or something very like it) and that experience, in all its mystery, sadness, and humanity, that triumph of the human spirit and music, is all we need to get out of watching Polanski's remarkable new creation.

Polanski has always had a coolness and a clear perception of evil that may help explain why his depiction of the Germans in Poland in the war is so convincing. He also happens to have been there (in Krakow anyway, if not Warsaw), as a younger person, hiding out and surviving as Szpilman did. If we recognize the validity and specificity of the experience "The Pianist" presents, all the ideas and generalizations fall back into their proper places where they belong. "The Pianist" is not a polemic but the recreation of an experience of considerable emotional power and of a decidedly tragic dimension. Controversial and unpalatable as this material is, it is the material of art, not of polemic. (Nonetheless I agree with bix171 that the filmmaker is more cerebral than Spielberg: it's this that gives his emotional story conviction.) Polanski himself moreover deserves treatment as an artist, here, not as a pathology or a legal case.

I saw The Pianist twice and thought it was amazingly well done.

I agree with the last post on the irrelevance of the German People tangent. It seems inappropriate to me and, at some points, rather offensive. I feel a little embarassed even having to write this, but I know many Germans who would never utter a "damning, implicating phrase," no matter how far they were pushed.

Speaking of relevance, or irrelevance ... I agree that Polanski deserves treatment as an "artist," but I don't think that necessarily precludes treatment as a "legal case." Simply because someone creates good art, it doesn't mean you mustn't consider that person in other ways. The fact that Polanski raped a 13 year-old girl isn't relevant to a discussion of his films, but it's still important for me to know. You know, as a, yes, feminist, but more significantly, as a human being.

- Marina

To Marina: What you say is quite true, but I was trying to get back to a discussion of the film in question, which so far hardly anyone here seems to have seen or commented on directly. I'd like to hear specific comments from people who have seen it. Do they think, as David Denby says, that the hero is a blank, and that the film is without great originality or imagination? Do they think, as he has written, that Schindler's List has better acting and is more "complex"?

I have a feeling that a lot of Americans are wearing blinders when they see "The Pianist" and seeing what they want to see instead if it.

I can only comment that The Pianist should be compared with only one thing: Polanski's other films. It's moot to compare it with Schindler's List because while the time-frame is the same, they are two separtate stories. (Just like every person who was persecuted during that time has their own story)

If any film can be compared to The Pianist, it's Holland's Europa Europa. Both have characters who face horrifying odds and have to act accordingly. Kubrick made a great point about Schindler's List:

"It was about success, wasn't it? It wasn't about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was about 6 million people who lost their lives. Schindler's List was about 600 who didn't."

I have to let my opinions of The Pianist gestate for a while. It affected me in a way only the best films do: purely emotional. It pushed ALL of my buttons.
So I'll perhaps comment later when I form a concrete analysis. (Kubrick's films did the same thing to me)

..are odious, he saying goes. But they're inevitable. Everybody is comparing "The Pianist with Schindler's List, so why shouldn't we respond? Why not compare it with anything we like? But Europa, Europa is a good one to bring in. It does have important points in common. But so does Schindler's List: the Warsaw ghetto.

Sad to say, but World War II will always be a wellspring for film directors. So many great films about this time in history:

Stalingrad
The Anne Frank Story
A Bridge Too far
The Devil's Brigade
Das Boot
A Midnight Clear
Patton
Saving Private Ryan
Memphis Belle etc etc

I would like to add to that list “Die Brücke,” directed by Bernard Wicki (1959), one of the best anti war films of all time. I saw it when I was just out of college and I could not speak for two hours. I saw it again recently and it has not lost its power. It’s about Germany in 1945 when no one is left to fight but teenagers. You know who they all are when their futile battle begins and the effect is devastating.

The Bridge is indeed awesome. I knew that Spielberg had to have seen it before he started SPR. A few scenes were very familiar...My Name is Ivan is also a masterpiece. While not a war film per se, A Man Escaped was a harrowing watch.

I'm glad that you've seen The Bridge. It doesn't seem to be very well known --unless you're German!-- and videos of it are pretty rare around here. Your movie knowledge impresses me. Maybe it influenced Speilberg (it would be like him to have seen everything, of course) but SPR is mealy-mouthed and flabby compared to Die Brücke.

This site is great because it attracts people who know what the fuck they're talking about. (and who have language/social skills)

There are a few movie "chat" sites on the net that are saturated with people who are immature, bullies, or are just "hangin'". I don't waste time on the internet. I like to learn from others-others who enjoy movies as I do.


I think the lack of talk about The Pianist is due to the fact that the film hasn't been seen. It played a week here in Canada, and will be back next week for a healthy run before the oscars. I'll be seeing it again-no doubt about that. I'm even going to buy the book it's based on. YES IT'S THAT GOOD. For the love of Yogi people, see it.

Indeed. Besides that this site seems to have the virtue of being relatively small, so individuals can be noticed, and I've also observed with pleasure that the fellow in charge is civilized and kind.

Now I hope somebody else has something more to say about The Pianist that hasn't been said before and that does it honor. I've said about all I can say about it for now but I'd like to hear from other people because I think it's a truly fine piece of work. I was--to return to that--a bit shocked at the way the New Yorker reviewer, who's presumably quite influential--damned it with such faint praise.

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Originally posted by docraven [ The Eternal Nazi: Watching Roman Polanski's The Pianist in Germany By William Grim. It was originally published on December 2, 2002.

There are some extreme, even outrageous points made in this review.

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No kidding: "I was tempted to bitch slap a couple hundred Germans but I managed to hold my fire", "The German soul is a deep abyss, a fetid, stinking morass..." "I pumped my fist and yelled out U S A!"

One grandiose, delusional hatemonger.

Comparisons with Schindler's List are useful because for many Spielberg's notorious film is the only holocaust film seen. Spielberg's film is about an aryan hero within a large canvas while Pianist is told from the point of view of a jewish survivor. Pianist refuses to demand our tears the way List does. The Warsaw ghetto recreated here is quite a sight-especially after being bombed and emptied out- but Polanski never shows off. It can be argued that this straightforward conception is a bit stodgy but others would say that's the best approach given the grim, bizarre subject matter. I did not see a better english language film in 2002; Polanski's mastery of filmic narration and rhythm are in ample evidence, particularly during the perfectly orchestrated first half. He wisely casts actors we don't recognize(except for Brody) to facilitate verisimilitude. Now allow me to play devil's advocate: Does it have anything new to say or find a different way to say it? Your answer depends on your familiarity with holocaust filmography: The Pianist will feel fresher and bolder if you haven't seen De Sica's Garden of the Finzi Contini's, Malle's Au Revoir les Enfants and Lacombe Lucien, Holland's Europa, Europa and Korczak, the dutch The Assault, and the inventive czech film Divided We Fall. Personally, I appreciate how Polanski makes palpable both the jewish collaboration and resistance, and details the class system within the ghetto. In conclusion, I'm glad Roman Polanski got to make his movie.

The link for me with "Schindler's List"--a very important one-- is the Warsow ghetto. The roundup of Jews in the ghetto in "Shindler" was very terrifying to me, the most terrifying single sequence. However, Polanski's film doesn't try to terrify; rather, it horrifies, and does so casually ("the Banality of Evil"). The thing that sets "The Pianist" apart is that the final long sequence is meandering and lonely and in an odd way (despite all the artillery and explosions) quiet, (the hero barely speaks) and it's not punctuated by much of anything that we remember other than the moving and unexpected scene where Szpilman plays Chopin for the German officer who's caught him hiding and forraging. This scene has many layers of meaning. Even the actor Brody himself was almost literallystarving and freezing at the moment when that scene was shot, which is to say perhaps his method acting really worked, because the moment is impressive, again, beyond words. The music in that harrowing situation is symbolic of the other side of humankind, the side worth living for. The whole final meandering sequence gives us a chance to meditate on what the whole film is about and to soak up the experience. "Au revoir les enfants" is very powerful too--I saw it in Paris and I started to cry only when I got outside in the street under a drizzly rain--it has a subtle powerful buildup of emotional impact. But it's quite a different story. The Garden of the Finzi-Contini ends--also very powerfully, with that amazing lament-- at a point that is only midway in the story the "The Pianist" tells. They're all different. But the power of "The Pianist" is tremendous, because of its rather comprehensive picture of the Holocaust (except for the main thing, the extermination camps!) and its focus on one Jewish adult survivor who was there through it all in a major city that is being destroyed brick by brick. The material is familiar to all of us, in a sense, and also, in a sense, unknown to all but a very, very few of us who cannot imagine what it was really like. But even if you have seen all the other films, on the contrary upon reflection this one actually does seem quite fresh and bold, I think.

I read what Grim said about the reaction of the German audience. It certainly did not speak well for German attitudes toward the Jews or the Holocaust. But I would suggest that the laughing was from unconscious sources, not necessarily from hatred of the Jews, but the laughter of people who are made nervous "nervous laughter," which is not glee, but disturbance. It was certainly disturbing to see what their German forbears actually did. Tormenting the weak and vulnerable is a childhood tendency, as children torture wounded birds or frogs or helpless turtles. It gives children a feeling of power to be the torturers rather than the tortured, and many children feel tortured when their (German) parents were cruel and punishing. German parents before WWII were given to 'train' their children like dogs, rewarding with food and punishing with whippings and scoldings. The tittering Germans are more to be pitied than scorned.

Before we take William Grim’s story about a German audience of Polanski’s “The Pianist” too seriously, I suggest we take a good look at his writings on the Web such as his wildly fantastic and scandalous “Top 20 Predictions for 2003” (http://www.iconoclast.ca/MainPage.as...=/newPage6.asp) on The Iconoclast, a rightwing satirical site where his latest editorial column starts out “George W. Bush is a cowboy? You're durn tootin' -- and we can all thank God for that.” It’s hard to guess his motives in the “Pianist” piece, but he is an over-imaginative, ultra-conservative writer whose comments are picked up on sites such as www.brassknuckles.net; www.unpopularspeech.net, a site for right-wing pro-gun Jews; and the bluntly named www.rightwingnews. If Grim’s piece about a German audience pops up on the Web on “Pianist” related sites, that may be leading to some unfortunate misunderstandings. There are a great many reactions in Europe to Szpilman’s autobiography that are more relevant to the subject, and it might be better to go simply to the Szpilman book, CD, and movie website (http://www.szpilman.net/index1004273107.html) for some information about the sources of the movie and the reactions to Polanski’s creation. Let's not take this guy Grim seriously, and let's talk about topics truly relevant to the film.

Why should we not take Grim's description of the German audience reaction literally? True, what he described can be interpreted various ways, but he is making a point that the German character is never far from Nazism and the Superman mentality. Do you question that opinion? What is your own opinion instead of trashing Grim on the basis of his conservative orientation. Are you saying there is no value to the conservative orientation?

Let me think: if there is a "German character", there must be a Spanish character and an American one. Who gets to decide what " American character" means? When you refer to a nation's character you are stereotyping, and when you assign negative traits to that character, you are being prejudiced and hateful.

I was not "trashing" William Grim, but suggesting that his remarks be taken with a healthy grain of salt, given both their import and their provenance. I urge anyone involved in this discussion to read carefully Grim's column, "The Eternal Nazi: Watching Roman Polanski's The Pianist in Germany" (for the text of this column, see http://www.zcportal.com/2002/1202/pianist.asp). I salute Grim's assertion there that The Pianist is "a great film" and I do not quarrel with anything else Grim asserts in the column about the film itself.

However, what about, in the opening paragraph "There's an old joke that inside every German there's a Nazi yearning to get out. While a gross overstatement, there is, I'm unhappy to report, more than a little truth to that old chestnut"? And what about (midway in the column), "There is something terribly wrong with Germany and the German volk. The German soul is a deep abyss, a fetid, stinking morass that befouls the community of nations"?

Such remarks, I would suggest, are beyond the fringe, and tend to call into question not only Grim's motives in commenting on the film, but his credibility and judgment as an observer of the Munich audience's reactions to scenes in The Pianist, which the websites where his writings have a home also make one suspicious of. The Internet is a large and open source of information. We have to use all our knowledge and instincts to judge the validity of that information.

I do indeed question Grim's opinions, and any generalizatons about the "German character" and what it is "never far from," and I think it is unfortunate that he used comments on as fine a film as The Pianist as a springboard for his expressions of suspicion and hate. Even if his observations of laughter during the Munich showing of the film that he attended are accurate, we have no reason to accept his interpretations of them.

There was a similar incident of laughter by Black school kids in an Oakland, Calififornia theater when Shindler's List was first shown. It was said that they were an expression of hatred and indifference, but upon closer study they turned out to show only confusion and ignorance. At the very least, Grim is guilty of gross oversimplification of reactions that must be very complex for any German, old or young, knowledgable or ignorant, who was watching The Pianist in Munich that day.

Chris Knipp is quite correct that there is no German character, that the whole concept tends to stereotyping and bigotry. That said, it must be admitted that there remains in Germany a deep core of resentment about their defeat in WWII and an undercurrent of regret that the FINAL SOLUTION was not completely carried out. There is a long history in Germany of anti-Semitism, despite a short period of time in which German Jews were lulled into a false confidence that they were truly assimilated as Germans. The Nazi regime ended that fantasy. The undercurrent of German arrogance and superiority has never disappeared and now the revival of anti-Semitism is well-documented.

That said, Germany has been generous and cooperative in reparations to Holocaust survivors and support of Israel, at least until recently. The youth of Germany admirably keeps the diary and story of Anne Frank alive, and in Berlin there is a new Holocaust Memorial Museum. Germany has searched its soul, no doubt, but I think the search must be ongoing.

The American character is free, spontaneous and generous. The Spanish character is romantic and musical, with touches of the bullfight and flamenco.
The Italian character is... the Greek character is... the French character is...

That's simply nonsense, and toning it down doesn't make it any more coherent.

You don't recognize irony when you see it, unfortunately!

Sorry. This is not a medium in which irony flourishes.

Irony flourishes where the soil is rich. It is a literary device historically respected, and if done well, admired. It takes a special mind to fully appreciate it.

I am a great admirer and longtime appreciator of irony. I was referring to the medium of internet threads, in which answers come hard and fast out of nowhere and in which context is very often not well enough established to allow for the precise perception of such subtleties of tone and language as irony requires. But you may, if you wish, disregard my clumsy self defense and choose instead to think that I was just being dumb. It happens.

You need not defend irony, though.

It sometimes seems that what flourishes best in this medium is the non sequitur.

I wish you would tell us where in your post you express a meaning that is the direct opposite of the intended one. Where is the irony in your prejudiced comment that in Germany "there is an undercurrent of regret that the final solution was not completely carried out" or elsewhere in the first paragraph. Maybe you used irony in the second paragraph, you know, about a Holocaust Museum in Berlin,etc. Well, Berlin's Jewish Museum is Europe's largest, a gorgeous building in the shape of an elongated Star of David, with wings dedicated to Holocaust history as well as other periods. Please show me the irony.

vbloom: I do not know you. I cannot judge you, only your comments. They are vile, prejudiced and hateful. Your excuse (being ironic) falls apart under minimal scrutiny.

I would not want to be as harsh toward vbloom as Oscar Jubis is here -- not quite, anyway! But it begins to seem that what vbloom is calling "irony" is simply an unwillingness to take a clear position. I still think as I said earlier that there is every reason not to take William Grim's account of the German audience of "The Pianist" at face value. Even if the audience did laugh or titter as much as Grim said, they might not need to be either pitied or scorned. They may have been expressing incomprehension. But I would agree with Oscar Jubis's suggestion that vbloom's statements about German and other national characters are too confused to be taken as irony. If it is right to say that there's no such thing as a German national character, as vbloom began by granting, then you can't go on and say that Germans are sorry they lost the war and failed to exterminate the Jews. vbloom wrote: "it must be admitted that there remains in Germany a deep core of resentment about their defeat in WWII and an undercurrent of regret that the FINAL SOLUTION was not completely carried out." This is exactly of the same order as saying that all Germans are at heart still Nazis, and it is reprehensible, and surely false. It may be that vbloom suffers from deep confusion here, of a nature that is both intellectual and moral.

The irony is in ridiculously characterizing the Spanish character, the Greek character, etc., as if such generalizations can truly be made. I mean the opposite--- such generalizations cannot be made. I did say that in Germany there is "an undercurrent" of feeling regret or disappointment that the Nazis didn't win or that all the Jews weren't killed. This was later interpreted (falsely) as my saying ALL Germans feel this way, which is certainly not the case. Would he deny the undercurrent? I don't know how large or deep it is. Can anybody tell me or venture a guess or know something from personal experience? Grim was grim, but not all wrong. One does not titter over incomprehension. There is more than a trace or suggestion of 'schadenfreude.' Would anybody care to dispute this contention?

You misquote yourself, vbloom. You did not say "an undercurrent" of "feeling regret or disappointment," you said "a deep core of resentment."

There is a significant difference between these two ways of stating it. What you originally said is far more sweeping and emphatic. You seem to have a tendency to shift your views back and forth, sometimes even within a single statement, sometimes between separate statements, here.

Chris Knipp, give me a break! I am 71 and my memory does not always serve me well. Still, I am consistent when it comes to the deep core of my belief. You misquoted me as saying that ALL Germans have this Nazi inclination. I never said that and do not believe that. However, would you deny that a deep core or undercurrent of Nazi ideology continues in present day Germany? I don't know how prevalent it is. Perhaps you can inform me.

Why should you get a break? You don't have to have a good memory because we have our texts right in front of us to refer to on the screen. Yes, I do disagree with your assertion that "a deep core or undercurrent of Nazi ideology continues in present day Germany" (I'm cutting and pasting so I don't quote you wrong). I even question whether there was ever "a deep core or undercurrent of Nazi ideology" in the Germany of any time, taking this statement as comprehensively as it is phrased. Most of all I don't see the value or purpose of such vague, sweeping accusations in a world where reconciliation and healing are what we most need. The burden of proof is with you. Why do you keep repeating these statements? If you "don't know how prevalent it is," in short don't know what you're talking about, why don't you cease and desist?

Why should you get a break? You don't have to have a good memory because we have our texts right in front of us to refer to on the screen. Yes, I do disagree with your assertion that "a deep core or undercurrent of Nazi ideology continues in present day Germany" (I'm cutting and pasting so I don't quote you wrong). I even question whether there was ever "a deep core or undercurrent of Nazi ideology" in the Germany of any time, taking this statement as comprehensively as it is phrased. Most of all I don't see the value or purpose of such vague, sweeping accusations in a world where reconciliation and healing are what we most need. The burden of proof is with you. Why do you keep repeating these statements? If you "don't know how prevalent it is," in short don't know what you're talking about, why don't you cease and desist?

Since I don't get a break for memory... using the exact words I used before, but having the same meaning, I have copied and pasted your last entry. Since you question whether there WAS EVER a deep core OR undercurrent of Nazi ideology, instead of writing a long treatise on my shock and amazement, I will simply refer you to Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners." Before we discuss whether you ever read the book, heard of the book or refute the book, you sound very much like a Holocaust revisionist. Let me ask you, since I think this exchange is getting personal, whether or not you are a young German who is interested in the image of Germany and would prefer to remember it as the country of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe, rather than of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Eichmann. The real Germany is an amalgam of good and evil, civilized and barbaric, just like any other nationality. It is true that this has always been a world where reconciliation and healing are sorely needed, but good cannot come from a denial of history and reality.

I return to what docraven wrote about William Grim’s piece at the outset of this thread: “There are some extreme, even outrageous points made in this review. I not only find them difficult to believe, but think they suggest a characteristic of the German people that is inflammatory — does nothing to promote real understanding.”

I have studied Grim’s piece carefully (I'd hesistate to call it a review: it's too agenda-driven) and I can find nothing in it to contradict docraven's original comment on it.

I'd like to remind vbloom of what he originally wrote about the laughter Grim describes in the German audience of ‘’The Pianist”: "I would suggest that the laughing was from unconscious sources, not necessarily from hatred of the Jews, but the laughter of people who are made nervous ‘nervous laughter,’ which is not glee, but disturbance. It was certainly disturbing to see what their German forbears actually did.”

I have no desire to become personal but I am none of the things vbloom suggests. I am a participant in Filmwurld forums who is sorry that Grim’s inflammatory article led us away from our discussion of Roman Polanski’s powerful “The Pianist,” which we are here to talk about. I admire the film greatly and think that the events it recounts are substantially true. It is not a fabrication. There was a Holocaust. Hitler did have “silent executioners.” He also had millions of passive victims. But unlike vbloom, unlike William Grim, I don’t want to jump from a viewing of the film to assertions about modern Germans feeling “ an undercurrent of regret that the FINAL SOLUTION was not completely carried out" (vbloom's words), or that inside every German today there is a Nazi gesturing to be let out (William Grim's assertion). My disagreements with William Grim and with vbloom do not make me a Holocaust denier. How could I admire “The Pianist” if I were? This is not a rational assertion. In responding to a film as powerful as “The Pianist” concerning events as horrific as the ones it recounts, we need balance and compassion, and we need to stay away from stereotypes. But obviously for some that's a tall order. However bix171 describes himself as the child of HOlocaust survivers and writes that he wants "very much to forgive" and "to get on with it." One would hope that a film like "The Pianist" would provide a kind of cathartic experience that could help people to "forgive" and"get on with it" -- without ever forgetting.

"The Pianist" is a vivid reminder. But it's not a treatise on the German character.