Archive for Januar, 2022

The Quiet Sufferance of Survival: The Pianist (2002)

Sonntag, Januar 9th, 2022

“Just take it,” Władysław Szpilman says, his long face averted, as his family argue fruitlessly with a buyer about the price of his grand piano. “Just take it.” ‘It’, in this case, is a Bechstein, the Jewish family’s most prized possession – the instrument Szpilman has composed on for years. But money is getting tight, and what can they do? Eat the piano? The buyer smiles, victorious: a vulture picking the carcass. Szpilman merely waves his hand. It’s the beginning of the end.

More than any of the gruesome sequences of death and humiliation – of which there are plenty in a movie about the Holocaust – this scene from Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002) has always stuck with me. In a nutshell, it lays bare what makes the film so fascinating: its understated approach to trauma too great to be contained in words. When shocking things happen, the camera just watches. When tears are spilt, the lens doesn’t feed off of them. And when loss after loss is heaped upon the protagonist, we rarely glimpse more than Szpilman’s stoic endurance, his quietly taking in stride whatever obstacles life throws his way. But precisely in that, Polanski’s direction exposes the depths of his desperation.

That this strategy works largely comes down to the film’s lead performance. Adrien Brody, with his worn, hollow face and wistful gaze, shows us the Holocaust through the eyes of an accomplished musician: a quiet, sensitive man who believes that, somehow, his talents and a not inconsiderable portion of good luck are going to carry him through. He’s not an idealist; he’s not a hero; at times, he seems so passive he may well be called apathetic. At first, I found it infuriating. But when I watched the film a second time, I thought it rang all the more true. For in The Pianist, Polanski – a survivor of a Polish ghetto himself – doesn’t tell the story of a hero. He tells the story of a witness: the story of a man caught within a system that numbs and leaves little room for ethical choices. And when we see Szpilman’s fingers hesitate over the keys in one of the film’s final scenes, we understand that, often enough, survival is not an act of triumph but one of resignation to the course of fate.

 

by Nadine Schmidt

House of Cards: New Isn’t Always Better

Freitag, Januar 7th, 2022

When we speak of House of Cards, we usually speak of the American House of Cards (2013-2018), the one with the now fallen star, Kevin Spacey, in it. But there was a House of Cards (1990) before that, the British original, on which the American House of Cards is based. 

Budget aside, the original House of Cards is the much better show and that is for one major reason: the portrayal of the main character is much more believable. You see, in both shows the viewer is the confidant of the main character and witness to his ambitions and plots. Often, the main character, be it Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) or Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson), turns directly to the viewer and lays out his own reasoning. This stylistic device is supposed to give the viewer the impression of actually understanding a politician’s motives – something I wish we could do in real life. 

Here is the problem though: both Francises do a lot of shady things to make their ends meet; they coerce, forge and murder, but only the character development of Francis Urquhart is affected by these acts of moral corruption. Machiavellianism, not considering the mental disorder, does not mean you are not affected by what you do. Machiavellianism means, you do it anyways. Francis Urquhart has flashbacks and suffers for his deeds, yet he does everything he can to ultimately consolidate his power as prime minister. Moreover, he has multiple affairs with women. Some of them even selected by his wife – a dynamic that we cannot unpack here. Despite his wife’s blessing he doesn’t fully enjoy himself. The baggage from his previous affair influences his behaviour in the next one. Conversely, with Francis Underwood you think: “Yay, yet another skeleton in the closet that doesn’t seem to bother him”. Francis Underwood stays the same and that gets old after two seasons. 

In the end, Ian Richardson’s performance and the writing of his character are much more convincing. So, if you can catch House of Cards (1990) on television or on your preferred streaming service, do give it a try.

by Kai Müller