The Pianist

Factual error: An old man appears with children following him. This is supposed to be pedagogue Janusz Korczak. It appeared as if he was just wearing a suit and a Jewish arm band. In the Warsaw Ghetto, Mr. Korczak never wore an arm band and wore his WWI Polish Army Uniform, both as acts of defiance. He was beaten and almost put to death (he had connections) for not wearing an arm band so having one on in the movie is inaccurate.

Factual error: In a few scenes, you can see street signs with inscriptions in Polish, for example "Ulica Lubanski" (Lubanski's Street). In fact, because Polish language retained the Old Slavic case-system with seven cases for nouns, the inscription should be "Ulica Lubanskiego" ('Lubanski' is a nominative noun, and 'Lubanskiego' is a genitive/possessive case).

Factual error: In the scene where the Germans are bombing the wall, the rebels are hiding behind. You can see that the bricks which came out of the wall because of the bombing are lying on the "non-Jewish" part of the wall and not on the ghetto side as it should be.

More mistakes in The Pianist

Trivia: Adrian Brody insisted on learning to play the piano himself because he detested the idea of him being in a long shot pretending to play the instrument and then the camera showing someone else's hands on a close up shot actually playing. He said he hated that, not just for him, but on any other film that had such a scene. So he went and took lessons, practicing for hours on end.

Allister Cooper, 2011

Trivia: When director Roman Polanski won the Oscar for "Best Director" during the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony, he did not attend because of his statutory rape conviction in 1977. If he returns to the United States, Polanski will be immediately arrested once he steps into American soil. On late 2003, actor Harrison Ford presented the Oscar that Polanski won in March during the Deauville Film Festival in France.

megamii

Trivia: Adrien Brody could not play the piano. The film producers hired four professional piano teachers to teach him the piece from scratch.

More trivia for The Pianist

Feather Woman: Excuse me, have you seen my husband, Izaak Szerman? A tall, a tall handsome man, with a little grey beard. No? Oh, excuse me. Goodbye, sleep well. But if you see him, write to me, yes? Izaak Szerman.

Wladyslaw Szpilman: They bombed us, we're off the air.
Henryk Szpilman: Warsaw's not the only radio station.

More quotes from The Pianist

Question: I want to know how the scene with the Nazis dumping the man in the wheelchair off the balcony was done. How did the man/stuntman manage to survive this fall?

ChitownGal

Chosen answer: In the scene, we see the old man being lifted in his wheelchair. Then, there is a cut-away to the family watching from across the street. Then we see someone being dumped from the chair and falling, but we never see him hit the ground. My guess from watching the scene is that the stunt person fell into a cushion which was removed in post-production. Generally, when confronted with a question such as this, I like to refer it to someone who would be in the know - in this case, the stunt team on the film. I looked up that team on IMDb.com, and searched for the individuals on Facebook. Of the twenty or so stunt people and coordinators, I could only find three with unique profiles that made me think I might have the correct individuals: Janusz Kadlubowski, Stella Kuczynska and Zbigniew Modej. I posed your question to them. However, given that I am not connected on Facebook to any of them, I have no idea if or when they would see my message and respond. I will update this answer if I receive further information.

Question: Why does the narrator have to move to new hiding places?

Answer: In the first hideout, neighbors discovered Szpilman, forcing him to flee. His next hiding place was damaged in a bombing. He then moved from location to location finding shelter and scavenging food wherever he could until the sympathetic German officer hid him in the attic.

raywest

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