production diary by co-producer gene gutowski

Late 2000

As The Pianist is going to be a truly European production, the crew whom Roman has gathered around him represents several nationalities. From Poland, where the production is in the hands of executive producer Lew Rywin (through his Heritage Films of Warsaw), come Starski and his art directors and designers; cinematographer Pawel Edelman and his camera and lighting teams; make-up artist Waldernar Pokromski., and costume designer Anna Sheppard, who, Polishborn but now residing in Britain, takes over the acquisition and design of thousands of period costumes and uniforms collected from sources all over Europe.

Germany's Studio Babelsberg provides dozens of workers in support, with extensive set constructions and production management.

From France come script supervisor Sylvette Baudrot and make-up artist Didier Lavergne (who have worked on every Polanski film for the past quarter-century),. as well as hairstylist Jean-Max Guerin, production sound mixer Jean-Marie Blondel, and still photographer Guy Ferrandis.

Great Britain provides, among others, screenwriter Ronald Harwood; executive producer Timothy Burrill. casting director Celestia Fox., military consultant Andrew Mollo; and stunt coordinator Jim Dowdall.

As most of the crew are men and women of a younger generation, they are only vaguely aware of the brutality of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the bestial treatment of the Jews of Warsaw. A screening is arranged of documentary footage for the entire production team. Their reaction is shock and disbelief, but at last they all now know the background of the story.

Roman demands total authenticity in the sets, costumes, insignias, and props - and in the faces of actors and extras. Thousands are interviewed, photographed and videotaped, as it is essential to find the right types to portray the Poles, Jews, and Germans as they looked 60 years ago. German actors and stuntmen in the uniforms of the dreaded Schutzpolizei and the SS Sonderdienst., when speaking German among themselves, give off a chilling quality which Roman and I find all too reminiscent of our past.

The Warsaw of Wladyslaw Szpilman's 'The Pianist', under the years of Nazi occupation [1939-45], no longer exists. For The Pianist, this re-created city has to be pieced together from various remaining streets and buildings, mostly in the old district of Praga in Warsaw itself. Entire streets have to be recreated, to the last detail, on the backlot of the Studio Babelsberg in Berlin. Starski's team has documented and designed sets and locations as they were - prior to the outbreak of the war, during the creation of the Ghetto, and through the degradation of living conditions and, finally, the extinction of its inhabitants. In the end, after the uprisings witnessed by Szpilman, there were only ruins left.

Ruined cities were the most common sight in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of WWII. In Poland, which has been rebuilt since the devastation of the war, there are hardly any ruins left. But these ruins are essential to our story, since it was a totally destroyed empty city that Szpilman found when he crawled out of his hiding place. So, 55 years later, it takes months of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to recreate the ruins of Warsaw in Juterbog, a former East German town 90 kilometers from Berlin. After a long search, an abandoned former Soviet army barracks, now destined for demolition, is located in Joterbog. Starski and his team create a nightmarish moonscape of a destroyed city with only a few bent lampposts standing. It is here, in bitter cold and with howling winds, that filming of The Pianist commences on February 19th , 2001, with scenes of SzIpilman climbing over a wall into the deserted city.

February 2001

Supported by trucks, generators, cherry-picker cranes, wardrobe and production trailers, large heated tents, and catering facilities, all lined up with military precision - a 100-strong international crew works smoothly together. They are motivated by the subject matter and the opportunity to work with Roman.

After two days of filming, the unit moves to a cramped old villa on a quiet residential street in Potsdam. It has been dressed to portray a once-elegant, now abandoned Warsaw home which has become the interim German army field headquarters where Szpilman fatefully encounters Captain Hosenfeld. A famous Polish pianist, Janusz Olejniczak, will record Chopin's Ballad 'No.1 in G Minor, Opus 23' for this moving scene. As the sequence shoots late into the night, the women in the crew and some of the men try to conceal their tears.

It begins snowing, and the production schedule changes so that the unit returns to Juterbog to film the sequence of the film wherein Szpilman, wearing a German officer's coat, emerges into a winter landscape of snow-covered ruins. If not for this providential "act of God" sudden snowfall, the costly alternative would have been to call in the artificial snow- makers. But the director has taken a chance and ordered the production to "hold the snow." His proverbial luck has held once more, and the sequence is shot as scheduled on February 20 and 25th.

A figure of Jesus Christ bearing a cross is brought forth to the set. It is a replica of a large bronze statue that stood in front of the baroque Church of the Holy Cross in the center of Warsaw. As a result of the uprising in which the Polish underground bitterly fought against the might of the German army, the city was reduced to rubble. The church was destroyed and its statue of Christ lay on the ground, riddled with bullets, with one hand pointing to Heaven. But as the fighting continued, it was returned to its pedestal among the ruins, a symbol of the Lord's great sorrow. Make-up artists and sculptors worked nights to create a replica, which is then placed among the ruins for filming.

Roman is in a state of perpetual motion. He works with concentration and confidence, seeking the best performance and the best shot - every frame counts.

March 2001

On March 2nd , the production unit moves to Belitz, a small town in the former
East Germany. Here, in a sprawling but now decrepit hospital complex built at
the turn of the century and more recently used by the Soviet army (Russian
language signs are still on the walls), scenes of a starving Szpilman hiding in a
burnt-out German military hospital are filmed.

The unit is happy to move to the far more comfortable Studio Babeisberg, where a complex of Warsaw streets and five-story houses have been built. Cobblestone-paved streets are topped by tracks for a replica of a Warsaw streetcar to travel on. Built with attention to every detail of architecture, the streets are dressed with shop signs and wartime posters. This set will be the site of action sequences seen by Szpilman in his hiding place.

He watches when, at the outbreak of the Warsaw uprising in April 1943, Polish underground fighters attack a German police station. In the ensuing fierce battle, the building is demolished with grenades and set aflame. Many SS men are killed. The adjoining Army hospital is evacuated, captured civilians are shot in the street. Later, a tank later rumbles into view and fires upon the building where Szpilman is hiding. Polish fighters retreat behind a barricade at one end of the street but are mowed down by SS troopers advancing behind an armored troop carrier.

On Roman's suggestion the tank is used again, when other means fail, to overturn a streetcar. The event is cheered by the entire crew and is filmed by Roman with his own camera.

The Studio Babelsberg streets are completely revamped for another terrifying recreation that comes earlier in the film. In the scene, Szpilman and his family watch from their apartment as SS police drive up to and enter a building directly opposite. From a high floor balcony, they throw an old Jewish invalid, still in his wheelchair, to his death. The fall from the balcony is shot in one take. The male tenants of the house are chased out into the street, forced to run, and shot down in cold blood. Leaving the scene, the SS car runs over the fallen bodies. Filming lasts through the night, finishing at dawn.

March 15th marks the beginning of one the most technically complex scenes in the picture, filmed with three cameras situated at various levels: the attack on the Ghetto. The SS detachment marching towards the Ghetto wall comes under fire from a building on the Jewish side, scatters, and takes cover. A couple of troopers toss incendiary grenades over the wall, setting the building aflame before withdrawing. They come back with a small field gun, a shot is fired, and the explosion in the wall sends bricks flying along the street - barely missing members of the crew. SS troopers rush in with flame-throwers. The buildings are now burning, and some of the Jewish defenders, aflame, jump off the balconies to their deaths. The mayhem is overseen by the impassive SS Gruppenfuhrer Stroop, surrounded by his bodyguards with his limousine and radio car nearby, as seen in the infamous photograph taken that day. The last of the defenders are rushed out, put up against a wall, and executed.

March 26th is our last day at Babelsberg - and our luck holds again. For a wintry scene of Szpilman hurrying towards the safety of a building, artificial snow is put
on the ground. Just as the cameras are about to roll, real snow begins failing, against all weather predictions.

On March 27th, the enormous street set stands empty. Gone are the cherrypicker cranes, the lights, the cables, the generators and supply trucks, the tank. Only the Warsaw streetcars are still there, now pushed to one side. Some of the buildings are half-burned. Curious visitors now come to stare in wonder at the quiet set, which is shortly to become a tourist attraction and part of the Studio Babelsberg tour.

The sudden and unexpected death of our much-loved associate producer, Babelsberg head Rainer Schaper, adds a note of great sadness to what have been successful weeks of shooting. Rainer has been largely responsible for The Pianist coming to Babelsberg, and has in the process become a good personal friend. At the memorial services, Roman speaks briefly and warmly, saluting his departed friend whose ever-smiling face, radiating optimism and good cheer, he will miss forever.

Filming commences again on March 29th, on location in the streets of the Praga district of Warsaw. Here, across the river, time for the most part has stood still, unlike in hustling and bustling central Warsaw with its restored sectors and elegant new skyscrapers.

Praga was spared destruction during WWII because of the Soviet army that rested here, unwilling to cross the river and therefore allowing the Nazis to put down the uprising in the fall of 1944. In the poorest section of the city, old brick tenements still stand, pockmarked by bullet holes and identical to the houses and streets of the former Warsaw Ghetto. This is a very rough, crime-ridden neighborhood and it takes a measure of behind-the-scenes wheeling-and-dealing to assure the production of a peaceful tenure here.

Allan Starski and his team have recreated the main street crossing in the Warsaw Ghetto, along with shop signs and displays, posters with official decrees, and even personal messages written on small cards pasted on the walls. It is as if the clock of history has been turned back 60 years. On both sides of the swinging gates linking the large and small Ghettos - and guarded by the German, Polish, and Jewish policemen - crowds of emaciated Jews in tattered clothes and Star of David armbands wait for the gates to open and then rush across the "Aryan" street upon which regular city traffic runs.. streetcars, trucks, cars, horse-drawn wagons. The gates open, and they push forward, the more affluent in bicycle-propelled rickshaws, all tipping their hats to the German policemen. A small Jewish street band plays as, to amuse themselves, the Germans drag men and women from the crowd, deliberately mismatch couples, and force them to dance ... faster and faster. The convergence of the scene, the set, and the players is almost too painful to watch.

In the following days, other scenes are filmed on a wooden bridge high across the "Aryan" street, over which an endless line of Jewish men, women, and children, their faces gaunt and empty, carry their meager belongings in suitcases and bundles. Among them are Wladyslaw Szpilman and his family.

April 2001

Exterior and interior locations are used throughout Warsaw. A military academy is transformed into the infamous and vast Umschlagplatz. This is where, under a burning sun on August 16th,1942, Wladyslaw Szpilman escapes deportation and death but begins his lonely years in hiding. For the sequence, thousands of extras have been costumed as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto who were loaded onto trains that took them to the death camps.

On another section of the large composite street set, a building site has been erected for a sequence later in the film. Here, an emaciated Szpilman, clad in rags, carries bricks up scaffolding with fellow Ghetto inmates and some Polish workers carrying bricks up scaffolding. His ineptitude provokes the anger of an SS man, who pushes him into the mud. Holding Szpilman's head between his legs, he beats him with a whip while chanting, "Und zig- und zag, und zig und zag!"

Breaking the tension of re-creating such brutality are Roman's children, who visit the set to lunch with their father. They are adored by crew members, as their constant movements, laughter, and games stand in stark, almost bizarre, contrast to the grimness of the subject. The children's bright faces help cast aside the shadows of the past.

There are other alleviating moments. a crane has to be used to remove an anachronistic towel from a window high above the street.' later, filming stops while the entire crew searches for the streetcar driver, who went off to relieve himself. "How old are you?," Roman asks him. "30" is the answer. "Only 30 and you can't even hold your water!"

The inhabitants of Praga's mean streets watch the filming quietly, keeping their voices down and taking instructions from the flock of eager young assistant directors. For the older residents, it is reliving a distant past. For the young, it is a history lesson.

the warsaw ghetto: historical background
about wladyslaw szpilman
production diary by co-producer gene gutowski
Conversation with roman polanski