Our Top Five Themes from The Pianist

1) Circumstances that compel us to respond.
a) The scene when the German officer lines up the Jews and picks about seven out of the group, tells then to lay down, and successfully shoots each in the head. The last man is forced to await his death as the officer takes his time and refills his gun.
b) Near the end of the film, Poland is liberated, but the soldiers see Wladyslaw Spzilman in a German coat and begin to shoot at him.
c) The first night of clear Jewish oppression, a man in a wheelchair is heaved over the balcony because he is unable to stand in the presence of the German soldiers.

2)Personal Resourcefulness.
a) The scene where Wladyslaw goes to the abandoned German hospital, in the centre of the "Lion's Den" and lives there for a time, finding places to sleep and things to drink.
b) The point close to the end when Spzilman goes to the destroyed ghetto and searches for food, finding only a can of pickles. He tries everything to open them.
c) While Wladylsaw is walking down the street, Germans start open firing and he lays down, pretending to be dead to avoid imminent death.

3) The individual response to challenge.
a) Waldyslaw's brother, Henryk, refuses to wear the Star of David on his arm and follow the rules for Jews set out by the SS.
b) Wladyslaw is willing to throw himself out the window when SS officers come to his building.
c) Szpilman's life is on the line throughout the entire film, but he perseveres.

4) Risk Taking
a) Wladyslaw trusts Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who tries to help him.
b) One of the pianist's apartments is next to the German buildings, at the centre of the hub.
c) Szpilman joins the Resistance and traffiks guns and supplies into and out of the ghetto while he is living there.

5) The effects of adversity on the human spirit.
a) Wladyslaw walks through the ghetto one day after the deportation and he begins to weep.
b) He is able to maintain sanity by pretending to play the piano. His love for music helps him endure the adversity.
c) The man who steals the can of food from the older woman, his peer whom he would have formerly respected and helped before the German oppression.