Music and Trauma in Polanski's The Pianist (2002)

Abstract

This article takes Wladyslaw Szpilman's (1999) memoir and Roman Polanski's award-winning 2002 film interpretation of it as dual points of entry for exploring certain intrapsychic functions of music in the context of massive trauma. Particular attention is given to the relationship between Szpilman's mental life and his art (involving such elements as time, memory, and fantasy). A further focus is the specialized characterological features unique to the highly trained professional musician (e.g., discipline, ability to tolerate isolation, physical and metaphysical relationship to the instrument and to the musical score, psychosexual and other developmental components of becoming a concert artist, etc.) as significant factors in Szpilman's psychological and physical survival. A related parallel discussion considers Polanski's use of Chopin's music as a symbolic extranarrative language in the film's storytelling.

Notes

¹A related example concerns the case of a 73-year-old woman admitted for neurologic and psychiatric evaluation after complaining of debilitating musical/auditory hallucinations. She reported that Christmas songs, folk tunes, and, eventually, nonverbal sounds intruded into her waking life with such volume and clarity that she was unable to distinguish whether the source was internal or external. At times, the sounds were “heard” as irksomely out-of-tune. It was ultimately assessed that these musical hallucinations were a response to traumatic distress, precipitated by her learning of the dissolution of an important family relationship (Shapiro et al., 1991).

²In its original form, this piece was composed for piano and orchestra with the piano introduction played as a solo. The piece was premiered in this form in Paris on April 26, 1835 with Chopin himself at the piano. The Polonaise was composed in 1830 or 1831 at a time when Chopin (only 20 years old) was celebrating remarkable success as a virtuoso performer throughout Europe. The introductory Andante was composed and added later, in 1834, almost as an afterthought, once Chopin had settled in Paris. But the orchestral accompaniment is so sparse and inconsequential, the work has since established itself as a piano solo, and is now only rarely performed with orchestra. The title “spianato” comes from the Italian word spianare, meaning “to smooth over” or “flatten” but can also be translated as “simple” or “plain.”

Versions of this paper have been presented at the 2nd European Psychoanalytic Film Festival, London, UK, November 2003, and published in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (2004), 85:755–765.