ePub Parting the Curtain: Propaganda; Culture; and the Cold War by Walter L. Hixson in History

Description

Named one of the Best Books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times; The Pianist is now a major motion picture directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody (Son of Sam). The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival's most prestigious prize―the Palme d'Or.On September 23; 1939; Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside―so loudly that he couldn't hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day; a German bomb hit the station; and Polish Radio went off the air.Though he lost his entire family; Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end; his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades; The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.