The last city-sponsored public riding stable, Lincoln Park's New Parkway Riding Stables, closed in 1967.īut for the past 31 years, Murdock has been working to revive the Windy City's horse-riding heritage and make it more inclusive for the city's diverse residents.

But as the city and automobile traffic grew, recreational horse riding's popularity sank. Until the 1950s, dozens of livery stables rented horses by the hour for recreational riding along the more than 17 miles of bridle paths that stretched along Lake Michigan and through Chicago parks. We wonder if the leaders of the different factions could be made to sit through a showing of The Pianist to make them realize that war is hell.Horse racing also was among the city's most popular sports, and by the 1930s, Chicago boasted more horse racing venues than any other metropolitan area in the US, thanks to its legal gambling laws. In watching this film one can only shudder at the thought of another conflict that is currently brewing in front of our eyes. Frank Findlay, a magnificent English actor is the father of the pianist and Maureen Lipman, another veteran of the stage, plays the mother with refined dignity. One can see the music in his head and he can't contain himself in moving his fingers outside the closed instrument playing the glorious music from which he can only imagine what it will sound in his mind. There is a scene where Szpilman, in one of the safe houses he is taken, discovers an upright piano. As the pianist of the story he exudes intelligence. Adrien Brody is an interesting actor to watch. His role is simply to witness the battle from his vantage point in one of the safe houses across the street from where the action takes place. He will never fight side by side with the real heroes of the ghetto uprising. He never offers to do anything other than keep on hiding, which is a human instinct. He's a man intent in not dying, but he's not a fighter. Wladyslaw Szpilman, as played by Adrien Brody, is puzzling sometimes, in that we never get to know what's in his mind. Harewood show us that all was not as noble and dignified as some other films have treated this ugly side of war.

Had this been made by an American director, this aspect would have never surfaced at all. The fact that Jews were used to control other Jews is mind boggling, but it was a fact, and it's treated here matter of factly. What is amazing in the film, is the frankness in which director Polanski portrays the duplicity of some Jews in the ghetto. Well, not only the Americans, but the rest of the world would not raise a finger to do anything for the people that were being imprisoned and made to live in the confined area of Warsaw. There is a very interesting point raised by the the pianist's father who upon reading something in the paper, comments about how the Americans have forgotten them. Szpilman's story by playwright Ronald Harwood, is the fact that we never get to know the real Wladyslaw Szpilman, the man, as some of the comments made to this forum also have indicated. The only fault one can find with the adaptation of Mr. Roman Polanski's account of the survival of the pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, is a document about how one man can overcome the worst possible situations in a world gone completely mad around him. The Pianist is an incredible film in many aspects.

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