Michael Finley wrote in Blogcritics that he walked out. Perhaps he'll watch it again now that is out on DVD.

DVD File: "This [DVD has] a comprehensive and very well-produced making-of that is bereft of gimmicks but infused with hope and humanity...While brief interview clips with Adrien Brody, producer Robert Benmussa and screenwriter Ronald Harwood are also included, as well as many of the crew, it is really Polanski's show. Despite his broken English (always charming) his passion is clear in every word, from the personal nature of the project to the surprisingly jovial onset atmosphere. We are also treated to some disturbing archival newsreel footage as well as the real Wladsylaw Szpilman..."

NY Times DVD column: In a documentary that is part of the DVD of "The Pianist," released this week by Universal, the director Roman Polanski says that Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir of survival in the Warsaw ghetto was the perfect source for a film because it was written shortly after the actual events and was extremely accurate. Books written 20 or 30 years later, Mr. Polanski says, don't have the same degree of recollection or detail. (The most famous eyewitness account written at the time, which survived the ghetto although its author did not, was that of Emanuel Ringelblum.)

As a child, Mr. Polanski escaped the Krakow ghetto and survived the Nazi occupation, so obviously he "had a very particular image of things in his mind," says the costume designer Anna Sheppard. To adapt Szpilman's book, he chose the British playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood, whose film credits include "The Dresser" (1983, adapted from his play), "The Browning Version" (1994) and "Cry, the Beloved Country" (1995).

"Polanski went to see a play of mine running in Paris," Mr. Harwood said last week by telephone from London. It was 2000. The play was "Taking Sides," about the efforts of the celebrated German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler to clear himself of charges of collaboration with the Nazis. "Polanski liked the play, and he said, `Well, the guy knows about Nazis and he knows about music,' " Mr. Harwood said.