When a successful British ghostwriter, THE GHOST, agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister ADAM LANG, his agent assures him it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start—not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang’s long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident.
The Ghost flies out to work on the project, in the middle of winter, to an oceanfront house on an island off the U.S. Eastern seaboard. But the day after he arrives, a former British cabinet minister accuses Lang of authorizing the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA—a war crime. The controversy brings reporters and protesters swarming to the island mansion where Lang is staying with his wife, RUTH, and his personal assistant (and mistress), AMELIA. As The Ghost works, he begins to uncover clues suggesting his predecessor may have stumbled on a dark secret linking Lang to the CIA—and that somehow this information is hidden in the manuscript he left behind. Was Lang in the service of the American intelligence agency while he was prime minister? And was The Ghost’s predecessor murdered because of the appalling truth he uncovered?
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, james Belushi, Tom Wilkinson
Directed by Roman Polanski
Script: Robert Harris
The true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. Roman Polanski, in his turn, escaped from the Krakow ghetto before its liquidation and wandered about gaining refuge with a number of Catholic families. His mother died in Nazi concentration camp when Roman was eight.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warshaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warshaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warshaw City Revolt in 1945. When he escapes the ghetto, at first he is hidden in an appartment by Polish friends in the Resistance, after lives in the ruins of Warsaw.
Real hero of the movie Wladyslaw Szpilman died at 88 in 2000.