The man behind the real story of The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, states in his memoirs that he was born in Warsaw and spent his whole life there. However, the streets that appear on screen were shot in Krakow. In this case, producers had no choice but to change the filming location since Hitler had destroyed the Warsaw ghetto and the entire Polish capital. Polanski had to recreate the Old City of Warsaw and to do so he based his reproduction of the city on the paintings of Italian artist Canaletto, who portrayed the streets of Warsaw in his work.