60 years of the Knife in the Water
On March 9, 1962, the film "Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water)" was released on the screens of Polish cinemas. The film was directed by Roman Polanski ("Repulsion", "Rosemary's Baby", "The Pianist"). The film infuriated the then leadership of socialist Poland. They say that the then leader of Poland, an ardent Stalinist and an ardent anti-Semite, Władysław Gomułka threw an ashtray at the screen while watching this film.
A few words about the history of the film. In 1959 Roman Polanski graduated from the Film School in Łódź. During his studies at the film school, Roman Polanski made several very successful short films, one of which - "Dwaj ludzie z szafa (Two Men and a Wardrobe)" (1958) received 5 international awards, including a bronze medal at the World Exhibition in Brussels. In 1961, Polanski conceived the idea of making the first feature-length feature film. Together with Jakub Goldberg, who starred in "Two Men and a Wardrobe", Polanski wrote the screenplay for the film, originally titled "Safety Pin, Pipe and Knife". Jerzy Bossak, head of the Kamera film studio, who was presented with the script, recommended that the script be re-worked and that Jerzy Skolimowski be involved for this purpose. By that time, Skolimovsky had already had several successful scripts on his account, including Andrzej Wajda's film "Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers)".
It took Skolimovsky three days to make corrections to the script, which satisfied Jerzy Bossak. However, the new version of the script was rejected again. This time, by the government agencies regulating the cinematographic industry. The main complaint of the state committee was that the script did not reflect social issues. Then the co-authors of the script simply inserted a dialogue about the hard life of students.
On June 8, 1961, the film script was finally approved with the title "Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water)" and a more than modest budget. According to contemporaries, the budget of the picture did not exceed the salary of a Polish worker for 3, maximum, 4 months. Due to the scarcity of the budget, Polanski was forced to attract non-professional actors, and he was going to play one of the roles - the Young Man-Hitchhiker - himself. Jerzy Bossak dissuaded him from this, explaining that this could be regarded as a manifestation of exorbitant vanity. As a result, this role was played by the then student of the theater institute Zygmunt Malanowicz. But Polanski himself voiced it anyway.
The performer of the main female role - Jolanta Umecka - was also voiced by another actress. Jolanta Umecka, who had neither theatrical education nor, frankly, acting talent, got the role only thanks to her external data. More precisely, her figure in a bathing suit and her willingness to act nude.
Shooting the film was given to Roman Polanski, to put it mildly, not easy. Working with non-professional actors, and even in conditions of a meager budget, required enormous physical effort and nerve costs. In addition, the shooting of the picture coincided with the increasing scandals with his first wife - Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass - whom the director married in 1959. On top of that, in September 1961, a person close to Roman Polanski died - his teacher at the Film School - Andrzej Munk. Possibly, being in a state of intoxication due to this event, Polanski got into a fight with a policeman, after which he spent a day in a “jailhouse”. And then, hurrying to shoot, he got into a car accident and, with a skull fracture, spent two weeks lying in a hospital bed. But, in spite of everything, in November 1961, the shooting of the picture was completed.
After the film "Knife in the Water" provoked the wrath of the main Polish communist, a wave of critical articles in party publications fell upon the film. These articles included allegations of being out of touch with reality, negatively influencing youth, imitating Western models, doubting socialist values, encouraging rebelliousness, and so on, etc. The Polish Catholic Church also contributed to these accusations, declaring that, despite its superficiality, the film has a clear tendency to justify free love. In short, two weeks after the premiere, the film was taken off the screen and was not shown in Poland until 1991. In the USSR, of course, too.
The ban on showing the film "Knife in the Water" in Polish cinemas had at least two notable consequences. Firstly, Roman Polanski decided to leave socialist Poland and go to his native Paris. Secondly, the film came to the attention of American distributors and began to be shown in American cinemas from October 1963, and in 1964 was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. Polanski's film did not receive an Oscar; by the decision of the American Film Academy, it went to the film "8½ (Eight and a Half)" by Federico Fellini. But for a debutant from socialist Poland, even a nomination for an award was of great importance.
In the same 1964, Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water was nominated for the British BAFTA Award, which he also did not receive, but ended up in the company of such "relative losers" as Federico Fellini's "8½ (Eight and a Half)", "Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce Italian Style)" by Pietro Germi, "Days of Wine and Roses" by Blake Edwards, "The Servant" by Joseph Losey, "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Robert Mulligan.
The rating of Roman Polanski's debut feature film by modern ordinary moviegoers is evidenced by the following figure: 55% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Roman Polanski's film "Knife in the Water" according to FilmGourmand version was 7,903, which allowed it to take 870th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
