junction, where they would turn one way to return home and another to go to the police station, the car does not move. Cast Leon Niemczyk as Andrzej Jolanta Umecka as Krystyna Zygmunt Malanowicz as Young Man Rest of cast listed alphabetically: Anna Ciepielewska as Krystyna (voice) Roman Polanski as Young Man (voice) Analysis Film professor Charles Derry notes that Knife in the Water is atypical from other thrillers due to the fact that it "represses the usual violence promised by the thriller, [and] it ends its narrative with violence's opposite: a scene of total stasis, in which no action is perfectly acceptable to the husband protagonist." Production Development The screenplay for the film, written by Polanski, Jakub Goldberg, and Jerzy Skolimowski, was initially rejected by the Polish Ministry of Culture due to its "lack of social commitment." Unable to obtain funding in his native Poland, Polanski reworked the screenplay to be set in France, though the production was ultimately unable to receive funding there as well. After making a number of minor edits to the screenplay—mainly snippets of dialogue demonstrating "social commitment" to "appease the Ministry [of Culture]"—Polanski again pitched the project to the national film board, who approved it for production. Filming Knife in the Water was shot by Polanski in 1961 using only three actors. It marked Polanski's debut as a feature-length director. Two of the actors (Jolanta Umecka, who plays Krystyna and Zygmunt Malanowicz, who plays the young man) had virtually no previous professional acting experience. Krzysztof Komeda composed the film's music and the featured saxophonist was Bernt Rosengren. Being filmed on the water (in the Polish Masurian Lake District), and largely within the confines of a sailboat and life raft, the film was technically difficult. While the sailboat was large enough for the three actors, it was quite cramped for the film crew, who often had to hang over the side of the boat with safety harnesses in order to shoot. Release Knife in the Water was released theatrically in Poland on 9 March 1962. It premiered in the United States the following year, on 28 October 1963. Critical reception Knife in the Water was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Academy Awards, the first Polish motion picture to receive this kind of recognition. Time used a still from the film, with Umecka and Malanowicz on the verge of a kiss, as