Personification as Multiple Subject in Knife in the Water 1962 by Roman Polanski

Personification as Multiple Subject

In Knife in the Water (Nóż w Wodzie)  1962 by Roman Polański.

Free jazz, saxophone and piano. Reflection of the forest and the sky on the windscreen blurring and rendering faceless a woman driver and a man. 

To You I am a Question Mark. As the first Audio-Visual to testify, I start with this confession. I need an audience. I cannot live without You. If My author is somewhere around, I also know that I am nothing without Your ‘steadfast attention.’ I am also nothing without the human characters I portray and nothing without the 1960 Polish environment of early socialist rule, enthusiasm and resistance. I am the rebellious and the censored Audio-Visual in one. I dare speak only of Myself. You as the director and You as the audience may see things differently, but I am asking for Your empathy. My testimony may fall short of Your expectations, mess around with Your theories but My confession is true and unrepentant. Indeed I am not seeking satisfaction, nor approval.  I, as Knife in the Water, anchor My queries, confessions and dialogues with Myself firmly to My specific Manifestation of Light, sound and their absence as Displayed in italics above.

To You I am a Question mark.  I have also been given the task to Question Myself not as one subject but as a multiplicity. My non-diegetic free jazz is My first oxymoron and sign of a multiple subject. Jazz is My rebellious unsocialist imported music and yet loved by the Polish elite. My human faces are blurred. My car window screen portrays the forest, the trees and the sky. Technically I am a single long take through a polarising filter. I am the immobilised window screen, carried by the apparatus of the car. I am incapable of entertaining Myself through My rectangular frame with the human dramas that unfold because I am the faceless human couple trapped inside. Can My windscreen be compared to a Lacanian mirror through which You as an audience can identify Yourself? If so, does this not restrict My role as an imaginary signifier? 

My silent couple. Unheard conversation. A clap tapping of the man’s fingers. She gets out of the car and they swap seats. He adjusts the mirror, takes control of the steering wheel. She takes out a cigarette. They bump into each other as if the car is too small for them. The Radio commentary and the claustrophobic intensity of non-verbal dialogue. 

To You I am a Question mark. Once the questions start rolling, they multiply. Now, I  manifest My human actors anyway, because I am not alone as a screen. If I, as Knife in the Water, thought of Myself as a singular subject I would be summoning Myself as ‘the presence of everything [the film] excludes.’ I am ‘collective assemblages of enunciation’ displayed or hidden, voiced or unvoiced. How can I fix My subject or being when I can only display My ever changing, restless passage through light, sound and their absence? How can I, as the Audio Visual, Knife in the Water, so inconsistent in action, so incomplete and impure in form contribute something meaningful? 

A blurred shape of another Me on the road. My first spoken utterance comes after 3.51 minutes. ‘They’re out early.’ There is only Me, the unnamed hitchhiker on the road, but I am hailed as a multiple ‘they’. I am a triangular human protagonist; Andrzej, Krystyna and the uninvited but soon to be invited guest intruder. Even a simple description of any one of My multiple facets becomes unattainable. You, as the critic, are quick to point out the competition that ensues between Andrzej and the Hitchhiker, with Krystyna as the prize. My Andrzej is epitomatic of the members of the socialist party, driving a Peugeot 403, on his way to his yacht whilst My Krystyna adds to My pompous status. My student walks on foot and I have nothing but a light knapsack and a knife to My name. You see Me as a thriller, a story of limited spaces and intense circumstances. You review Me as a succession of power games and confrontation between Alpha males for the prize. You brand me as ‘a series of showings-off in a forest of phallic symbols.’ Yet in the same breath You move on from My human characters to My car, boat, sails, mast, knife, forest, lake, water and reeds. You seem to prove that I, as Knife in the Water, am an infinite forest of subjects. Where does this multiplicity leave me?

I am a Question Mark. I will start with the human aspect. ‘Join Me in reflecting on My characters which I am shaping.’ Andrzej is the captain of the boat, the one who gives the orders. I will equate Andrzej with My director, instructing everyone how to behave. I will equate the hitchhiker with the unwanted and yet needed guest, the audience. Krystyna is the director’s wife, the prized possession, the target of the gaze, the Audio-Visual in fact. I am the sum of all three. I cannot be Myself without all three. ‘And what if I hadn’t stopped?’ Andrzej asks. The hitchhiker answers, as if in answer to Andrzej’s script, ‘A corpse would have lain on the road.’ Indeed, when the car reaches the marina, I drive it off and back into the frame. I need to be in the frame, otherwise I would be nothing more than a corpse. I, as the director, the Audio-Visual and the spectator need to be equally involved. Andrzej as the director begs the stranger to stay and watch. Andrzej, as the captain, tries to impress, but the hitchhiker is only impressed with Me, Krystyna in a swimsuit. As the director and critic, or the sailor and the guest battle it out, it is I who hold the keys and it is I who will hold the rudder when My two opponents find themselves in the water. I am the one who is at home in the water. I seem to win silently. ‘But My silence is real.’ Am I, as Your equal, leaning over You, offering a mirror and contemplation. Is My absent signature in water writ, My way of signing without Your fanfare?

The knife is of ‘no use on the water, but it’s handy if you’re tearing the undergrowth. Working further on the analogy of Me as the director, spectator and Audio-Visual on the boat. You, as the critic, might be of no use for the filming per se, but definitely for tearing at the undergrowth. My skipper’s fingers lie helpless as the knife dances menacingly around them. You give Me multiple interpretations, an infinity of meaning and subject. ‘Did You ever cut Yourself sir?’ Am I not the cut and stitched remains of what You the author patched together? Am I not the cut and stitched fragments of Your criticism. Or am I, as Knife in the Water,  ‘a’ something more?

To You I am a Question Mark. I am ‘cut’ conversations. I am ‘cut’ dialogues. I am an interrupted conversation. ‘We are not moving.’ My guest despairs. ‘I want to reach the shore. Is there no way of getting there?’ I, like My skipper, will not accommodate. I am as stubborn as the weather. ‘When there’s wind you move, when there isn’t you don’t.’ I am not a good empathic listener. Indeed together, Myself as the skipper and Myself as the skipper’s wife, we laugh at My guest’s frantic peddling which sends the boat running in circles instead of forwards. I can only run in circles of interrupted conversation. The wipers mentioned at the beginning will turn up lost at the end. The story of the sailor who broke bottles and jumped on them to impress his colleagues will run in circles, unfinished and contradicted. A radio commentary of a boxing match is interrupted. A game of bridge needs a fourth player and the game of jackstraw is never finished. The soup falls out of the guest’s hands and interrupts the meal. Swimming is interrupted when the guest loses control of the boat. Krystyna’s privacy is broken by the guest’s prying eyes. The peaceful weekend turns into a nightmare as the boat runs aground and as the conflicting dance of the peacocks on board ends with both men in the water. I, as Knife in the Water, am always an impossible conversation. As the guest fools around with the knife, My Krystyna’s begging Me, as the husband to join her in the water is unheard. I as the guest can only watch as My hosts swim. This is only the prelude to the last conversation at the end of the film. Andrzej does not believe what he hears and does not know what to believe. Am I a manifestation of the true or alternative conversation? Have I had sexual intercourse and betrayed My husband or Has the guest really drowned? Either way, My husband is either a cuckold or a murderer. I remain a liar or a betrayal. An interruption. Yet as an interruption, I am also multiple. Does this mean that I am always an interrupted subject? Does this link multiplicity to interruption?

‘No whistling on board.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Sailing boat rules.’ As the guest, I ironically say ’Amen’ to these rules but what rules do I follow? I follow the limitations of the cramped confined, interior of the boat that force My intense close-ups. I am hampered by the rigorous censorship of the regime. I am told which car to feature and which lines to change. Yet I do whistle. Polanski was not allowed to act as the hitchhiker, but it is Polanski’s voiceover that You hear. Am I not like the boat that veers out of control, gets stuck in the shallows and needs to be pulled through the reeds? Am I not the hitchhiker who can actually swim and Krystyna who disobeys and betrays My skipper and husband? Rules are about safety. There is nothing safe on the boat. Twirling ropes, swerving booms and a dancing knife. There is nothing safe around the boat. Storms and rain, shallows or dead wind. There is nothing safe about the relationship. My marriage is at breaking point, My men come to grips. There is nothing safe at all. My wipers get stolen, My knife is stolen and lost and My boat crashes into the pier. I ask My skipper to rub My back and My skipper too whistles. If there are any rules, they are meant to be interrupted or broken. I am a knife cutting through the water. As a multiple subject, are My rules an infinite cacophony of nature, human and earthly? Am I not a figment of imagination, always overreaching and undefined? Am I not a contradiction, rather than a rule? Do I, Knife in the Water,  sail, or do I walk? 

To You I am a Question mark. I blink an eye to watch the mast only with My right eye and then switch to the left eye view. I seem to make My own choices about the rules that I create or that others have imprisoned Me in. I am an intervention, another interruption, an escape. Drenched and tired after pushing the boat away from harm, I anchor the boat and My protagonists enter the womb of the boat in a shot reminiscent of My cousin Vampyr in the coffin. I flirt. I ask My husband to untie My hat and undress before My guest. I use the claustrophobic interior to find My freedom. My asking the guest not to turn around seems more like an invitation rather than a rule not to be broken. I am an Audio-Visual. I am all about display and not about privacy. I choose to break censorship. My Andrzej chooses to break the rules of the game. However hard, My guest pretends to be chasing a fly away (another interruption), I know I am displaying and that You are watching My nudity. More games. My Andrzej uses a pump to blow up the mattress. There is no fair play. I am brushing My hair. Watch Me. The game of Jackstraw rules are that whoever disturbs the sticks must give something as a forfeit. My Andrzej does not want to play by the rules. My Krystyna chooses to use the rules to My own advantage. As I lose, I hand My shoes over to My guest. I make My guest forfeit the belt. Am I playing strip poker with a stranger in front of My husband? Am I striving for ultimate escape from My husband or am I seeking to appropriate the knife? Do I, Knife in the Water, need to tell You what My objective is? Do My multiple objectives not reflect My multiple subject perspective?

To You I am a Question mark. My name is Krystyna. The boat I float on bears the westernised version of My name, ‘Christine.’ The only other Christine I know is the singer from the Phantom of the Opera. However, My husband is not Erik. I am not allowed to sing, although the rules of the game demand that I do so, if I am to retrieve My shoes from the stranger. I am a performer and so I use the rules of the game and break My husband’s command. I sing about the useless words between people who lie and love each other poorly. I now command this boat, not You the skipper director, not You My guest and audience, but I do it for You. I am Knife in the Water,  an Audio-Visual spectre. 

‘Hush, don’t speak, don’t say anything, say nothing. 

No don’t look, don’t look like that, let me go

Our words went missing

Together with our moons and stars

Our feelings too have left us.  

Nafta burns in the lamp. I lament over a mosquito’s soul. I get My shoes back as My guest recites a poem. Am I the perilous nafta that lights My display? Am I the bloodsucking soul of a mosquito? Maybe it’s You mother in heaven who are the numerous stars or a white sail or a wave. Maybe Your white hands sprinkled their stardust on My manuscript or maybe it is the moon. Indeed, as I order or ask You not to listen, I am indeed making You, as My audience break the rules. You are immobilised on Your seats, You can only watch Me as I carry out an impossible conversation with Myself. The rules of privacy do not apply to My Manifestation, a confession of Light, Sound and their absence. Are You not mesmerized by My multiple confessions in different voices? Do My interrupted confessions not sound like ‘bees buzzing in August’s golden rooms?’ 

‘Bierki’ (Jackstraws) are not just bits of wood. Bierki to organism. This is where You and I, as Knife in the Water,  differ. As a reviewer or critic, Your concern is finding meaning in certain shots and sequences. You see Christian imagery as My guest lies ‘on the deck of the yacht in a crucifix position with the sun forming a halo around his head.’ You patch this with a previous image of My guest twiddling his feet creating the illusion that I am walking on the water. The hot saucepan leaves wounds on My guests hands and then My guest ‘drowns’ only to resurrect again. You may focus on My knife and quote Platonic ethics on how the knife can cut well or badly. You may focus on My boat symbolism, on the mast, the boat and the knife as a ‘series of showings-off in a forest of phallic symbols.’ You could analyse the relationship between My guest and host as a study of the Oedipal complex or argue about Krystyna’s assumed ‘victory’  I find common ground in Bellour’s belief that such an analysis will always remain incomplete. How can I offer You a systematic analysis and organise a number of elements within limited segments if I want to be true to Myself? I am ‘the analysis which ends and the analysis which never ends.’ As an individual, I do not have the luxury, nor the desire to fragment sequences and think of Myself as separate characters, symbols or events. I am a multiple organism, hence My Personification. Do Your various insights into My fragments not betray My multiplicity? 

Krystyna is like a midget on the boat engulfed by the lake. As a multiple subject I cannot fail to look beyond My human characters. The isolation is beyond belief, maybe even beyond the isolation of My protagonists. The Mazuri is a wilderness of lakes and reeds. A void that is within My frame creating multiple tensions. I am all about a lull in the storm, a lull in the wind and a lull in action. Like Beethoven’s insistence on the importance of the silence between the notes for a great musical piece, I differ from You, My spectator. I play a waiting game which to My guest, My watchful intruder is declared to be ‘a waste of time.’ You, like My guest, ask to bail the water, pull up the sail and anchor. You do not want to look at inaction, void and silence and yet as an organism I need My sleep to keep awake. I know My ‘vanishing points.’ You see Your need for thrills and suspense in My ‘unexperienced experience.’ Indeed Andrzej, as My personification of My director, is only concerned with stealing My critic’s or My competitor’s sharp witted knife. You want action, well here You have it. I come to blows and My knife drops to the bottom of the lake forever. This is not about the death of the author but about the attempt to kill the critic. Inevitably, I am lying to You, because I am only true to Myself. ‘You’re a poser, a fraud! Showing off in front of a kid, a puppy! That’s why you took him to show off. You’re a clown.’ I display My guest playing hide and seek behind a buoy, perfectly able to swim, although I have told you otherwise throughout My Manifestation, as Knife in the Water, to this point. How can I kill My critic or director when You too are part of My multiple organism?

‘How hysterical you look!’ ‘As Your wife,’ I am hysterical. I need You both and yet I accuse You both of wrongdoing. I am just being honest. I am just confessing My darkest secrets to You. You need Me too. You too are nothing without Me. I am naked. Watch Me. You cannot resist. You will swim back and watch. You may have closed Your eyes to escape the horror, but You are dying for more. It is time for another lull in the tension, time for another impossible conversation. I slap You in the face. ‘If I'd known, I’d never have let this happen.’ You have no control over the boat, over Me, You are but My audience. You may dismiss My right to a voice. You may say, like My guest does; ‘What does he know?’ and I may answer ‘About Life? I know that life. I have not forgotten it yet . . . You are no better than he (Andrzej) is. Understand? He was like you. You want to be like him. You will be if you have the guts.’  Is life not part of My Multiple subject, as Knife in the Water? Does it not tally that the more I display human and natural life in all its forms, the more I engage You as My audience? 

‘You’re both the same. Only half as young and a bit more stupid’ Am I criticising or defending You? Andrzej, like My director, has dedicated his life, time and effort to shoot and stitch Me into one organism, the very bierki that You pick and choose to review as separate fragments. You may declare My Personification as stupidity or ignorance. I stand pleading guilty as charged. I display a triangular multiplicity at play; You the director, You the audience and Myself, within an organism trapped within nature, screens, boats and cars reflecting life both onscreen and offscreen. How can I be truly aware of everything? As Knife in the Water, ‘I can see no difference between memory and intellect.’ My memory lies within the Multiplicity of Your memory, to which I indeed claim ignorance whether feigned or real. In My defence, I ask, how can You be aware of everything?  Montaigne warns us that ‘excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgements.’ My Personification holds that ‘Mistakes often escape our eyes, but it is the sign of poor judgement if we are unable to see them when shown to us by another.’ As Knife in the Water, I see this triangular human multiplicity as vital for judgement. Can You afford to disregard My ontromorphosisation? 

To You I am a Question Mark. I cannot dwell on My real ignorance, because it lies in the ‘nonmoving void,’ shot through Polanski’s vision or Lipman’s instinct. How can I ‘identify’ the void in the silence or in the ambient sounds of wind, water and wilderness? I also have problems with identification. However, I can confess to My lying nature, as Knife in the Water.  Always remember that I am a Manifestation of Light, Sound and their Absence. What is absent? I am a Display of nudity stripped and dressed, a hint dropped and silenced, a sail furled and unfurled, a knife that dances or sleeps. Does this not mean that My Multiple subject is both a flurry of manifestations and absences? Does this not imply My feigned ignorance in the void of the unseen and the untold? Will You ‘let Myself forward as I am?’  

‘Kissing at the gate. In wintertime it’s too cold to unbutton her blouse.’ My protagonists seem to keep silent about My history before I end up on the boat. My history indeed is an impossible conversation and yet it is an interruption, one that heavily weighs on My Display. It is incredible how well Krystyna understands student life. Could it be that by empathising with My guest, I am betraying My own past? Should I not be something about Polanski’s life? Should I not be a whole cast’s perspective on Polish Socialist reality, a perspective that infuriated the authorities? Do I not show a car and a boat as impossible possessions, reserved for the very privileged few contrasted by the unnamed proletariat? Does this not throw more light on My student’s enthusiasm at the sight of Peugeot. Western ears may be deaf to the fact that My student’s claim to have seen two Jaguars in Warsaw, is ironic. Western eyes may be blind to the fact that brandy was illegal in Poland and only reserved for members of the party. The same goes for other luxurious items like the alligator lilo, the portable radio, the mattresses and entry to the Mazuri lido. Using Krystyna as My mouthpiece I drop other hints, probably the ones that the regime objected to. These include the fact that student hostels house 6 students in a room, that many had lost their parents to the war or TB. My student reflects on the grievances of the proletariat. What does he (Andrzej or the regime?) know? Cafes, yachts, cars. You’ve probably got a 4 room apartment.’ In the very same breath, I hint at My Polish level of luxury. The most I can aspire to, as a Polish citizen, is a 4 room apartment. The insinuation here is that I will probably have a smaller one. There are other subtleties too. My student does not know how to sail, does not know how to play cards and pretends not to know how to swim. In other words, I am not striving to improve My chances of joining the club, the party, or the socialist movement. I understand that as Knife in the Water, this may not be My main theme, but does it not continue adding Multiple facets to My subject?

‘But we all had a great time, right!. The most important thing is that we separate as friends.’ This is by far the greatest ironic statement that My Krystyna makes. This is followed by the fight and the separation of all My human protagonists. The knife falls into the water. My guest hides behind a buoy. My husband and wife insult each other and accused of murder My husband swims to shore. This I follow with adultery, an offscreen sexual intercourse between My guest and wife. This may be a display of the uncomfortable relationship that I have with You as My audience and maker. It may also be a manifestation of Your discomfort with each other. Andrzej, like My director, impresses with the technicalities of sailing and filming, but the main display is My Krystyna. As an audience You wish to appropriate me, if only for a fleeting moment. How can I please both? This seems to be My whole preoccupation as Krystyna and then, I, as Knife in the Water, must confess, also seek My own gratification. I may pose as a witness to the games My men play. I may enjoy being the prize, but I also want to be an active player. In this, I may be seen to be a ‘winner.’ It seems that I am just as bad as You both are. Am I the knife who Aristotle claims has only one use, which is to cut and harm or am I a knife of multiple uses? Indeed, does My personification not change the status quo of this contention between You the filmmaker and You the audience, by adding Me, as Knife in the Water, an Audio-Visual as an equal contender?

To You I am a Question Mark. I am stating My desire to have a great time and separate as friends.  My stripping bare may lead to Your acknowledgement of My being, of My claim to Personification. I as Knife in the Water, allow My guest to enjoy My organism, My embodied being of multiples. As My guest leaves, somewhat baffled and somewhat humiliated, I am left with My husband. Our marriage is on the rocks, but this tumultuous passage has given us the wings of action and the possibility for discourse. Eventually it may leave You hurt in some way. Andrzej introduces the story of the sailor jumping on broken bottles early on, but it has been interrupted again and again. ‘He was too sure of himself, that sailor. He had done that trick many times.’ I admire Your assurance and confidence but there is hardly anything that I am sure of knowing, or that I dare answer to Myself that I can do. The story remains unfinished and incomplete. ‘You tell me a pack of lies.’ I do. Yet it allows us to have these impossible conversations. Why would you try to convince me that you betrayed me with that kid? The reason is simple. Maybe, I have, maybe I have not. I am a multiple subject, a mysterious non conclusion, a witnessed or unwitnessed gestus.   I meant to ask you. You never finished the story. Why have we stopped? Here My lights fade on a motionless car, revving up to go, but undecided. Do not separate your creations from Yourself, for I am a living being. Does My indecision, My trial and error at persuasion not prove My existence as an independent being? May I hope, as Knife in the Water, to be recognised not as a simple tool, an object but as a complex multiple Personified subject? Here I rest My case. I remain, Your Question Mark.