Breakfast Cinema – Knife in the Water by Roman Polanski

New appointment, Sunday, November 19, with Cinema for Breakfast Season 2, a film series curated by the Center for the Study of Comedy in the Italian style, 50&More University of Livorno, FiPiLi Horror Festival, Circolo KInoglaz and Erasmo Libri, with the participation of the Municipality of Livorno.

In the usual schedule of 9:15 breakfast and 10:30 film screening, on Sunday at Cinema Salesiani, viale del Risorgimento, 85, for First Works The Knife in the Water by Roman Polanski will be screened. Introduced by Marco Bruciati.

About to leave for a boat trip, a sports journalist and his wife pick up a young hitchhiker and invite him to stay for the weekend excursion. Thus begins The Knife in the Water; it will be a 24-hour coexistence in the confined space of a sailboat that becomes a theater for the psychological, verbal, and physical clash between the two men, antagonists in a struggle that seems to revolve around the attention of the woman, a silent observer of the virile dispute.

At all costs, the two men want to prove (to each other, to the woman, and above all to themselves) their superiority: the bourgeois middle-class model is thus opposed to the carefree and adventurous spirit of youth through the contest for the two coveted “objects”: the knife and the woman. In the restricted and suspended space of the boat, an isolated microcosm far from civilized life, the deepest and basest impulses and passions of man come to the surface more easily, giving rise to a parable about human nature, instincts, and the social and sexual tensions that govern it.

In his first feature film, Polanski manages, with disarming simplicity of means (a boat and three characters), to create a symbolic work, rich in meaning and aesthetically refined (strongly contrasting black and white, daring shots, and unusual perspectives). What will become the disturbing and sinister atmospheres of his future filmography are already evident in this simple story played out entirely on a psychological and dialectical clash, in which tension is always calibrated just right, ready to explode at any moment. In hindsight, typically Polanski. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film (it was shot in Poland) in 1963.

Roman Polanski (Roman Liebling) is a French actor, director, producer, writer, and screenwriter, born on August 18, 1933, in Paris, France. Today at the cinema with the film The Palace distributed in 278 cinemas. In 2020, he received the award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Cesar for the film. From 1975 to 2020, Roman Polanski has won 10 awards: Cesar (2011, 2014, 2020), European Film Awards (2010), Venice Film Festival (1993), Golden Globes (1975), Lumiere Awards (2020), Academy Award (2003). Roman Polanski is now 90 years old.

Marco Bruciati was born in Livorno, graduated in cinema, theater, and multimedia production from the University of Pisa, and is a lecturer in theories and techniques of multimedia communications. He works as a videomaker and cultural operator with the Kinoglaz Cinema Circle, for which he organizes projects and research to enhance and promote quality film culture, curating exhibitions, seminars, and film forums.

Cinema for Breakfast is curated by the Center for the Study of Comedy in the Italian style, 50&More University of Livorno, FiPiLi Horror Festival, Circolo KInoglaz, and Erasmo Libri, with the participation of the Municipality of Livorno.

Hours: Sunday morning (9:15 breakfast – 10:30 film screening).

Admission ticket: 8 euros, including breakfast.

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