Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Roman Polanski's Cul-de-sac (1966)
During the 1960s, when I had a job doing film acquisition and copyright research for Germany's Beta Film, I was told that Roman Polanski had approached Beta to finance his Samuel Beckett-like feature Cul-de-sac (1966). So the story went, the Beta execs asked to see a screenplay, and Polanski supposedly said, "Screenplay? Why do I need a screenplay. I have a castle!" And he did: Lindisfarne Castle in Northumberland, England (where he later shot some scenes for Macbeth).
Back in 1963 at the first New York Film Festival, we were all transfixed by Polanski's Knife in the Water (1962), with its tensions and drama that bubbled to the surface as a cinematic influence over decades, even to the present day. With an okay from Polanski, filmmakers went to the Catskills to do an interpretation of Knife in the Water on dry land, the psychological thriller Kaaterskill Falls (2001).
Cul-de-sac was Polanski's third feature after Knife in the Water and Repulsion (1965), his first British film, He had hoped to adapt Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, but the notion evaporated when Beckett responded by saying he did not want to have his play adapted into a film. Polanski nevertheless set out to make his own Godot-like variation, reworking a 1963 screenplay titled When Katelbach Comes, with additional inspiration from his brief marriage to Polish film star Barbara Kwiatkowska. Like Godot, Katelbach never arrives. The name derives from actor Andre Katelbach, who appeared in Polanski's 1961 short, The Fat and the Lean.
The sister of Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, made a total of 20 films; she died seven months after the U.S. release of Cul-de-sac when her sports car flipped and burned near Nice, France.
Music by Krzysztof Komeda, who did the music for Rosemary's Baby (1968) and a dozen other Polanski films. Control-click title heading to hear Komeda's "Crazy Girl" track from Knife in the Water.
During the 1960s, when I had a job doing film acquisition and copyright research for Germany's Beta Film, I was told that Roman Polanski had approached Beta to finance his Samuel Beckett-like feature Cul-de-sac (1966). So the story went, the Beta execs asked to see a screenplay, and Polanski supposedly said, "Screenplay? Why do I need a screenplay. I have a castle!" And he did: Lindisfarne Castle in Northumberland, England (where he later shot some scenes for Macbeth).
Back in 1963 at the first New York Film Festival, we were all transfixed by Polanski's Knife in the Water (1962), with its tensions and drama that bubbled to the surface as a cinematic influence over decades, even to the present day. With an okay from Polanski, filmmakers went to the Catskills to do an interpretation of Knife in the Water on dry land, the psychological thriller Kaaterskill Falls (2001).
Cul-de-sac was Polanski's third feature after Knife in the Water and Repulsion (1965), his first British film, He had hoped to adapt Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, but the notion evaporated when Beckett responded by saying he did not want to have his play adapted into a film. Polanski nevertheless set out to make his own Godot-like variation, reworking a 1963 screenplay titled When Katelbach Comes, with additional inspiration from his brief marriage to Polish film star Barbara Kwiatkowska. Like Godot, Katelbach never arrives. The name derives from actor Andre Katelbach, who appeared in Polanski's 1961 short, The Fat and the Lean.
The sister of Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, made a total of 20 films; she died seven months after the U.S. release of Cul-de-sac when her sports car flipped and burned near Nice, France.
Music by Krzysztof Komeda, who did the music for Rosemary's Baby (1968) and a dozen other Polanski films. Control-click title heading to hear Komeda's "Crazy Girl" track from Knife in the Water.
Labels: dorleac, komeda, polanski
¶ 2:35 PM
