Knife in the Water (Nóż w wodzie)

1962, Roman Polanski, Poland, 94 min., Polish with English subtitles

Introduced by professor of psychology and neural science Dr. Clayton Curtis

A couple on their way to a lake for the weekend pick up a hitchhiker who joins them for the trip. Tension builds as the two men compete for the attention of the woman while they’re all confined to the boat. As the rivalry grows more vicious, the trip comes to a violent climax.

This psychological thriller is considered by many critics to be Roman Polanski’s best work.

“Taut, compelling, and engaging, Polanski’s Oscar-nominated thriller is one of the most brilliant debuts in film history.”

—Emanuel Levy

About Cabaret Cinema: Perception

Can the truth truly be trusted? Is it objective or rather tinted by our experience and memories? Perhaps there is no better medium with which to explore these questions than the illusory cinema. In that pursuit we have invited scientists to introduce films that potently demonstrate that much of our perception is clouded by the distorted lens of our assumptions and desires.

About the Introducer

Clayton Curtis, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. His lab uses a variety of techniques to make measurements of brain activity and study the consequences of brain perturbations. The main goals of his research are to unravel the neural mechanisms that support spatial cognition, including how our brain represents the locations of objects, how objects are prioritized for further processing, and how these spatial representations are referenced to the movements of our bodies in space.