■ In this film, Roman Polanski describes confusing human situation in which people with humanistic problems gather at an old castle owned by the protagonist, George, and their humanistic problems remain unresolved. In other words, the cul-de-sac of the title is not only a topographical problematic in that the land route to the old castle appears only at low tide, but also a psychological problematic in that the tensions in human relation is reaching its limits.
■ Two wounded gangsters, Richard ( Lionel Stander ) and Albert ( Jack McGowran ), suddenly burst into the old castle where George ( Donald Pleasence ) and his wife Teresa ( Françoise Drouleac ) live. Albert, in particular, is mortally wounded, and Richard orders the couple to take care of him together ( 1~3 ).
■ Albert asks Richard how the boss is doing (in the previous scene, Richard is talking to the boss on the phone about what happened), and is disappointed that the boss has abandoned them after they messed up the job ( 4-10 ). Albert tells Richard to disconnect the phone line so that the couple will not call the police, and Richard replies that he has already disconnected the line ( 11~12 ).
■ Here, it is important to note that although the boss is only voice on the phone and never actually appears, Richard continues to exert psychological pressure on the couple by threatening them that the boss will come to their rescue. This is one of the key points to understand this film, and I will explain it later.
■ However, the couple who are broken into by them are portrayed not merely as sympathetic victims, but as having their own problematic human natures, and their relationship is not going well. The husband is so nervous and timid that he can only be strong behind the scenes, and the wife has such an arrogant temperament that she strongly blames him for his timidity ( 13~18 ).
■ One point that should not be overlooked in this film is that Albert and Richard's boss, katelbach, does not help them and does not appear at the end of the film. The chaotic relation of only four people, Albert, Richard, George, and Teresa, at the old castle could have been enough to make the story ( "Knife in the Water ( 1962 )" is made up of only three characters ). Why, then, does Polanski bring into this film the "non-existence" of Katelbach, which is never seen, and which may appear at any moment ?
■ Even though Richard himself is thinly aware that the boss will no longer come to his rescue, he keeps putting George and Teresa under psychological pressure that the boss will come to their rescue. Although Richard's aim was to prevent a counterattack from George because his own body could not move as it should due to his injuries, George, who does not know this, takes in the presence of the unseen boss as Oppressive Master inside him. This psychological process is what triggers George's acts of madness in the last scene of the film.
■ Considering the presence of the boss, Katelbach, who never appears, and the career of Jack McGowran ( 1918~1973 ), the actor who plays Albert, it is easy to see that Polanski secretly referenced Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" ( published 1952, first performed 1953 ). "Cul-de-sac ( 1966 )" is old, and perhaps because of Polanski's many problematic history, few people have pointed this reference out, or even noticed it.
■ Jack McGowran starred with George Divine in Beckett's "Endgame" at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1958, and was the first actor to perform one-man plays based on Beckett's work "End of Day ( 1962 )" and its revised version "Beginning to End ( 1965 )".
"Beginning To End" by Jack McGowran. We can enjoy his one-man show through his overwhelming spoken word.
■ No doubt Polanski is aware of the above, and in his own way, he has embedded "the structure of Waiting for Godot / katelbach" in his films. This is not to reach to the art that taking formalism to the extreme, as Beckett problematizing not waiting for "someone" but "waiting itself". But, this can be interpreted as the link to Problem establishment ( "Repulsion, 1965" ), which is Polanski's concern with human insanity in psychologically extreme situations.
■ Polanski pursues the insane acts of the human subject that arise from such psychologically extreme situations / cul-de-sacs. Unlike Beckett's "Nothing" acts, the acts depicted in this film are those that cause some kind of impact. No matter how bizarre it may seem, Polanski's suspenseful approach to depicting the human itself as repulsiveness has still remained within the sphere of the human. On the other hand, Beckett rubbing Human down to nothingness through his act, invalidating Human on Word, and then moving toward End, away from Human.
■ George is under various pressures from people around him in the psychological cul-de-sac. Physical pressure from Richard, an outside intruder ( Albert is already dead from a worsening abdominal wound he suffered before the intrusion ). Anxiety pressure from the non-existent reality of katelbach, who do not show themselves and do not know when they will come. Theresa's undignified treatment of her husband, who accuses him of being unable to do anything about them. In these surroundings, the timid and nervous George tries to confront the impasse by making the insane choice of committing murder ( killing Richard ).
■ George tries to shoot Richard with a gun, but Richard is stubborn ( 19~22 ). Theresa tells George that you did it, as if he had accomplished something, even though she instigated the murder ( 23~24 ).
■ Richard tries to fight back with a machine gun, but as he falls down from exhaustion, he accidentally fires at a car, causing it to explode ( 25~28 ).
■ George is stunned to see Richard dead. However, this is not regret for the act of murder, but rather a feeling of elation at having committed to Subjective act of murder, Self-revolutionary act , to overcome his previous self. So, when Teresa suggested that they run away, George did not take her up on her offer ( 29-32 ). On the contrary, George mistakenly thinks that his boss is in the car coming toward him and shouts loudly that he has killed Richard ( 33-34 ).
■ But the moment he realizes that it is Cecil, the guest he had visited during the day ( he has come for his forgotten rifle ), George changes his demeanor and returns to his usual subdued tone, hands folded behind his back ( 35 ). George tells Teresa, who has been hiding, that Cecil has arrived. George had noticed that Cecil and Teresa had taken a liking to each other during their daytime visits ( 36 ). This means that Cecil married George because she liked George's wealth enough to have an old castle, but she did not really like George. George himself knew that. So he did not try to stop Cecil from escaping with George ( 37-40 ).
■ Even after Cecil left, George still had Someone to wait ( 41 ). That is the boss, Katelbach. That's why he was waiting for Katelbach. George, unable to contain his excitement as he waits for his boss, who is not coming, continues to run in the shallows and sits on the rocks in a sitting position ( 42~44 ). Needless to say, this is a scene that embodies the mental structure for the Absent Object, the cuttleback, that has been staying inside George as the Cause of his acting out the murder.
■ What makes the final scene interesting is the Name of his former wife, Agnes, whom George mutters to himself on the rock, and Agnes, like Katleback, is already "Absent Object". In the film, there are several paintings of women on canvas by George, and this last scene shows that they were not of Teresa, but of Agnes ( the old castle itself was dedicated to her ). In other words, George was obsessed with the Image of Agnes, which remained strong in his mind because of her absence. And we can interpret that George's aggressive action against the Absent Object of Katleback caused perpetual psychological war to protect the Image of Agnes in his mind. To do so, George took the obsessive action of getting rid of the real people around him who were deceiving him, and as a result, he fell into the perversion of facing his fate of waiting for Katleback forever ( although this is what George himself wanted to do ).
