Any valid answer to the OP's question depends on one crucial detail, about which we have little else than a verbal description since the movie does not show that most important aspect of the chain of events leading from George's frustration from the trap in which his life had been caught. That crucial detail - if we can call it a "detail" since his very life depends on it! is , of course, what exactly happened after the canoe capsized and before we see him reaching the lake shore. Did he ever have a chance to actually save Angela's life? He appears to have said the truth about his head having been hit by something (most likely the side of the canoe). Although he told lies after lies at the time of the events (as he did premeditate the aspects of his murder plan), he has clearly been truthful about everything in the courtroom, so I actually tend to give him credit for the temporary state of “grogginess” he was in due to the hit that he had received on the head. That, and that fact alone, if true, should have changed the whole prosecution and its final verdict, regardless of everything else, from a felony to a misdemeanor charge, which would have saved his life of course.
But that we’ll never know. Everything else, and any discussion of this is actually irrelevant, vain and superfluous. For all we know, he might even have tried to save her from drowning!
I have had a first-hand experience (and rather traumatizing too I must confess) with that type of accident. I was quite young (about 15) and was working as an instructor near Lewiston (Maine). During the week we had between the two month-long camp sessions, which was our only holiday during the whole summer, I had decided to do some canoeing on magnificent Lake Androscoggin (quite a large so-called “finger lake” – i.e. lakes that filled glacial valleys after the last glaciation period, such as Loch Ness) on whose shore our camp was based, with a fellow instructor. At its face value, it really seemed like a fantastic idea. We had brought fishing gear and binoculars (for birding) and we were intending to reach one of these small uninhabited islands in the lake and have a picnic there (no, she was not a hot female instructor, unfortunately ). There were really only two possible shadowy aspects to it: first, my fellow (let’s call him Pierre) did not know how to swim (ring a bell?) and secondly, there seemed to be dark clouds far, far on the horizon on this otherwise perfectly sunny afternoon: a possible thunderstorm? Yes, perhaps, but back in 1970, there were no 24/7 weather channels to get us informed on local conditions, and I must mention that conditions can be very local on the piedmont side of the Appalachian Mountains! And they can change faster than the time you need to realize it! Oh yeah… so I listened to my daring, impetuous angel on my shoulder, who had by then already snipped up both wings of my wise, prudent guardian angel, and started out with my a bit crazy excursion. But what is life without any danger factor, hmmm?
What had to happen according to the laws of probability did happen: we capsized, with our lifesaving suits on, but also wearing all our hiking gear on ourselves: heavy boots, binoculars and army shoulder bags. One thing I can tell for sure: unlike George, I had nothing to hide about this project - except maybe the fact that I should have taken these clouds more seriously- and yet everything happened so suddenly, and adrenalin was rushing through my whole body, and it took me perhaps, I don’t know, 15 sec at least? to realize what had just happened. There is a blank, a short blank of course in my memory, for which I cannot accurately account because I was so stressed out by it all, most likely, that I could not pay attention to details such as where my friend was exactly (he was not visible at first and I panicked because of that? that’s a likely explanation…. In any case, everything ended rather well except that our binoculars and my wristwatch were ruined. We had capsized rather close to the shore since before it happened, I had already decided to land at the nearest place due to the storm now coming towards us, and the lake was shallow enough to allow us to walk on the bottom. But there are yet these precious seconds that immediately followed the accident, during which memories were blurred even right after it happened.
I tell this story simply in support of George’s innocence regarding an actual murder. An accident that had resulted from premeditation of a murder? Yes. But a misdemeanor, not a felony. I do think that he had made a 180 degrees change of mind regarding Angelica, and did not intend to murder her at the time their canoe capsized.
But of course, nobody knows what George actually did: the director decided not to show the very crucial minutes that immediately followed the accident, just to create a pretext and to feed up future internet discussions on his movie . George might have repeatedly punched her in the water, pushed her down somehow to accelerate her drowning, whacked her several times with a canoe oar to stop her screaming and whining, or, as I truly believe, had never any chance to save her for the reasons I tried to explain.
Is it safe? What is safe? Is it safe? Yes, very safe? Is it safe? No, not at all! Is it safe? Aaahh!
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