#745: ROEG, Nicolas: Don't Look Now (1973)
ROEG, Nicolas (United Kingdom)
Commentary
None.
Conversation
Between editor Graeme Clifford and film writer and historian Bobbie O’Steen.
Nicolas Roeg: The Enigma of Film
A piece on Roeg’s style, featuring recent interviews with filmmakers Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh.
Trailer
Don't Look Now [1973]
Spine #745
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie mesmerize as a British married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, terrifying, and increasingly dangerous experiences. A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg, Don't Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier, is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural, as renowned for its innovative editing and haunting cinematography as its naturalistic eroticism and unforgettable climax and denouement, one of the great endings in horror history.
110 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2015
Director/Writers
From a story by Daphne du Maruier.
Screenplay by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant.
Nicolas Roeg was 45 when he directed Don't Look Now.
The Film
The Film
Nothing is what it seems …
Christine (Sharon Williams) and Johnny (Nicholas Salter) Baxter are outside their large English home playing; Christine with a red-and-white striped ball near the pond, and Johnny riding his bike, zipping through the trees …
Their parents, Laura (Julie Christie) and John (Donald Sutherland) are inside the house; John is working on some photographic slides of churches (we will soon learn his profession).
Laura is fumbling around with various books. John asks her what she is doing …
“I was just trying to find the answer to a question Christine was asking … if the world’s round, why is a frozen pond flat?”
In an astonishing tour-de-force montage, Roeg cuts between the exterior and interior; John spills a glass of water on the slide he was looking at; it bleeds red. He senses something and hurries out of the house …
The film is off and running and if the viewer isn’t completely captivated at this point, (s)he wasn’t paying attention.
**
Suddenly we are in Venice and will remain there for the rest of the film. It is not a warm, vibrant Venice; it is cold and gray — only with bits and flashes of bright red in objects and structures at the edge of the frame — ala Ozu!
The intense mystery/spiritual/suspense/horror film spins out over its 110-minute running time, with only vital interruptions of a near-fatal accident for John (with Sutherland doing his own, very dangerous stunt) and one of the most famous love scenes in film history.
Roeg — a DP before he became a director — keeps the image in perpetual vibration from frame to frame. First-time film composer Pino Donaggio (with important notes from Roeg) writes cues that are either curiously simple, or violently dissonant and completely appropriate to the scene (for example, the late scene where John and Laura are frantically chasing what might be an apparition).
And the DP Anthony Richmond captures the serpentine alleyways, bridges and canals of Venice — empty of tourists as winter approaches — with great fervor.
Hilary Mason and Clelia Mantania are terrifically spooky characters, particularly Mason, who plays the blind Heather.
Other minor plusses — all the Italian dialogue (John speaks it pretty well) goes unsubtitled, a nice touch that perks up a viewer’s ears.
Roeg created a masterly film, suspenseful and rewarding after multiple viewings.
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Eight-page foldout poster featuring an essay by film critic David Thompson.
56
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Eight-page foldout poster featuring an essay by film critic David Thompson.
“While maintaining its strong narrative line with several heart-stopping sequences, Don’t Look Now is replete with original moments, true to Roeg’s ethos of remaining open to the happy accidents that occur in filming, so that the meeting of life and celluloid becomes a dialogue, not a prescription. The result is an outstandingly rich film that — for a genre that is usually all about explaining a mystery away — can chill and surprise on repeated viewings. Roeg boldly demonstrates that psychic phenomena need not be the stuff of fantasy but can be rooted in the life experience we all share — birth, sex, and death. Everything is connected.”
Commentary
None.
Conversation
Between editor Graeme Clifford and film writer and historian Bobbie O’Steen.
The great work of an editor.
“Don’t Look Now,” Looking Back
A short 2002 documentary featuring Roeg, Clifford, and DP Anthony Richmond.
Disappointing, only because the developing lab screwed up — everything is pink!
Death in Venice
A 2006 interview with composer Pino Donaggio.
“Don’t Look Now,” Looking Back
A short 2002 documentary featuring Roeg, Clifford, and DP Anthony Richmond.
Disappointing, only because the developing lab screwed up — everything is pink!
Death in Venice
A 2006 interview with composer Pino Donaggio.
The same production company that screwed up the color above, developed this one correctly. It is great to hear Pino discuss the beginning of his scoring career.
Something Interesting
A piece on the writing and making of the film, featuring recent interviews with Richmond, actors Christie and Sutherland, and coscreenwriter Scott.
Something Interesting
A piece on the writing and making of the film, featuring recent interviews with Richmond, actors Christie and Sutherland, and coscreenwriter Scott.
Scott points out one of Roeg’s important working-methods: being open to script changes once shooting has started, and his abilities to mold the film in post-production …
Sutherland and Christie were both excited to work with Roeg. It was Kismet that they both became available after other projects fell through … Sutherland discusses the dangling rope scene.
Nicolas Roeg: The Enigma of Film
A piece on Roeg’s style, featuring recent interviews with filmmakers Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh.
Two great directors praise Roeg.
Q&A
With Roeg from 2003 at London’s Ciné Lumière.
Q&A
With Roeg from 2003 at London’s Ciné Lumière.
The more brilliant the filmmaker the less interesting a Q&A like this. Roeg mutters his way through the interview and answers inane Cinema 101 questions by spinning off into spontaneous unrelated thoughts. These things should be abolished.
All trailers should be like this one.
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