Don't Look Now
Encyclopedia
Don't Look Now is a 1973 thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg
. Julie Christie
and Donald Sutherland
star as a married couple whose lives become complicated after meeting two elderly sisters in Venice, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their recently deceased daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. It is an independent British and Italian co-production, filmed in England and Italy, and adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier
.
While Don't Look Now observes many conventions of the thriller genre, its primary focus is on the psychology of grief, and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. Its emotionally convincing depiction of grief is often singled out as a trait not usually present in films featuring supernatural plot elements.
As well as the unusual handling of its subject matter, Don't Look Now is renowned for its atypical but innovative editing style, and its use of recurring motifs and themes. The film often employs flashbacks and flashforwards in keeping with the depiction of precognition, but some scenes are intercut or merged to alter the viewer's perception of what is really happening. It also adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colours using an associative editing technique, turning them into portents.
Originally causing controversy on its intitial release due to an explicit and—for the time—very graphic sex scene between Christie and Sutherland, its reputation has grown considerably in the years since, and it is now acknowledged as a modern classic and an influential work in horror and British film.
) and his wife, Laura (Julie Christie
), are staying in Venice where John has been contracted by a bishop (Massimo Serato
) to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters at a restaurant where she and John are dining, one of whom is blind and claims to be psychic
and in contact with the Baxters' deceased daughter. The blind sister, Heather (Hilary Mason
), tells Laura she can see Christine and describes the attire she was wearing at the time of the accident, and that Christine is happy. Shaken, Laura returns to her table, where she faints.
Laura is taken to hospital, where she later tells John what the sisters told her. John is sceptical but pleasantly surprised by the positive change in Laura's demeanour. Later in the evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura engage in passionate sexual intercourse. Afterwards, they go out to dinner where they get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of what looks like a small child (Adelina Poerio) wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died.
The next day, Laura meets with the sisters, who hold a séance
to try to contact Christine. She returns to the hotel and tells John that Christine has said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John loses his temper with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son (Nicholas Salter) has been injured in an accident. Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration. Under the assumption that Laura is in England, John is shocked when later that day he spots her on a barge that is part of a funeral cortege, accompanied by the two sisters. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, he reports Laura's disappearance to the police. The inspector (Renato Scarpa
) investigating the killings is suspicious of John and has him followed.
After conducting a futile search for Laura and the sisters—in which he again sees the child-like figure in the red coat—John contacts his son's boarding school to enquire about his condition, only to discover Laura is already at the school. After speaking to her to confirm she really is in England, a bewildered John returns to the police station to inform the police he has found his wife. In the meantime the police have found the sisters and brought them in for questioning, so an apologetic John offers to escort Heather back to her hotel to rejoin her sister, Wendy (Clelia Matania
).
On returning to the hotel, Heather goes into a trance as John is leaving. On his way out, John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red, and this time pursues it. Coming out of her trance, Heather beseeches her sister to go after John, sensing that something terrible is about to happen to him, but she is unable to catch up with him. Meanwhile, John has followed the elusive figure to a deserted palazzo
, and having cornered it, realises too late that the strange sightings he has been experiencing were premonitions
of his own death.
ghost story primarily serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple. The film's director, Nicolas Roeg, was intrigued by the idea of making "grief into the sole thrust of the film": "Grief can separate people ... Even the closest, healthiest relationship can come undone through grief." The presence of Christine, the Baxters' deceased daughter, weighs heavily on the mood of the film, as she and the nature of her death are constantly recalled through the film's imagery: there are regular flashbacks to Christine playing in her red coat as well as the sightings of the mysterious child-like figure also wearing a red coat which bears a likeness to her; the constant association of water with death is maintained via a serial-killer sub-plot, which sees victims periodically dragged from the canals; there is also a poignant moment when John fishes a child's doll out of a canal just as he did with his daughter's body at the beginning of the film.
The associative use of recurring motif
s foreshadows key events in the film, often utilised in an impressionist
style, combined with unorthodox editing techniques. In Daphne du Maurier's novella it is Laura that wears a red coat, but in the film the colour is used to establish an association between Christine and the elusive child-like figure that John keeps catching glimpses of. Du Maurier's story actually opens in Venice following Christine's death from meningitis
, but the decision was taken to change the cause of death to drowning and to include a prologue to exploit the water motif. The threat of death from falling is also ever present throughout the film: besides Christine falling into the lake, Laura is taken to hospital after her fall in the restaurant, their son Johnny is injured in a fall at boarding school, the bishop overseeing the church restoration informs John that his father was killed in a fall, and John himself is nearly killed in a fall during the renovations. Glass is frequently used as an omen
that something bad is about to occur: just before Christine drowns, John knocks a glass of water over, and Johnny breaks a pane of glass; as Laura faints in the restaurant she knocks glassware off the table, and when John almost falls to his death in the church, a plank of wood shatters a pane of glass; finally, shortly before confronting the mysterious red clad figure, John asks the sisters for a glass of water, a piece of symbolism that prefigured Christine's death.
The plot of the film is preoccupied with misinterpretation and mistaken identity: when John sees Laura on the barge with the sisters, he fails to realise it is a premonition and believes Laura is in Venice with them. John himself is mistaken for a Peeping Tom
when he follows Laura to the séance, and ultimately he mistakes the mysterious red-coated figure for a child. The concept of doppelgänger
s and duplicates feature prominently in the film: reproductions are a constantly recurring motif ranging from reflections in the water, to photographs, to police sketches and the photographic slides of the church John is restoring. Laura comments in a letter to their son that she can't tell the difference between the restored church windows and the "real thing", and later in the film John attempts to make a seamless match between recently manufactured tiles and the old ones in repairing an ancient mosaic. Roeg describes the basic premise of the story as principally being that in life "nothing is what it seems", and even decided to have Donald Sutherland's character utter the line—a scene which required fifteen takes.
Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in Don't Look Now. This is best exemplified by the blind psychic woman, Heather, who communicates with the dead, but it is presented in other ways: the language barriers are purposefully enhanced by the decision to not include subtitles translating the Italian dialogue into English, so the viewer experiences the same confusion as John. Women are presented as better at communicating than men: besides the clairvoyant
being female, it is Laura who stays in regular contact with their son, Johnny; when the Baxters receive a phone call informing them of Johnny's accident at the boarding school, the headmaster's inarticulateness in explaining the situation causes his wife to intercept and explain instead.
Much has been made of the fragmented editing of Don't Look Now, and Nicolas Roeg's work in general. Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe. John's premonitions merge with the present, such as at the start of the film where the mysterious red-coated figure is seemingly depicted in one of his photographic slides, and when he 'sees' Laura on the funeral barge with the sisters and mistakenly believes he is seeing the present, but in fact it is a vision of the future. The most famous use of this fragmented approach to time is during the love scene, in which the scenes of John and Laura having sex are intercut with scenes of them dressing afterwards to go out to dinner. After John is attacked by his assailant in the climactic moments, the preceding events depicted during the course of the film are recalled through flashback, which may be perceived as his life flashing before his eyes. At a narrative level the plot of Don't Look Now can be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy
: it is John's premonitions of his death that set in motion the events leading up to his death. According to the editor of the film, Graeme Clifford
, Nicolas Roeg regarded the film as his "exercise in film grammar".
, exhibiting several characteristics of the director's work. The jump cut
following Christine's death from Laura's scream to the screech of a drill references a cut in The 39 Steps
, when a woman's scream cuts to the whistle of a steam train. When John reports Laura's disappearance to the Italian police he inadvertently becomes a suspect in the murder case they are investigating—an innocent man being wrongly accused and pursued by the authorities is a common Hitchcock trait. The film also takes a Hitchcockian
approach to its protagonist's psychology by manifesting it in plot developments: in taking their trip to Venice the Baxters have run away from personal tragedy, and are often physically depicted as running to and from things during their stay in Venice; the labyrinthine geography of Venice causes John to lose his bearings, and he often becomes separated from Laura and is repeatedly shown to be looking for her—both physical realisations of what is going on in his head.
Nicolas Roeg had employed the fractured editing style of Don't Look Now on his previous films, Performance
and Walkabout
, but it was originated by editor Antony Gibbs
on Petulia
. Roeg served as the cinematographer on Petulia, which incidentally also starred Julie Christie, and Gibbs went on to edit Performance and Walkabout for Roeg. Roeg's use of colour—especially red—can be traced back to earlier work: both Performance and Walkabout feature scenes where the whole screen turns red, similar in nature to the scene during Christine's drowning when the spilt water on the church slide causes a reaction that makes it—along with the whole screen—turn completely red. The mysterious red-coated figure and its association with death has a direct parallel with an earlier film Roeg worked on as cinematographer, The Masque of the Red Death
, which depicted a red clad Grim Reaper
character. The fleeting glimpses of the mysterious red-coated figure possibly draw on Proust
: in Remembrance of Things Past
, while in Venice, the narrator catches sight of a red gown in the distance which brings pack painful memories of his lost love.
Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include Borges
and Nietzsche
; Pauline Kael
in her review comments that "Roeg comes closer to getting Borges on the screen than those who have tried it directly", while Mark Sanderson in his BFI
Modern Classics essay on the film, finds parallels with Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
.
was offered to Nicolas Roeg
by scriptwriter Allan Scott
, who had co-written the screenplay with Chris Bryant
, while Julie Christie
and Donald Sutherland
were cast in the principal roles. Filming began in England in December 1972, breaking off for Christmas, and resuming in January 1973 for seven more weeks in Italy.
and Walkabout
. Although real-life couple Natalie Wood
and Robert Wagner
were suggested for the parts of Laura and John Baxter, Roeg was eager to cast Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland from the very start. Initially engaged by other projects both actors unexpectedly became available. Christie liked the script and was keen to work with Roeg who had served as cinematographer on Fahrenheit 451
, Far from the Madding Crowd
and Petulia
in which she had starred. Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations in regards to the depiction of clairvoyance
in the script. He felt it was handled too negatively and believed that Don't Look Now should be a more "educative film", and that the "characters should in some way benefit from ESP and not be destroyed by it". Roeg was resistant to any changes and issued Sutherland with an ultimatum.
Roeg wanted Julie Christie to attend a séance
prior to filming. Leslie Flint
, a direct voice medium
based in Notting Hill, invited them to attend a session which he was holding for some American parapsychologist
s, who were coming over to observe him. Roeg and Christie went along and sat in a circle in the pitch dark and joined hands. Flint instructed his guests to "uncross" their legs, which Roeg subsequently incorporated into the film.
Adelina Poerio was cast as the fleeting red-coated figure after Roeg saw her photo at a casting session in Rome. Standing at only 4'2" tall, she had a career as a singer. Renato Scarpa
was cast as Inspector Longhi, despite not being able to speak English and had no idea what he was saying in the film.
, who also plays the headmaster at the son's boarding school. Shooting the sequence was particularly problematic: Sharon Williams, who played Christine, became hysterical when submersed in the pond, despite the rehearsals at the swimming pool going well. A farmer on the neighbouring land volunteered his daughter who was an accomplished swimmer, but who refused to be submersed when it came to filming. In the end, the scene was filmed in a water tank using three girls. Nicolas Roeg and editor Graeme Clifford
showed the opening sequence to some friends before filming resumed on the Venice segment, and Clifford recalls it making a considerable impression.
The Venice locations included the Hotel Gabrielli Sandwirth—the lobby and exteriors standing in for the film's fictional Europa Hotel, although the Baxters' suite was located at the Bauer Grunwald (which better accommodated the cameras)—and the San Nicolò dei Mendicoli
(the Church of St. Nicholas), located on the outskirts of Venice. Finding an appropriate church proved difficult: after visiting most of the churches in Venice, the Italian location manager suggested constructing one in a warehouse. The discovery of St. Nicholas's was particularly fortuitous since it was currently being renovated and the scaffolding was already in place, the circumstances lending themselves well to the plot of the film. Roeg decided not to use traditional tourist locations to purposefully avoid a "travel documentary" look. Venice turned out to be a difficult place to film in, mainly due to the tides which caused problems with the continuity and transporting equipment.
Filming the scene in which John almost falls to his death while restoring the mosaic in St Nicholas's church was also beset by problems, and resulted in Donald Sutherland's life being put in danger. The scene entailed some of the scaffolding collapsing leaving John dangling by a rope, but the stuntman refused to perform the stunt because the insurance was not in order. Sutherland ended up doing it instead, and was attached to a kirby wire
as a precaution in case he should fall. Some time after the film had come out, renowned stunt co-ordinator, Vic Armstrong
, commented to Sutherland that the wire was not designed for that purpose, and the twirling around caused by holding on to the rope would have damaged the wire to the extent it would have snapped if Sutherland had let go.
While many of the changes were down to the logistics of filming in Venice, some were for creative reasons, the most prominent being the inclusion of the famous love scene. The scene was in fact an unscripted last minute improvisation by Roeg, who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing. The scene set in the church where Laura lights a candle for Christine was mostly improvised too. Originally intended to show the gulf between John's and Laura's mental states—John's denial and Laura's inability to let go—the script included two pages of dialogue to illustrate John's unease at Laura's marked display of grief. After a break in filming to allow the crew to set up the equipment, Donald Sutherland returned to the set and commented that he did not like the church, to which Julie Christie retorted that he was being "silly", and the church was "beautiful". Roeg felt that the exchange was more true to life in terms of what the characters would actually say to each other, and that the scripted version was "overwritten", so opted to ditch the scripted dialogue and included the real-life exchange instead.
The funeral scene at the end of the film was also played differently to what was originally intended. Julie Christie was supposed to wear a veil to hide away her face, but prior to filming Roeg suggested to Christie that she should play it without the veil and smile throughout the scene. Christie was initially sceptical, but Roeg felt it would not make sense for the character to be heartbroken if she believed her husband and daughter were together in the afterlife.
was composed by Pino Donaggio
, a native Venetian who was a popular singer at the time (he had a hit with "lo Che Non Vivo" which was covered by Dusty Springfield
in 1966 as "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
"); prior to Don't Look Now, Donaggio had never scored a film. Ugo Mariotti, a producer on the film, spotted Donaggio on a Vaporetto
on the Grand Canal in Venice, and believing it to be a "sign" contacted him to see if he would be interested in working on the film. Donaggio was sceptical at first because he did not understand why they would be interested in someone who had no experience of scoring films.
Donaggio had no interest in making soundtracks for films at the time, but was introduced to Nicolas Roeg who decided to try him out and asked him to write something for the beginning of the film. Roeg was enthusiastic about the result but the London based producers were resistant to hiring someone who had no background in films. The film's financiers were pleased with Donaggio's work and overruled the producers. As well as composing the score, Donaggio performed a substantial portion of it himself. The piano
pieces were performed by Donaggio, despite the fact that he was not very accomplished at playing the piano. The piano pieces are usually associated with Christine in the film, and Roeg wanted them to have an innocent sound reminiscent of a little girl learning to play the piano. Donaggio claims that since he was not very good at playing the piano, the pieces had an unsure style to them, perfect for the effect they were trying to capture.
The only disagreement over the musical direction of the film was for the score accompanying the love scene. Donaggio composed a grand orchestra
l piece, but Roeg thought the effect was overkill, and wanted it toned down. In the end the scene just used a combination of the piano, the flute
, an acoustic guitar
and an acoustic bass guitar
. The piano was played by Donaggio again, who also played the flute; in contrast to his skill as a pianist, Donaggio was a renowned flautist, famous for it at the conservatory
. Donaggio conceded that the more low-key theme worked better in the sequence and ditched the high strings orchestral piece, reworking it for the funeral scene at the end of the film.
Donaggio won a 'best soundtrack of the year' award for his work on the film, which gave him the confidence to quit his successful singing career and embark on a career scoring films. Donaggio became a regular composer for Brian De Palma
films and credits Nicolas Roeg with giving him his first lesson in writing film scores, and expressed a desire to work with him again.
involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, which caused considerable controversy prior to its release in 1973. British tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail
, observed at the time "one of the frankest love scenes ever to be filmed is likely to plunge lovely Julie Christie into the biggest censorship row since Last Tango in Paris
". The scene was unusually graphic for the period, including a rare portrayal of cunnilingus
in a mainstream film.
Christie commented that "People didn't do scenes like that in those days", and that she found the scenes difficult to film: "There were no available examples, no role models ... I just went blank and Nic [Roeg] shouted instructions." The scene caused problems with censors on both sides of the Atlantic. The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly that "We cannot see humping. We cannot see the rise and fall between thighs." The scene's much celebrated fragmented style, in which scenes of the couple having sexual intercourse
are intercut with scenes of the couple post-coitally getting dressed to go out to dinner, partly came about through Roeg's attempt to accommodate the concerns of the censors: "They scrutinised it and found absolutely nothing they could object to. If someone goes up, you cut and the next time you see them they're in a different position, you obviously fill in the gaps for yourself. But, technically speaking, there was no 'humping' in that scene." In the end, Roeg only cut nine frames from the sequence, and the film was awarded an R rating in the United States. In Britain, the British Board of Film Classification
judged the uncut version to be "tasteful and integral to the plot", and a scene in which Donald Sutherland's character can be clearly seen performing oral sex
on Christie's character was permitted, but it was still given an X rating—an adults only certificate.
The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release. The BBC
cut it altogether when Don't Look Now premiered on UK television, causing a flood of complaints from viewers. The intimacy of the scene led to rumours that Christie and Sutherland had unsimulated sex
which have persisted for years, and that outtakes from the scene were doing the rounds in screening rooms. Producer Michael Deeley
claimed on BBC Radio 4
's Desert Island Discs
that Warren Beatty
had flown to London and demanded that the sex scene—featuring then girlfriend Julie Christie—be cut from the film. The rumours were seemingly confirmed in 2011 by former Variety
editor Peter Bart
, who was a Paramount
executive at the time. In his book, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex), Bart says he was on set on the day the scene was filmed and could clearly see Sutherland's penis "moving in and out of" Christie. Bart also reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him, insisting that he be allowed to help "cut the movie ... pussy hair by pussy hair". Sutherland subsequently issued a statement through his publicist stating that the claims were not true, and that Bart did not witness the scene being filmed. Peter Katz, the film's producer, corroborated Sutherland's account that the sex was not authentic.
of a double bill
. The Wicker Man was its accompanying 'B' feature
and—like Don't Look Now—went on to achieve great acclaim. The two films have thematic similarities, and both end with the films' protagonists being led to their preordained fates by a red clad 'child' they believe to be helping. Peter Bart, from his time at Paramount, recalls it performing "fairly well" at the box office.
Don't Look Now was chosen by the British Film Institute
in 2000 as one of eight classic films from those that had begun to deteriorate to undergo restoration. On completion of the restoration in 2001, the film was given another theatrical release.
releases, on VHS
, DVD
and Blu-ray Disc
formats. The special edition DVD released by Optimum Releasing
includes an introduction by film journalist Alan Jones, an audio commentary by director Nicolas Roeg, an interview with the composer of the score, Pino Donaggio, and a documentary featurette about the making of the film. The Blu-ray release, in addition to the extras on the DVD, also includes interviews with Donald Sutherland, scriptwriter Allan Scott, cinematographer Anthony Richmond, film director Danny Boyle
, and a 'compressed' version of Don't Look Now made by Boyle.
for Time
, wrote that "Don't Look Now is such a rich, complex and subtle experience that it demands more than one viewing", while Variety
commented that the film's visual flourishes made it "much more than merely a well-made psycho-horror thriller". Pauline Kael
writing for The New Yorker
was more reserved in her praise, considering the film to be "the fanciest, most carefully assembled enigma yet put on the screen" but that there was a "distasteful clamminess about the picture", while Gordon Gow of Films and Filming felt that it fell short of the aspirations of Nicolas Roeg's previous two films, Performance and Walkabout, but it was nevertheless a thriller of some depth. Vincent Canby
, reviewer for The New York Times
, on the otherhand, criticised the film for a lack of suspense which he put down to a twist that comes halfway through rather than at the end, and at which point it "stops being suspenseful and becomes an elegant travelogue that treats us to second-sightseeing in Venice". Canby also suggested that second sight was not convincing on screen, since it appeared simply like flash-forward which is a standard story-telling device in films, and concluded that "Not only do you probably have better things to do, but so, I'm sure, do most of the people connected with the film."
British critics were especially enthusiastic about Nicolas Roeg's direction. In the view of Tom Milne
of Monthly Film Bulletin
, Roeg's combined work on Performance, Walkabout and Don't Look Now put him "right up at the top as film-maker". George Melly
similarly wrote in The Observer
that Roeg had joined "that handful of names whose appearance at the end of the credit titles automatically creates a sense of anticipation". Penelope Houston
for Sight & Sound
also found much to appreciate in Roeg's direction: "Roeg deploys subtle powers of direction and Hitchcockian misdirection." American critics were similarly impressed with Roeg's work on the film. Jay Cocks regarded Don't Look Now to be Roeg's best work by far and that Roeg was one of "those rare talents that can effect a new way of seeing". Cocks also felt that the film was a marked improvement on the novella, noting that a reading "makes one appreciate Roeg and Screenwriters [Allan] Scott and [Chris] Bryant all the more. Film and story share certain basic elements of plot and an ending of cruel surprise. The story is detached, almost cursory. Roeg and his collaborators have constructed an intricate, intense speculation about levels of perception and reality." Roger Ebert
in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times
commented that Roeg is "a genius at filling his frame with threatening forms and compositions", while Pauline Kael labelled him "chillingly chic" in hers. Even Vincent Canby, whose opinion of the film was negative overall, praised Roeg for being able to "maintain a sense of menace long after the screenplay has any right to expect it".
Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland also received praise for their performances. Variety considered Sutherland to be at his most subdued but also at his most effective, while Christie does her "best work in ages". Cocks felt that thanks to their superb performances the film had a "rigorous psychological truth and an emotional timbre" that most other films in the supernatural genre lacked. Canby considered the "sincerity of the actors" to be one of the better aspects of the film, while Kael found Christie especially suited to the part, observing she has the "anxious face of a modern tragic muse".
Roeg's use of Venice was also praised, with Roger Ebert finding that he "uses Venice as well as she's ever been used in a movie", and Canby also noted Venice is used to great effect: "He gets a great performance from Venice, which is all wintery grays, blues and blacks, the color of the pigeons that are always underfoot." Variety also found much to admire about the editing, writing that it is "careful and painstaking (the classically brilliant and erotic love-making scene is merely one of several examples) and plays a vital role in setting the film's mood".
Daphne du Maurier was pleased with the adaptation of her story, and wrote to Nicolas Roeg to congratulate him for capturing the essence of John and Laura's relationship. The film was not received well by Venetians, particularly the councillors who were afraid it would scare away tourists.
At the 27th British Academy Film Awards
, Anthony B. Richmond
won for Best Cinematography, and Don't Look Now received further nominations in the Best Film, Direction, Actor, Actress, Sound Track and Film Editing categories. It was also nominated in the Best Motion Picture category at the 1974 Edgar Allan Poe Award
s.
Don't Look Now is now considered a classic British film, and when the British Film Institute
in 1999 polled 1000 people who work across the film and television industry, the film was ranked eighth on their list of top 100 British films
of the 20th century. A similar list organised by Time Out London in 2011, in which 150 film industry professionals were polled, saw Don't Look Now ranked in first place. When submitting his list for Sight & Sounds traditional decennial 'greatest films' poll in 2002, film critic Mark Kermode
had Don't Look Now in fifth place, and on Rotten Tomatoes
—a review aggregator website—Don't Look Now has a 95% 'fresh' rating.
, director of Slumdog Millionaire
and Trainspotting
, cites Nicolas Roeg as a key influence on his work and counts Don't Look Now amongst his favourite films. Alfonso Cuarón
, director of Children of Men
and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
, had Don't Look Now on the list of top ten British films he compiled for the Time Out British films poll. Mark Gatiss
, Steve Pemberton
, Reece Shearsmith
, and Jeremy Dyson
drew upon Don't Look Now considerably for their television series, The League of Gentlemen
; Pemberton ranks Don't Look Now among the top three British horror films of the 1960s and 1970s, and says that he wants things he has written to make audiences feel the way he felt when he watched the The Wicker Man and Don't Look Now. Thematic and narrative similarities with Lars von Trier
's Antichrist
have also been observed, with Antichrist's cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle
, commenting that he has watched Don't Look Now more times than any other film. Fabrice Du Welz
, whose film Vinyan
has often been compared to Don't Look Now, has stated that it is a film he is "obsessed with", and one of his favourites, while Lynne Ramsay cites it as an influence on We Need to Talk about Kevin
, which also happens to be produced by Roeg's son, Luc.
Its imagery has been directly referenced in several works. The 2006 James Bond film
, Casino Royale
contains a small homage
where James Bond
pursues a female character through Venice, catching glimpses of her through the crowds wearing a red dress. The Bruges set thriller, In Bruges
, starring Colin Farrell
, includes a number of explicit references; director Martin McDonagh
said that the "Venice of Don't Look Now" was the template for the depiction of Bruges in his film, and the film includes numerous thematic similarities, including one character stating that the film she is working on is a "pastiche
of Don't Look Now". Flatliners
, a 1990 supernatural thriller directed by Joel Schumacher
, also draws explicitly on the red-coated child-like figure by having a character terrorised by a child wearing a red coat. Coincidentally, the character who is being tormented is played by Kiefer Sutherland
, Donald Sutherland's son. In the 2007 stage play of Don't Look Now, written by Nell Leyshon
and directed by Lucy Bailey
, the play made a conscious effort to bypass the film and be a faithful adaptation of du Maurier's short story, but it did however retain the iconic red mac from the film as worn by the elusive childlike figure.
Its influence is less obvious but still apparent in Out of Sight
, a 1998 film directed by Steven Soderbergh
. The famous intercutting technique used in the sex scene was used to similar effect in a sex scene featuring George Clooney
and Jennifer Lopez
. The film's imagery and stylistic techniques have served as an inspiration to films such as Schindler's List
directed by Steven Spielberg
, The Brood
by David Cronenberg
, Memento by Christopher Nolan
, and The Dark
starring Maria Bello
and Sean Bean
.
Nicolas Roeg has never been slow to draw upon the world of pop music for his work, casting Mick Jagger
in Performance
, David Bowie
in The Man Who Fell to Earth
and Art Garfunkel
in Bad Timing
, and in turn his films have served as inspiration for musicians. Big Audio Dynamite
wrote a tribute song to Roeg, called "E=MC2", which included lyrical references to Don't Look Now—among Roeg's other films—along with clips from it in the video, directed by Luc Roeg, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor
performed a "pop synth homage" to Don't Look Now with her song, "Catch You
".
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
. Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
and Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
star as a married couple whose lives become complicated after meeting two elderly sisters in Venice, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their recently deceased daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. It is an independent British and Italian co-production, filmed in England and Italy, and adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
.
While Don't Look Now observes many conventions of the thriller genre, its primary focus is on the psychology of grief, and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. Its emotionally convincing depiction of grief is often singled out as a trait not usually present in films featuring supernatural plot elements.
As well as the unusual handling of its subject matter, Don't Look Now is renowned for its atypical but innovative editing style, and its use of recurring motifs and themes. The film often employs flashbacks and flashforwards in keeping with the depiction of precognition, but some scenes are intercut or merged to alter the viewer's perception of what is really happening. It also adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colours using an associative editing technique, turning them into portents.
Originally causing controversy on its intitial release due to an explicit and—for the time—very graphic sex scene between Christie and Sutherland, its reputation has grown considerably in the years since, and it is now acknowledged as a modern classic and an influential work in horror and British film.
Plot
Some time after the drowning of their young daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams), in a tragic accident at their English country home, John Baxter (Donald SutherlandDonald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
) and his wife, Laura (Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
), are staying in Venice where John has been contracted by a bishop (Massimo Serato
Massimo Serato
Massimo Serato, born Giuseppe Segato, was an Italian film actor with a career spanning over 40 years.Serato was born in Oderzo, Veneto, Italy and started appearing in films in 1938. He played leading roles in several historical dramas and sword and sandal epics, mainly Italian, as well as roles in...
) to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters at a restaurant where she and John are dining, one of whom is blind and claims to be psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
and in contact with the Baxters' deceased daughter. The blind sister, Heather (Hilary Mason
Hilary Mason
Hilary Mason was an English character actress who appeared in a wide variety of roles, mainly on UK television....
), tells Laura she can see Christine and describes the attire she was wearing at the time of the accident, and that Christine is happy. Shaken, Laura returns to her table, where she faints.
Laura is taken to hospital, where she later tells John what the sisters told her. John is sceptical but pleasantly surprised by the positive change in Laura's demeanour. Later in the evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura engage in passionate sexual intercourse. Afterwards, they go out to dinner where they get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of what looks like a small child (Adelina Poerio) wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died.
The next day, Laura meets with the sisters, who hold a séance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
to try to contact Christine. She returns to the hotel and tells John that Christine has said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John loses his temper with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son (Nicholas Salter) has been injured in an accident. Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration. Under the assumption that Laura is in England, John is shocked when later that day he spots her on a barge that is part of a funeral cortege, accompanied by the two sisters. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, he reports Laura's disappearance to the police. The inspector (Renato Scarpa
Renato Scarpa
Renato Scarpa is an Italian film actor. He has appeared in 85 films since 1969.- Selected filmography :* Don't Look Now * Somewhere Beyond Love * Piedone a Hong Kong * Il mostro...
) investigating the killings is suspicious of John and has him followed.
After conducting a futile search for Laura and the sisters—in which he again sees the child-like figure in the red coat—John contacts his son's boarding school to enquire about his condition, only to discover Laura is already at the school. After speaking to her to confirm she really is in England, a bewildered John returns to the police station to inform the police he has found his wife. In the meantime the police have found the sisters and brought them in for questioning, so an apologetic John offers to escort Heather back to her hotel to rejoin her sister, Wendy (Clelia Matania
Clelia Matania
Clelia Matania was a British born, Italian actress.Born in London, she appeared in British films between 1936 and 1937 and in Italy runs films with Totò-Actress: *Melody of My Heart...
).
On returning to the hotel, Heather goes into a trance as John is leaving. On his way out, John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red, and this time pursues it. Coming out of her trance, Heather beseeches her sister to go after John, sensing that something terrible is about to happen to him, but she is unable to catch up with him. Meanwhile, John has followed the elusive figure to a deserted palazzo
Palazzo
Palazzo, an Italian word meaning a large building , may refer to:-Buildings:*Palazzo, an Italian type of building**Palazzo style architecture, imitative of Italian palazzi...
, and having cornered it, realises too late that the strange sightings he has been experiencing were premonitions
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
of his own death.
Themes
Don't Look Now ostensibly is an occult thriller, but the genre conventions of the GothicGothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
ghost story primarily serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple. The film's director, Nicolas Roeg, was intrigued by the idea of making "grief into the sole thrust of the film": "Grief can separate people ... Even the closest, healthiest relationship can come undone through grief." The presence of Christine, the Baxters' deceased daughter, weighs heavily on the mood of the film, as she and the nature of her death are constantly recalled through the film's imagery: there are regular flashbacks to Christine playing in her red coat as well as the sightings of the mysterious child-like figure also wearing a red coat which bears a likeness to her; the constant association of water with death is maintained via a serial-killer sub-plot, which sees victims periodically dragged from the canals; there is also a poignant moment when John fishes a child's doll out of a canal just as he did with his daughter's body at the beginning of the film.
The associative use of recurring motif
Motif (narrative)
In narrative, a motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative aspects such as theme or mood....
s foreshadows key events in the film, often utilised in an impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
style, combined with unorthodox editing techniques. In Daphne du Maurier's novella it is Laura that wears a red coat, but in the film the colour is used to establish an association between Christine and the elusive child-like figure that John keeps catching glimpses of. Du Maurier's story actually opens in Venice following Christine's death from meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
, but the decision was taken to change the cause of death to drowning and to include a prologue to exploit the water motif. The threat of death from falling is also ever present throughout the film: besides Christine falling into the lake, Laura is taken to hospital after her fall in the restaurant, their son Johnny is injured in a fall at boarding school, the bishop overseeing the church restoration informs John that his father was killed in a fall, and John himself is nearly killed in a fall during the renovations. Glass is frequently used as an omen
Omen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
that something bad is about to occur: just before Christine drowns, John knocks a glass of water over, and Johnny breaks a pane of glass; as Laura faints in the restaurant she knocks glassware off the table, and when John almost falls to his death in the church, a plank of wood shatters a pane of glass; finally, shortly before confronting the mysterious red clad figure, John asks the sisters for a glass of water, a piece of symbolism that prefigured Christine's death.
The plot of the film is preoccupied with misinterpretation and mistaken identity: when John sees Laura on the barge with the sisters, he fails to realise it is a premonition and believes Laura is in Venice with them. John himself is mistaken for a Peeping Tom
Voyeurism
In clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
when he follows Laura to the séance, and ultimately he mistakes the mysterious red-coated figure for a child. The concept of doppelgänger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
s and duplicates feature prominently in the film: reproductions are a constantly recurring motif ranging from reflections in the water, to photographs, to police sketches and the photographic slides of the church John is restoring. Laura comments in a letter to their son that she can't tell the difference between the restored church windows and the "real thing", and later in the film John attempts to make a seamless match between recently manufactured tiles and the old ones in repairing an ancient mosaic. Roeg describes the basic premise of the story as principally being that in life "nothing is what it seems", and even decided to have Donald Sutherland's character utter the line—a scene which required fifteen takes.
Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in Don't Look Now. This is best exemplified by the blind psychic woman, Heather, who communicates with the dead, but it is presented in other ways: the language barriers are purposefully enhanced by the decision to not include subtitles translating the Italian dialogue into English, so the viewer experiences the same confusion as John. Women are presented as better at communicating than men: besides the clairvoyant
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
being female, it is Laura who stays in regular contact with their son, Johnny; when the Baxters receive a phone call informing them of Johnny's accident at the boarding school, the headmaster's inarticulateness in explaining the situation causes his wife to intercept and explain instead.
Much has been made of the fragmented editing of Don't Look Now, and Nicolas Roeg's work in general. Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe. John's premonitions merge with the present, such as at the start of the film where the mysterious red-coated figure is seemingly depicted in one of his photographic slides, and when he 'sees' Laura on the funeral barge with the sisters and mistakenly believes he is seeing the present, but in fact it is a vision of the future. The most famous use of this fragmented approach to time is during the love scene, in which the scenes of John and Laura having sex are intercut with scenes of them dressing afterwards to go out to dinner. After John is attacked by his assailant in the climactic moments, the preceding events depicted during the course of the film are recalled through flashback, which may be perceived as his life flashing before his eyes. At a narrative level the plot of Don't Look Now can be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
: it is John's premonitions of his death that set in motion the events leading up to his death. According to the editor of the film, Graeme Clifford
Graeme Clifford
For the opera singer with a similar name, see Grahame Clifford.Graeme Clifford is an acclaimed Australian film director, his directing credits include the Academy Award nominated film Frances, Gleaming the Cube and the mini-series The Last Don, which received two Emmy nominations.Clifford was a...
, Nicolas Roeg regarded the film as his "exercise in film grammar".
Inspirations
Don't Look Now is particularly indebted to Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, exhibiting several characteristics of the director's work. The jump cut
Jump cut
A jump cut is a cut in film editing and vloging in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a discontinuous way...
following Christine's death from Laura's scream to the screech of a drill references a cut in The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps (1935 film)
The 39 Steps is a British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the adventure novel The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan. The film stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll....
, when a woman's scream cuts to the whistle of a steam train. When John reports Laura's disappearance to the Italian police he inadvertently becomes a suspect in the murder case they are investigating—an innocent man being wrongly accused and pursued by the authorities is a common Hitchcock trait. The film also takes a Hitchcockian
Hitchcockian
Hitchcockian is a general term used to describe film styles and themes similar to those of Alfred Hitchcock's films.-Characteristics:Elements considered Hitchcockian include:*The cool platinum blonde....
approach to its protagonist's psychology by manifesting it in plot developments: in taking their trip to Venice the Baxters have run away from personal tragedy, and are often physically depicted as running to and from things during their stay in Venice; the labyrinthine geography of Venice causes John to lose his bearings, and he often becomes separated from Laura and is repeatedly shown to be looking for her—both physical realisations of what is going on in his head.
Nicolas Roeg had employed the fractured editing style of Don't Look Now on his previous films, Performance
Performance (film)
Performance is a 1968 British crime drama film; the film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, Performance stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.-Plot:...
and Walkabout
Walkabout (film)
Walkabout is a 1971 film set in Australia, directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg and David Gulpilil. Edward Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the novel Walkabout by James Vance Marshall...
, but it was originated by editor Antony Gibbs
Antony Gibbs
Antony Gibbs is a British film and television editor with more than 40 feature film credits.Gibbs' editing career began in the mid 1950s as an assistant to Ralph Kemplen and to Alan Osbiston, and through them he became involved with the brief "New Wave" of British filmmaking at its beginnings...
on Petulia
Petulia
Petulia is a British drama film directed by Richard Lester. The screenplay by Lawrence B. Marcus is based on the novel Me and the Arch Kook Petulia by John Haase...
. Roeg served as the cinematographer on Petulia, which incidentally also starred Julie Christie, and Gibbs went on to edit Performance and Walkabout for Roeg. Roeg's use of colour—especially red—can be traced back to earlier work: both Performance and Walkabout feature scenes where the whole screen turns red, similar in nature to the scene during Christine's drowning when the spilt water on the church slide causes a reaction that makes it—along with the whole screen—turn completely red. The mysterious red-coated figure and its association with death has a direct parallel with an earlier film Roeg worked on as cinematographer, The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death (film)
The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 British horror film starring Vincent Price in a tale about a prince who terrorizes a plague-ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers. The film was directed by Roger Corman; the screenplay by Charles Beaumont and R...
, which depicted a red clad Grim Reaper
Death (personification)
The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
character. The fleeting glimpses of the mysterious red-coated figure possibly draw on Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
: in Remembrance of Things Past
In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...
, while in Venice, the narrator catches sight of a red gown in the distance which brings pack painful memories of his lost love.
Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
and Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
; Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
in her review comments that "Roeg comes closer to getting Borges on the screen than those who have tried it directly", while Mark Sanderson in his BFI
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
Modern Classics essay on the film, finds parallels with Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1886.It takes up and expands on the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but approached from a more critical, polemical direction....
.
Production
Don't Look Now was produced by Peter Katz through London based Casey Productions and Rome based Eldorado Films, and was independently financed. The script based on the short story by Daphne du MaurierDaphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
was offered to Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
by scriptwriter Allan Scott
Allan Scott (Scottish screenwriter)
Allan Scott, the alias of Allan Shiach, is a Scottish screenwriter and producer, nominated for BAFTA's Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film and a Genie Award for his 1997 film Regeneration...
, who had co-written the screenplay with Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant (writer)
Chris Bryant was an English screenwriter and occasional actor ....
, while Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
and Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
were cast in the principal roles. Filming began in England in December 1972, breaking off for Christmas, and resuming in January 1973 for seven more weeks in Italy.
Development and pre-production
Don't Look Now was to be Nicolas Roeg's third directorial feature following PerformancePerformance (film)
Performance is a 1968 British crime drama film; the film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, Performance stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.-Plot:...
and Walkabout
Walkabout (film)
Walkabout is a 1971 film set in Australia, directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg and David Gulpilil. Edward Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the novel Walkabout by James Vance Marshall...
. Although real-life couple Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
and Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
were suggested for the parts of Laura and John Baxter, Roeg was eager to cast Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland from the very start. Initially engaged by other projects both actors unexpectedly became available. Christie liked the script and was keen to work with Roeg who had served as cinematographer on Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
, Far from the Madding Crowd
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967 film)
Far from the Madding Crowd is a 1967 British drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted from the book of the same name by Thomas Hardy. It was Schlesinger's fourth film and marked a stylistic shift away from his earlier works which explored contemporary urban mores. The cinematography was by...
and Petulia
Petulia
Petulia is a British drama film directed by Richard Lester. The screenplay by Lawrence B. Marcus is based on the novel Me and the Arch Kook Petulia by John Haase...
in which she had starred. Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations in regards to the depiction of clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
in the script. He felt it was handled too negatively and believed that Don't Look Now should be a more "educative film", and that the "characters should in some way benefit from ESP and not be destroyed by it". Roeg was resistant to any changes and issued Sutherland with an ultimatum.
Roeg wanted Julie Christie to attend a séance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
prior to filming. Leslie Flint
Leslie Flint
Leslie Flint was a British medium who is credited as having been one of the last psychics to use direct-voice mediumship. He has been described as the most renowned psychic of the 20th century....
, a direct voice medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
based in Notting Hill, invited them to attend a session which he was holding for some American parapsychologist
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
s, who were coming over to observe him. Roeg and Christie went along and sat in a circle in the pitch dark and joined hands. Flint instructed his guests to "uncross" their legs, which Roeg subsequently incorporated into the film.
Adelina Poerio was cast as the fleeting red-coated figure after Roeg saw her photo at a casting session in Rome. Standing at only 4'2" tall, she had a career as a singer. Renato Scarpa
Renato Scarpa
Renato Scarpa is an Italian film actor. He has appeared in 85 films since 1969.- Selected filmography :* Don't Look Now * Somewhere Beyond Love * Piedone a Hong Kong * Il mostro...
was cast as Inspector Longhi, despite not being able to speak English and had no idea what he was saying in the film.
Filming
The drowning scene and house exteriors were filmed in Hertfordshire at the home of actor David TreeDavid Tree
David Tree was an English stage and screen actor from a distinguished theatrical family whose career in the 1930s included roles in numerous stage presentations as well as in thirteen films produced between 1937 and 1941, among which were 1939's Goodbye Mr...
, who also plays the headmaster at the son's boarding school. Shooting the sequence was particularly problematic: Sharon Williams, who played Christine, became hysterical when submersed in the pond, despite the rehearsals at the swimming pool going well. A farmer on the neighbouring land volunteered his daughter who was an accomplished swimmer, but who refused to be submersed when it came to filming. In the end, the scene was filmed in a water tank using three girls. Nicolas Roeg and editor Graeme Clifford
Graeme Clifford
For the opera singer with a similar name, see Grahame Clifford.Graeme Clifford is an acclaimed Australian film director, his directing credits include the Academy Award nominated film Frances, Gleaming the Cube and the mini-series The Last Don, which received two Emmy nominations.Clifford was a...
showed the opening sequence to some friends before filming resumed on the Venice segment, and Clifford recalls it making a considerable impression.
The Venice locations included the Hotel Gabrielli Sandwirth—the lobby and exteriors standing in for the film's fictional Europa Hotel, although the Baxters' suite was located at the Bauer Grunwald (which better accommodated the cameras)—and the San Nicolò dei Mendicoli
San Nicolò dei Mendicoli
San Nicolò dei Mendicoli is a church in the sestiere or neighborhood of Dorsoduro in Venice. The islet where the original church was located, previously housed poor fishermen, hence the addition of mendicoli to the name of San Nicolò. From then on, the inhabitants were called Nicolotti...
(the Church of St. Nicholas), located on the outskirts of Venice. Finding an appropriate church proved difficult: after visiting most of the churches in Venice, the Italian location manager suggested constructing one in a warehouse. The discovery of St. Nicholas's was particularly fortuitous since it was currently being renovated and the scaffolding was already in place, the circumstances lending themselves well to the plot of the film. Roeg decided not to use traditional tourist locations to purposefully avoid a "travel documentary" look. Venice turned out to be a difficult place to film in, mainly due to the tides which caused problems with the continuity and transporting equipment.
Filming the scene in which John almost falls to his death while restoring the mosaic in St Nicholas's church was also beset by problems, and resulted in Donald Sutherland's life being put in danger. The scene entailed some of the scaffolding collapsing leaving John dangling by a rope, but the stuntman refused to perform the stunt because the insurance was not in order. Sutherland ended up doing it instead, and was attached to a kirby wire
Kirby wire
George Kirby invented the first pendulum-based flying system for stage performers in 1898. Utilizing a quick-release mechanism for safety, the device became known as a "Kirby wire". The Kirby family made other innovations in theatrical flight including the somersault wire and a system that allowed...
as a precaution in case he should fall. Some time after the film had come out, renowned stunt co-ordinator, Vic Armstrong
Vic Armstrong
Victor Monroe Armstrong is a BAFTA winning British film director and stunt double -- the world's most prolific according to the Guinness Book of Records...
, commented to Sutherland that the wire was not designed for that purpose, and the twirling around caused by holding on to the rope would have damaged the wire to the extent it would have snapped if Sutherland had let go.
While many of the changes were down to the logistics of filming in Venice, some were for creative reasons, the most prominent being the inclusion of the famous love scene. The scene was in fact an unscripted last minute improvisation by Roeg, who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing. The scene set in the church where Laura lights a candle for Christine was mostly improvised too. Originally intended to show the gulf between John's and Laura's mental states—John's denial and Laura's inability to let go—the script included two pages of dialogue to illustrate John's unease at Laura's marked display of grief. After a break in filming to allow the crew to set up the equipment, Donald Sutherland returned to the set and commented that he did not like the church, to which Julie Christie retorted that he was being "silly", and the church was "beautiful". Roeg felt that the exchange was more true to life in terms of what the characters would actually say to each other, and that the scripted version was "overwritten", so opted to ditch the scripted dialogue and included the real-life exchange instead.
The funeral scene at the end of the film was also played differently to what was originally intended. Julie Christie was supposed to wear a veil to hide away her face, but prior to filming Roeg suggested to Christie that she should play it without the veil and smile throughout the scene. Christie was initially sceptical, but Roeg felt it would not make sense for the character to be heartbroken if she believed her husband and daughter were together in the afterlife.
Scoring
The scoreFilm score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was composed by Pino Donaggio
Pino Donaggio
Giuseppe "Pino" Donaggio is an Italian composer.Born in Burano , into a family of musicians, Donaggio began studying violin at the age of ten, first at the Benedetto Marcello conservatory in Venice, followed by the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan...
, a native Venetian who was a popular singer at the time (he had a hit with "lo Che Non Vivo" which was covered by Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
in 1966 as "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" is the title of a 1966 hit recorded by British singer Dusty Springfield which proved to be her career record reaching #1 UK and #4 US: the song subsequently charted in the UK via remakes by Elvis Presley , Guys 'n' Dolls and Denise Welch with Presley's version...
"); prior to Don't Look Now, Donaggio had never scored a film. Ugo Mariotti, a producer on the film, spotted Donaggio on a Vaporetto
Vaporetto
Vaporetto is a waterbus operation. It has a set of 19 scheduled lines that serves locales within Venice, Italy, and travels between Venice and nearby islands, e.g., Murano and Lido. The natives used to call the Vaporetto Batèo...
on the Grand Canal in Venice, and believing it to be a "sign" contacted him to see if he would be interested in working on the film. Donaggio was sceptical at first because he did not understand why they would be interested in someone who had no experience of scoring films.
Donaggio had no interest in making soundtracks for films at the time, but was introduced to Nicolas Roeg who decided to try him out and asked him to write something for the beginning of the film. Roeg was enthusiastic about the result but the London based producers were resistant to hiring someone who had no background in films. The film's financiers were pleased with Donaggio's work and overruled the producers. As well as composing the score, Donaggio performed a substantial portion of it himself. The piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
pieces were performed by Donaggio, despite the fact that he was not very accomplished at playing the piano. The piano pieces are usually associated with Christine in the film, and Roeg wanted them to have an innocent sound reminiscent of a little girl learning to play the piano. Donaggio claims that since he was not very good at playing the piano, the pieces had an unsure style to them, perfect for the effect they were trying to capture.
The only disagreement over the musical direction of the film was for the score accompanying the love scene. Donaggio composed a grand orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l piece, but Roeg thought the effect was overkill, and wanted it toned down. In the end the scene just used a combination of the piano, the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, an acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
and an acoustic bass guitar
Acoustic bass guitar
The acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
. The piano was played by Donaggio again, who also played the flute; in contrast to his skill as a pianist, Donaggio was a renowned flautist, famous for it at the conservatory
Music school
The term music school refers to an educational institution specialized in the study, training and research of music.Different terms refer to this concept such as school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department or conservatory.Music instruction can be provided...
. Donaggio conceded that the more low-key theme worked better in the sequence and ditched the high strings orchestral piece, reworking it for the funeral scene at the end of the film.
Donaggio won a 'best soundtrack of the year' award for his work on the film, which gave him the confidence to quit his successful singing career and embark on a career scoring films. Donaggio became a regular composer for Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
films and credits Nicolas Roeg with giving him his first lesson in writing film scores, and expressed a desire to work with him again.
The love scene controversy
Don't Look Now has become famous for a sex sceneSex in film
Sex in film refers to the presentation in motion pictures of sexuality and sex acts, including love scenes. Sex scenes have been depicted in film since the silent era of cinematography. Many actors and actresses have exposed parts of their bodies or dressed and behaved in ways considered sexually...
involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, which caused considerable controversy prior to its release in 1973. British tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, observed at the time "one of the frankest love scenes ever to be filmed is likely to plunge lovely Julie Christie into the biggest censorship row since Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris is a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman...
". The scene was unusually graphic for the period, including a rare portrayal of cunnilingus
Cunnilingus
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed on a female. It involves the use by a sex partner of the mouth, lips and tongue to stimulate the female's clitoris, vulva, or vagina...
in a mainstream film.
Christie commented that "People didn't do scenes like that in those days", and that she found the scenes difficult to film: "There were no available examples, no role models ... I just went blank and Nic [Roeg] shouted instructions." The scene caused problems with censors on both sides of the Atlantic. The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly that "We cannot see humping. We cannot see the rise and fall between thighs." The scene's much celebrated fragmented style, in which scenes of the couple having sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
are intercut with scenes of the couple post-coitally getting dressed to go out to dinner, partly came about through Roeg's attempt to accommodate the concerns of the censors: "They scrutinised it and found absolutely nothing they could object to. If someone goes up, you cut and the next time you see them they're in a different position, you obviously fill in the gaps for yourself. But, technically speaking, there was no 'humping' in that scene." In the end, Roeg only cut nine frames from the sequence, and the film was awarded an R rating in the United States. In Britain, the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
judged the uncut version to be "tasteful and integral to the plot", and a scene in which Donald Sutherland's character can be clearly seen performing oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
on Christie's character was permitted, but it was still given an X rating—an adults only certificate.
The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
cut it altogether when Don't Look Now premiered on UK television, causing a flood of complaints from viewers. The intimacy of the scene led to rumours that Christie and Sutherland had unsimulated sex
Unsimulated sex in film
Unsimulated sex in mainstream cinema was at one time restricted by law and self-imposed industry standards such as the Motion Picture Production Code. Films showing explicit sexual activity were confined to privately distributed underground films, such as stag films or "porn loops"...
which have persisted for years, and that outtakes from the scene were doing the rounds in screening rooms. Producer Michael Deeley
Michael Deeley
Michael Deeley is a British film producer who has helped create notable films such as The Italian Job, Blade Runner and The Deer Hunter. He is also a founding member and Deputy Chairman of The British Screen Advisory Council....
claimed on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
that Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
had flown to London and demanded that the sex scene—featuring then girlfriend Julie Christie—be cut from the film. The rumours were seemingly confirmed in 2011 by former Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
editor Peter Bart
Peter Bart
Peter Benton Bart is an American journalist and film producer. He perhaps best known for his lengthy tenure as the editor of Variety, an entertainment-trade magazine....
, who was a Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
executive at the time. In his book, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex), Bart says he was on set on the day the scene was filmed and could clearly see Sutherland's penis "moving in and out of" Christie. Bart also reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him, insisting that he be allowed to help "cut the movie ... pussy hair by pussy hair". Sutherland subsequently issued a statement through his publicist stating that the claims were not true, and that Bart did not witness the scene being filmed. Peter Katz, the film's producer, corroborated Sutherland's account that the sex was not authentic.
Theatrical releases
Don't Look Now—marketed as a 'psychic thriller'—received its world premiere in Britain on 16 October 1973, as the main featureFeature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
of a double bill
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
. The Wicker Man was its accompanying 'B' feature
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
and—like Don't Look Now—went on to achieve great acclaim. The two films have thematic similarities, and both end with the films' protagonists being led to their preordained fates by a red clad 'child' they believe to be helping. Peter Bart, from his time at Paramount, recalls it performing "fairly well" at the box office.
Don't Look Now was chosen by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 2000 as one of eight classic films from those that had begun to deteriorate to undergo restoration. On completion of the restoration in 2001, the film was given another theatrical release.
Home media
Don't Look Now has had several home videoHome video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
releases, on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
, DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
formats. The special edition DVD released by Optimum Releasing
Optimum Releasing
StudioCanal UK is a film distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. The company releases many films, including foreign language films, anime releases such as Studio Ghibli's films and independent British, Irish and American films in the UK and sometimes Ireland.Optimum was acquired by...
includes an introduction by film journalist Alan Jones, an audio commentary by director Nicolas Roeg, an interview with the composer of the score, Pino Donaggio, and a documentary featurette about the making of the film. The Blu-ray release, in addition to the extras on the DVD, also includes interviews with Donald Sutherland, scriptwriter Allan Scott, cinematographer Anthony Richmond, film director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, and a 'compressed' version of Don't Look Now made by Boyle.
Critical response and awards
At the time of its initial release, Don't Look Now was generally well received by critics, although some criticised it for being "arty and mechanical". Jay CocksJay Cocks
Jay Cocks is a film critic and motion picture screenwriter.He is a graduate of Kenyon College. He was a critic for Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, among other magazines, before moving into film writing....
for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, wrote that "Don't Look Now is such a rich, complex and subtle experience that it demands more than one viewing", while Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
commented that the film's visual flourishes made it "much more than merely a well-made psycho-horror thriller". Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
writing for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
was more reserved in her praise, considering the film to be "the fanciest, most carefully assembled enigma yet put on the screen" but that there was a "distasteful clamminess about the picture", while Gordon Gow of Films and Filming felt that it fell short of the aspirations of Nicolas Roeg's previous two films, Performance and Walkabout, but it was nevertheless a thriller of some depth. Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, reviewer for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, on the otherhand, criticised the film for a lack of suspense which he put down to a twist that comes halfway through rather than at the end, and at which point it "stops being suspenseful and becomes an elegant travelogue that treats us to second-sightseeing in Venice". Canby also suggested that second sight was not convincing on screen, since it appeared simply like flash-forward which is a standard story-telling device in films, and concluded that "Not only do you probably have better things to do, but so, I'm sure, do most of the people connected with the film."
British critics were especially enthusiastic about Nicolas Roeg's direction. In the view of Tom Milne
Tom Milne
Tom Milne was a British film critic.After war service, he studied English and French at Aberdeen University and later at the Sorbonne...
of Monthly Film Bulletin
Monthly Film Bulletin
The Monthly Film Bulletin was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a narrow arthouse release. The MFB was edited in the mid-1950s by David Robinson, in the late...
, Roeg's combined work on Performance, Walkabout and Don't Look Now put him "right up at the top as film-maker". George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
similarly wrote in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
that Roeg had joined "that handful of names whose appearance at the end of the credit titles automatically creates a sense of anticipation". Penelope Houston
Penelope Houston (film critic)
Penelope Houston is a British film critic and journal editor. In 1947 she was the first editor of the short-lived film journal Sequence founded by Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Gavin Lambert. From 1956 to 1990, she edited Sight & Sound, the journal of the British Film Institute, and was a...
for Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
also found much to appreciate in Roeg's direction: "Roeg deploys subtle powers of direction and Hitchcockian misdirection." American critics were similarly impressed with Roeg's work on the film. Jay Cocks regarded Don't Look Now to be Roeg's best work by far and that Roeg was one of "those rare talents that can effect a new way of seeing". Cocks also felt that the film was a marked improvement on the novella, noting that a reading "makes one appreciate Roeg and Screenwriters [Allan] Scott and [Chris] Bryant all the more. Film and story share certain basic elements of plot and an ending of cruel surprise. The story is detached, almost cursory. Roeg and his collaborators have constructed an intricate, intense speculation about levels of perception and reality." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
commented that Roeg is "a genius at filling his frame with threatening forms and compositions", while Pauline Kael labelled him "chillingly chic" in hers. Even Vincent Canby, whose opinion of the film was negative overall, praised Roeg for being able to "maintain a sense of menace long after the screenplay has any right to expect it".
Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland also received praise for their performances. Variety considered Sutherland to be at his most subdued but also at his most effective, while Christie does her "best work in ages". Cocks felt that thanks to their superb performances the film had a "rigorous psychological truth and an emotional timbre" that most other films in the supernatural genre lacked. Canby considered the "sincerity of the actors" to be one of the better aspects of the film, while Kael found Christie especially suited to the part, observing she has the "anxious face of a modern tragic muse".
Roeg's use of Venice was also praised, with Roger Ebert finding that he "uses Venice as well as she's ever been used in a movie", and Canby also noted Venice is used to great effect: "He gets a great performance from Venice, which is all wintery grays, blues and blacks, the color of the pigeons that are always underfoot." Variety also found much to admire about the editing, writing that it is "careful and painstaking (the classically brilliant and erotic love-making scene is merely one of several examples) and plays a vital role in setting the film's mood".
Daphne du Maurier was pleased with the adaptation of her story, and wrote to Nicolas Roeg to congratulate him for capturing the essence of John and Laura's relationship. The film was not received well by Venetians, particularly the councillors who were afraid it would scare away tourists.
At the 27th British Academy Film Awards
27th British Academy Film Awards
1974----Best Film: Day for Night The 27th British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1974, honoured the best films of 1973.- Best Film : Day for Night * The Day of the Jackal...
, Anthony B. Richmond
Anthony B. Richmond
Anthony B. Richmond BSC, ASC is an English cinematographer.Richmond was married to actress Jaclyn Smith from 1981 to 1989. This marriage led eventually to work in Hollywood...
won for Best Cinematography, and Don't Look Now received further nominations in the Best Film, Direction, Actor, Actress, Sound Track and Film Editing categories. It was also nominated in the Best Motion Picture category at the 1974 Edgar Allan Poe Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
s.
Modern critical opinion
The reputation of Don't Look Now has grown since its release and it is now regarded as a key work in horror cinema. It has led to some critics re-evaluating their original opinions of it: Roger Ebert, nearly thirty years after his original review, states that he has come to an "accommodation" with his reservations about what he terms the "admitted weakness of the denouement". Having gone through the film shot by shot, he now considers it a "masterpiece of physical filmmaking, in the way the photography evokes mood and the editing underlines it with uncertainty".Don't Look Now is now considered a classic British film, and when the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 1999 polled 1000 people who work across the film and television industry, the film was ranked eighth on their list of top 100 British films
BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999 the British Film Institute surveyed 1000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'...
of the 20th century. A similar list organised by Time Out London in 2011, in which 150 film industry professionals were polled, saw Don't Look Now ranked in first place. When submitting his list for Sight & Sounds traditional decennial 'greatest films' poll in 2002, film critic Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons...
had Don't Look Now in fifth place, and on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
—a review aggregator website—Don't Look Now has a 95% 'fresh' rating.
Influence
Don't Look Now has been much admired by and an influence on subsequent filmmakers. Danny BoyleDanny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, director of Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...
and Trainspotting
Trainspotting (film)
Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...
, cites Nicolas Roeg as a key influence on his work and counts Don't Look Now amongst his favourite films. Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and film producer, best known for his films Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Y tu mamá también, and A Little Princess.- Early life :...
, director of Children of Men
Children of Men
Children of Men is a 2006 science fiction film loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in England, where the last...
and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a 2004 fantasy film directed by Alfonso Cuarón and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the third instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Steve Kloves and produced by Chris Columbus, David Heyman and Mark Radcliffe...
, had Don't Look Now on the list of top ten British films he compiled for the Time Out British films poll. Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....
, Steve Pemberton
Steve Pemberton
Steve James Pemberton is an English actor, comedian, writer and performer, most famous as a member of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and co-writer Jeremy Dyson.-Early life:...
, Reece Shearsmith
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson "Reece" Shearsmith is an English actor and writer. He is most famous for his work as part of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and co-writer Jeremy Dyson.-Early life:...
, and Jeremy Dyson
Jeremy Dyson
Jeremy Dyson is an English screenwriter and, along with Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, a participant in The League of Gentlemen.-Early life:...
drew upon Don't Look Now considerably for their television series, The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...
; Pemberton ranks Don't Look Now among the top three British horror films of the 1960s and 1970s, and says that he wants things he has written to make audiences feel the way he felt when he watched the The Wicker Man and Don't Look Now. Thematic and narrative similarities with Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
's Antichrist
Antichrist (film)
Antichrist is a 2009 arthouse-horror film written and directed by Lars von Trier, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It follows horror film conventions and tells the story of a couple who, after the death of their child, retreat to a cabin in the woods where the man experiences strange...
have also been observed, with Antichrist's cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle
Anthony Dod Mantle
Anthony Dod Mantle BSC is a British cinematographer notable for his work in digital cinematography.-Career:Dod Mantle directed photography on three Dogme 95 films and the first two episodes of Wallander. He used the Red One digital camera on Wallander, the first British television production to do...
, commenting that he has watched Don't Look Now more times than any other film. Fabrice Du Welz
Fabrice Du Welz
Fabrice Du Welz is a Belgian film director and screenwriter.- Biography :Du Welz studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Liège and at INSAS, a film school in Brussels. In the 90's he directed many films in Super 8 and wrote humorous sequences for Canal +...
, whose film Vinyan
Vinyan
Vinyan is a 2008 drama film with horror themes directed and co-written by Fabrice du Welz. The film was du Welz' second as a director. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2008....
has often been compared to Don't Look Now, has stated that it is a film he is "obsessed with", and one of his favourites, while Lynne Ramsay cites it as an influence on We Need to Talk about Kevin
We Need to Talk About Kevin (film)
We Need to Talk about Kevin is a 2011 British-American drama thriller film adapted and directed by Lynne Ramsay from American author Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel of the same name. A long process of development and financing began in 2005 and filming eventually commenced in April 2010, with Tilda...
, which also happens to be produced by Roeg's son, Luc.
Its imagery has been directly referenced in several works. The 2006 James Bond film
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
, Casino Royale
Casino Royale (2006 film)
Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
contains a small homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
where James Bond
James Bond (character)
Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
pursues a female character through Venice, catching glimpses of her through the crowds wearing a red dress. The Bruges set thriller, In Bruges
In Bruges
In Bruges is a 2008 black comedy crime film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two hitmen in hiding, with Ralph Fiennes as their gangster boss. The film takes place—and was filmed—within the Belgian city of Bruges. In Bruges was...
, starring Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
, includes a number of explicit references; director Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh is an Irish-British playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in London his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.-Life:...
said that the "Venice of Don't Look Now" was the template for the depiction of Bruges in his film, and the film includes numerous thematic similarities, including one character stating that the film she is working on is a "pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of Don't Look Now". Flatliners
Flatliners
Flatliners is a 1990 American thriller film starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt as medical students using physical science in an attempt to find out if there's anything out there beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments with near-death...
, a 1990 supernatural thriller directed by Joel Schumacher
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Early life:Schumacher was born in New York City, the son of Marian and Francis Schumacher. His mother was a Swedish Jew, and his father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died when Joel was four years old...
, also draws explicitly on the red-coated child-like figure by having a character terrorised by a child wearing a red coat. Coincidentally, the character who is being tormented is played by Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland is an English-born Canadian actor, producer and director, best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox thriller drama series 24 for which he has won an Emmy Award , a Golden Globe award , two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Satellite...
, Donald Sutherland's son. In the 2007 stage play of Don't Look Now, written by Nell Leyshon
Nell Leyshon
Nell Leyshon is a British dramatist and novelist.She was born in Glastonbury, England, and lives in the county of Dorset. She attended the University of Southampton, gaining a first in English Literature.Leyshon writes regularly for Radio 4 and 3...
and directed by Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey (director)
Lucy Bailey is a British theatre director, notable as the founder of the Gogmagogs chamber-music group and the Print Room theatre in West London...
, the play made a conscious effort to bypass the film and be a faithful adaptation of du Maurier's short story, but it did however retain the iconic red mac from the film as worn by the elusive childlike figure.
Its influence is less obvious but still apparent in Out of Sight
Out of Sight
Out of Sight is a 1998 American crime film. The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh and based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard. It was the first of several collaborations between Soderbergh and star George Clooney. The film was released on June 26, 1998. It was nominated for two...
, a 1998 film directed by Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing commercial Hollywood films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but he has also directed smaller less...
. The famous intercutting technique used in the sex scene was used to similar effect in a sex scene featuring George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
. The film's imagery and stylistic techniques have served as an inspiration to films such as Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
directed by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, The Brood
The Brood
The Brood is a 1979 Canadian horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, starring Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar and Art Hindle.The film depicts a series of murders committed by what seems at first to be a group of children...
by David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...
, Memento by Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer.He received serious notice after his second feature Memento , which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him,...
, and The Dark
The Dark (film)
The Dark is a 2005 horror film, based on the novel Sheep by Simon Maginn.- Plot :While in Wales visiting her husband James , Adele tries to fix her relationship with her obnoxious and volatile pre-teen daughter Sarah...
starring Maria Bello
Maria Bello
Maria Elena Bello is an American actress and singer known for her appearances in the movies Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Permanent Midnight, Thank You for Smoking, A History of Violence, Payback, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. For television she is known for her role as Dr...
and Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
.
Nicolas Roeg has never been slow to draw upon the world of pop music for his work, casting Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
in Performance
Performance (film)
Performance is a 1968 British crime drama film; the film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, Performance stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.-Plot:...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
in The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...
and Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel
Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and actor, best known as being a member of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel...
in Bad Timing
Bad Timing
Bad Timing is a 1980 British film directed by Nicolas Roeg, produced by Jeremy Thomas.-Plot:In Vienna, a young American woman in her twenties is rushed to the emergency room after apparently overdosing. With her is Alex Linden, an American psychiatrist teaching in Vienna...
, and in turn his films have served as inspiration for musicians. Big Audio Dynamite
Big Audio Dynamite
Big Audio Dynamite are a British musical group formed in 1984 by the ex-guitarist and singer of the Clash, Mick Jones. The group are noted for their effective mixture of varied musical styles, incorporating elements of punk rock, dance music, hip hop, reggae, and funk...
wrote a tribute song to Roeg, called "E=MC2", which included lyrical references to Don't Look Now—among Roeg's other films—along with clips from it in the video, directed by Luc Roeg, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Michelle Ellis-Bextor is an English singer, songwriter, model and occasional DJ. She first came to prominence in the late 1990s, as the lead singer of the indie rock band Theaudience. After the group disbanded, Ellis-Bextor went solo, achieving widespread success in the early 2000s...
performed a "pop synth homage" to Don't Look Now with her song, "Catch You
Catch You
"Catch You" is a pop dance song written by Cathy Dennis and Greg Kurstin, produced by Kurstin for Sophie Ellis-Bextor's third album Trip the Light Fantastic. It was released as the album's first single on 19 February 2007.-Background:...
".