Pino Donaggio

*2024 stock* "‘Don’t Look Now’ a film that is now considered a key work in the horror genre of cinema and has caused some critics to reappraise it some thirty years after it’s original release. A guarded Pauline Kael writing in 1973 for The New Yorker wrote “the fanciest, most carefully assembled enigma yet put on screen.” Jay Cocks for Time wrote more enthusiastically “Don’t Look Now is a rich, complex and subtle experience that demands more than one viewing.” The film’s director Nicholas Roeg [Born 1928] who had previously co-directed ‘Performance’ and directed ‘Walkabout’ and would direct the inimitable ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’. Roeg is a master of producing a timeframe that encompasses past, present and future. The theme of the doppelganger pervades ‘Don’t Look Now’ and can be seen in many forms such as Laura (Julie Christie) when accompanied by clairvoyants Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania); seen on the canal by John (Donald Sutherland) when she is supposed to be back in England attending their son.

In the original Du Maurier short story Christine, their daughter dies from meningitis and the story opens in Venice. However in Roeg’s film the couple’s daughter drowns while attempting to retrieve her toy ball. Red, a recurring theme of Roeg’s films makes an early appearance in the form of the young girl’s coat, a major plot device that is wound up to creepy effect at the conclusion of the film. The colour red was also used in his camerawork on the films ‘Farenheight 451’ and ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’. The prevailing melancholy of the film weighs heavy with the memory of Christine; who is constantly recalled in the films imagery. There is no need for me to blow a trumpet for Nicolas Roeg, he is one of the great directors, asked why his films worked so brilliantly he modestly said he didn’t know, luck. He had previously worked as cameraman for David Lean [1908-1991] on ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘Doctor Zhivago’, fired half way through production all the great shots were taken by Roeg; neither film would have been the films they are without him. Raise a glass of red to a Master Filmmaker." - psilowave.com