''Don't Look Now'' () is a 1973 English-language
thriller film directed by
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...
, adapted from
the 1971 short story by
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...
.
Julie Christie and
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland (17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024) was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades, he received List of awards and nominations received by Donald Sutherland, numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award ...
portray Laura and John Baxter, a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, after John accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sisters, one of whom claims to be
clairvoyant
Clairvoyance (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to ...
and informs them that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. John at first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings himself.
''Don't Look Now'' is an exploration of the psychology of grief and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. The film is renowned for its innovative editing style, recurring motifs and themes, and for a controversial sex scene that was explicit for the era. It also 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 adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colours using associative editing techniques.
The film's reputation has grown in the years since its release and it is now considered a classic and an influential work in horror and British film.
Plot
Some time after the drowning of their young daughter Christine in an accident at their English country home, John Baxter and his grief-stricken wife Laura travel to Venice where John has accepted a commission from a bishop to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters, Heather and Wendy, at a restaurant where she and John are dining; Heather claims to be
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...
and—despite being blind—informs Laura she is able to "see" the Baxters' deceased daughter. Shaken, Laura returns to her table, then faints.
Laura is taken to the hospital, where she later tells John what Heather told her. John is sceptical but pleasantly surprised by the positive change in Laura's demeanour. That evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura have passionate sex. Afterwards, they go out to dinner, and en route get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of a small figure wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died.
The next day, Laura meets with Heather and Wendy, who hold a
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French language, French word for "session", from the Old French , "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general and mundane: one ma ...
to try to contact Christine. When she returns to the hotel, Laura informs John that Christine said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John argues with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son has been injured in an accident at boarding school. Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration. Shortly afterwards, John is nearly killed in an accident at the church when the scaffold he is standing on collapses, and he interprets this as the "danger" foretold by the sisters.
Later that day, assuming that Laura is in England, John is shocked when he spots her on a passing boat in a funeral
cortege
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Eng ...
, accompanied by the sisters. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, John reports Laura's seeming disappearance to the police. The inspector investigating the killings is suspicious of John and has him followed. After conducting a futile search for Laura and the sisters—during which he again sees the childlike figure in the red coat—John contacts his son's school to enquire about his condition, only to discover that Laura is actually there. 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 brought Heather in for questioning, and an apologetic John offers to escort her back to the hotel.
Shortly after returning to the hotel, Heather slips into a
trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
. John quickly leaves. Upon coming out of the trance, Heather pleads with her sister to go after John, sensing that something terrible is about to happen, but Wendy is unable to catch up with him. Meanwhile, John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red and this time pursues it. He corners the figure in a deserted
palazzo and approaches, believing it to be a child. The figure turns to face him, revealing that it is a hideous female dwarf. When John freezes in shock, the dwarf pulls out a meat cleaver and cuts his throat. Dying, John realises too late that the strange sightings he experienced were
premonitions of his own murder and funeral.
Analysis
Themes
''Don't Look Now'' is an
occult
The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
-themed thriller
in which the conventions of the
Gothic ghost story 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", noting that "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 childlike 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 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
motifs, combined with unorthodox editing techniques, foreshadows key events in the film. 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 figure that John keeps catching glimpses of.
Du Maurier's story actually opens in Venice following Christine's death from
meningitis
Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, intense headache, vomiting and neck stiffness and occasion ...
, 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
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient history, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages ...
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, an item with a symbolic connection to 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
Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries.
She is mainly remembere ...
when he follows Laura to the séance, and ultimately he mistakes the mysterious red-coated figure for a child. The concept of
doppelgänger
A doppelgänger ( ), sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart.
In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or p ...
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 (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to ...
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 in 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. A prominent 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 A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that the prediction would come true. In the phenomena, people tend to act the way they have been expected to in order to mak ...
: 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".
Inspirations
''Don't Look Now'' is particularly indebted to
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...
, exhibiting several characteristics of the director's work.
The aural
match cut
In film, a match cut is a cut from one shot to another in which the composition of the two shots are matched by the action or subject and subject matter. For example, in a duel a shot can go from a long shot on both contestants via a cut to a ...
following Christine's death from Laura's scream to the screech of a drill is reminiscent of 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
mise en scène, by manifesting its protagonist's psychology 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
A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Performance has evolved glo ...
'' 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
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French language, French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Pas ...
: in ''
Remembrance of Things Past'', while in Venice, the narrator catches sight of a red gown in the distance which brings back painful memories of his lost love.
Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include
Borges and
Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
;
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the conse ...
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
''Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future'' () is a book by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that covers ideas in his previous work ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' but with a more polemical approach. It was first published in 1886 ...
''. The film's setting and production status has also drawn comparisons with ''
giallo
In Italian cinema, (; : ; from , ) is a genre that often contains Slasher film, slasher, thriller (genre), thriller, psychological horror, psychological thriller, Sexploitation film, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural, supernat ...
'' films, due to its structure, cinematic language and focus on the psychological makeup of its protagonists sharing many characteristics with the Italian subgenre, although Anya Stanley has noted that it lacks the
exploitational portrayal of violence and sexuality typically associated with the form.
In this regard, Danny Shipka has noted that ''Don't Look Now'' bears similarities to
Aldo Lado's 1972 ''giallo'' ''
Who Saw Her Die?'', in which an estranged couple (portrayed by
George Lazenby
George Robert Lazenby (; born 5 September 1939) is an Australian retired actor. Lazenby began his professional career as a model and had only acted in commercials when he was cast to replace the original James Bond actor, Sean Connery, playing ...
and
Anita Strindberg) investigate the drowning death of their daughter. In his view, Aldo "eliminat
sa lot of the extreme gore and sex
ssociated with ''gialli'' but still manages to create an aura of uneasiness with his Venetian locales just as Roeg did a year later".
Production
''Don't Look Now'' was produced through London-based Casey Productions and Rome-based Eldorado Films, by producer Peter Katz and executive producer
Anthony B. Unger.
The script based on
the short story by
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...
was offered to
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg ( ; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance (film), Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout (film), Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973) ...
by scriptwriter
Allan Scott, who had co-written the screenplay with
Chris Bryant
Sir Christopher John Bryant (born 11 January 1962) is a British politician and former Anglican priest who has served as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Rhondda and Ogmore (UK Parliament constituency), Rhondda ...
, while
Julie Christie and
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland (17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024) was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades, he received List of awards and nominations received by Donald Sutherland, numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award ...
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.
Casting
''Don't Look Now'' was Roeg's third film as director, following ''
Performance
A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Performance has evolved glo ...
'' (1970) and ''
Walkabout'' (1971). Although real-life couple
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood (née Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress. She began acting at age four and co-starred at age eight in ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award f ...
and
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor. He is known for starring in the television shows ''It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series), It Takes a Thief'' (1968–1970), ''Switch (American TV series), Switch'' (1975–1978), ...
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'' is a 1953 Dystopian fiction, dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" Book burning, burn any that are found. The novel follows in the ...
'', ''
Far from the Madding Crowd'' and ''
Petulia'' in which she had starred. Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations about the depiction of
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to h ...
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 an ultimatum.
Roeg wanted Julie Christie to attend a
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French language, French word for "session", from the Old French , "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general and mundane: one ma ...
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
parapsychologists, 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 so he 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 Tree, 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 submerged 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 of the Beggars), 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 San Nicolò was particularly fortunate since it was 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 continuity, and the transporting of equipment.
Filming the scene in which John nearly falls to his death while restoring the mosaic in San Nicolò 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 that it would have snapped if Sutherland had let go.
While many changes were due to the logistics of filming in Venice, some were for creative reasons, the most prominent being the inclusion of the 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 also mostly improvised. 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 from what was originally intended. Julie Christie was supposed to wear a veil to hide 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
score 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
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, was a British singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano voice, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop mus ...
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 casting director 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 reluctant 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
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
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
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...
l piece, but Roeg thought the effect was excessive, and wanted it toned down. In the end the scene just used a combination of the piano, the
flute
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
, an
acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
and an
acoustic bass guitar
The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar ...
. The piano was played by Donaggio again, who also played the flute; in contrast to his skill as a pianist, Donaggio was an accomplished flautist. 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 Russell De Palma (; born September 11, 1940) is an Americans, American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense, Crime film, crime, and psychological thriller genres. ...
, and credits Nicolas Roeg with giving him his first lesson in writing film scores, and expressed a desire to work with him again.
Donaggio's score later achieved newfound recognition for its inclusion in the fourth episode of
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
series ''
Euphoria
Euphoria ( ) is the experience (or affect) of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness. Certain natural rewards and social activities, such as aerobic exercise, laughter, listening to or making music and da ...
''; music supervisor Jen Malone noted that the cues used were the most difficult to obtain out of all of the music used in the series.
Release
Sex scene controversy
''Don't Look Nows
sex scene involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland caused considerable controversy before its release in 1973. British tabloid newspaper, the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'', observed at the time that "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'' (; ) is a 1972 Erotic film, erotic Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The film stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider (actor), Maria Schneider and Jean-Pierre Léaud, and portrays a rec ...
''". The scene was unusually graphic for the period, including a rare depiction of
cunnilingus
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act consisting of the stimulation of a vulva by using the tongue and lips. The clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the vulva, and its stimulation may result in a woman becoming sexually aroused or achievi ...
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
oegshouted instructions." The scene caused problems with censors on both sides of the Atlantic. The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly, saying, "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 (also coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion of the Erection, erect male Human penis, penis inside the female vagina and followed by Pelvic thrust, thrusting motions for sexual pleasure ...
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 Censors 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, sometimes referred to as oral intercourse, is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a person by another person using the mouth (including the lips, tongue, or teeth). Cunnilingus is oral sex performed on the vu ...
on Christie's character was permitted; it was given an
X rating
An X rating is a film rating that indicates that the film contains content that is considered to be suitable only for adults. Films with an X rating may have scenes of graphic violence or explicit sexual acts that may be disturbing or offensive ...
—an adults only certificate.
The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release. The
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
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
In the film industry, unsimulated sex is the presentation of sex scenes in which actors genuinely perform the depicted sex acts, rather than simulating them. Although it is ubiquitous in films intended as pornographic, it is very uncommon in ...
which have persisted for years and that outtakes from the scene were doing the rounds in screening rooms.
Michael Deeley, who oversaw the film's UK distribution, claimed on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
's ''
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight audio recordin ...
'' that
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memor ...
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
Peter Benton Bart (born July 24, 1932) is an American journalist and film producer, writing a column for ''Deadline Hollywood'' since 2015. He is best known for his lengthy tenure (1989–2009) as the editor in chief of ''Variety'', an enterta ...
, who was a
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS.
**Paramount Picture ...
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 reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him to complain about what he perceived to be Roeg's exploitation of Christie, and insisting that he be allowed to help edit the film.
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 entirely simulated.
Theatrical releases
''Don't Look Now''—marketed as a "psychic thriller"
—was released in London's
West End on 16 October 1973.
It was released nationwide a few weeks later as the
main feature of a
double bill;
''
The Wicker Man
''The Wicker Man'' is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy (film director), Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer (writer ...
'' 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 their protagonists being led to preordained fates by a 'child' they believe to be helping.
The film was among the top British titles at the UK box-office in 1974, second only to ''
Confessions of a Window Cleaner'', and ranking in the top twenty of the year overall. Michael Deeley, who was managing director of
British Lion Films at the time of the film's release, said the film's US reception was hurt by
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...
rushing the film into cinemas too early, due to the unexpected failure of ''
Jonathan Livingston Seagull''; despite its mismanaged distribution, Peter Bart—from his time at Paramount—recalls it performing "fairly well" at the box office. The film cost £566,501 (US$1.3 million) to produce, and recouped most of its expenses before it was even released due to the sale of the US distribution rights to Paramount.
''Don't Look Now'' was chosen by the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
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 been released on
VHS
VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s.
Ma ...
,
Laserdisc
LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
,
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
,
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
and
Ultra HD Blu-ray
Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray supports 4K UHD (3840 × 2160 pixel resolution) video at frame rates up to 60 progre ...
. Extras include an introduction by film journalist
Alan Jones, an audio commentary by director Nicolas Roeg, a retrospective documentary featurette ("Looking Back"), an extract from a 1980s documentary about Roeg ("Nothing is as it Seems"), and interviews with Donald Sutherland, composer Pino Donaggio ("Death in Venice"), scriptwriter Allan Scott, cinematographer Anthony Richmond and film director
Danny Boyle
Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on the films ''Shallow Grave (1994 film), Shallow Grave'' (1994), ''Trainspotting (film), Trainspotting'' (1996) and its sequel ''T2 Tra ...
, as well as a "compressed" version of the film made by Boyle for a
BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
tribute.
A
4K digital restoration (approved by Roeg) was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2015, by the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...
. In addition to the "Death in Venice" and "Looking Back" featurettes which accompanied earlier editions, there is a conversation between editor Graeme Clifford and film writer
Bobbie O'Steen, an essay by film critic
David Thomson and a Q&A with Roeg at London's Ciné Lumière from 2003. Two new documentaries are also included: the first documentary, "Something Interesting", features interviews with Anthony Richmond, Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie and Allan Scott about the making of the film; the second, "Nicolas Roeg: The Enigma of Film", features interviews with Danny Boyle and fellow film-maker
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh ( ; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. A pioneer of modern Independent film, independent cinema, Soderbergh later drew acclaim for formally inventiv ...
discussing Roeg's cinematic style.
A new 4K restoration—supervised by cinematographer Anthony Richmond—was released by
StudioCanal
StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., and Canal+ Production and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film & television production and distribution company which is a ...
in the standard and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats in 2019, and given a limited theatrical release. The StudioCanal release was accompanied by several new extras: a featurette about the restoration process featuring cinematographer Anthony Richmond; "Pass the Warning: Taking A Look Back at Nic Roeg's Masterpiece", a documentary featuring
Brad Bird
Philip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He has had a career spanning over four decades in both animation and Live action, live-action.
Bird was born in Montana and grew up in Oregon. He ...
,
Andrew Haigh and Danny Boyle discussing Nicolas Roeg's body of work and visual style; "A Kaleidoscope of Meaning: Color in Don't Look Now", in which Anthony Richmond,
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a principal originator of the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and ...
and
Sarah Street discuss the use of colour in ''Don't Look Now''.
In the week following Donald Sutherland's death in June 2024, ''Don't Look Now'' was the eighth most popular film on streaming in the United States, according to Reelgood streaming guide.
Reception
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 Cocks
John C. "Jay" Cocks Jr. (born January 12, 1944) is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is a graduate of Kenyon College.[Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...](_blank)
'', 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
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the conse ...
writing for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' 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 (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...
, reviewer for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', on the other hand, 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
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'', Roeg's combined work on ''Performance'', ''Walkabout'' and ''Don't Look Now'' put him "right up at the top as film-maker".
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) 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''; he also lectured on art history, with an ...
similarly wrote in ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'' 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
''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...
'' 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
llanScott and
hrisBryant 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 Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
in his review for the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' 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 praised too, 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
The 27th British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, took place on 6 March 1974 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 1973. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Televisi ...
,
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
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor ...
s.
Re-evaluation
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 was ranked 127th and 114th, respectively, in the 2012 and 2022 editions of ''
Sight & Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...
s
decennial
An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded.
Most countries celebrate national anniversaries, typically called national days. These could be the List of national independence days, date of independen ...
critics poll.
Some critics who reviewed the film on its original release have offered re-evaluations. Roger Ebert, nearly thirty years after his original review, added ''Don't Look Now'' to his list of
The Great Movies, increasing the rating from three stars to his top rank of four stars. Ebert stated he had come to an "accommodation" with his reservations about what he termed the "admitted weakness of the denouement". Having gone through the film shot by shot, he came to the conclusion it is a "masterpiece of physical filmmaking, in the way the photography evokes mood and the editing underlines it with uncertainty". While the plot described in a brief summary would seem routine, it is the film's "visual style, acting, and mood that evoke its uncanny power
..''Don't Look Now''works through apprehension, not plot or action."
''Don't Look Now'' is also well regarded by many film industry professionals. A survey of 1,000 people who work across the film and television industry, undertaken by the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
in 1999, saw the film ranked eighth on their list of
top 100 British films of the 20th century.
It also topped a similar list organised by ''
Time Out London'' in 2011, in which 150 film industry professionals were polled.
In 2012 ''Time Out'' also undertook a poll of the horror industry, in which more than 100 professionals who work within or have connections to the genre selected their favourite horror films, which saw ''Don't Look Now'' finish in twelfth position.
It has also featured in ''Sight & Sound's'' directors poll—run in tandem with their critics poll—placing in the top 100 in 2012 and the top 50 in 2022.
Influence
''Don't Look Now'' has been much admired by and an influence on subsequent filmmakers.
Danny Boyle
Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on the films ''Shallow Grave (1994 film), Shallow Grave'' (1994), ''Trainspotting (film), Trainspotting'' (1996) and its sequel ''T2 Tra ...
cites Nicolas Roeg as a key influence on his work and counts it amongst his favourite films,
considering it to be "one of the masterpieces of the last century".
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss (; born 17 October 1966) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. Best known for his acting work on stage and screen as well as for co-creating television shows with Steven Moffat, he has received ...
,
Steve Pemberton
Steven James Pemberton (born 1 September 1967) is a British actor, comedian, director and writer. He was a writer and actor for BBC's ''The League of Gentlemen'' with Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson. Pemberton and Shearsmith also ...
,
Reece Shearsmith, and
Jeremy Dyson drew upon ''Don't Look Now'' considerably for their television series ''
The League of Gentlemen
''The League of Gentlemen'' is a British surreal comedy horror series that premiered on BBC Two in 1999. The programme is set in Royston Vasey, a fictional town in northern England originally based on Alston, Cumbria, and follows the lives ...
''; Pemberton ranks it 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 Wicker Man
''The Wicker Man'' is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy (film director), Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer (writer ...
'' and ''Don't Look Now''.
Similarly,
Ryan Murphy considers his television series ''
American Horror Story
''American Horror Story'' (''AHS'') is an American horror film, horror anthology series, anthology television series created by Ryan Murphy (producer), Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk for the Cable television, cable network FX (TV channel), FX. Th ...
'' to be a throwback to '60s and '70s psychological horror, citing ''Don't Look Now'', ''
Rosemary's Baby'' and ''
The Shining'' as particular examples.
Thematic and narrative similarities with
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier (né Trier; born 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter.
Beginning in the late-1960s as a child actor working on Danish television series ''Secret Summer'', von Trier's career has spanned more than five decad ...
's ''
Antichrist
In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...
'' have also been observed,
with ''Antichrist's'' cinematographer,
Anthony Dod Mantle
Anthony Dod Mantle, (born 14 April 1955) is a British cinematographer and still photographer.
He won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for '' Slumdog Millionaire'' (2008). Other accolades include two Bodil Awards, two ...
, 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 cited it as an influence on ''
We Need to Talk about Kevin'', which incidentally is also produced by Roeg's son, Luc.
Ami Canaan Mann has also acknowledged she was influenced by atmospheric thrillers such as ''
Picnic at Hanging Rock'' and ''Don't Look Now'' while directing her debut feature, ''
Texas Killing Fields
The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to roughly denote the area surrounding the Interstate 45 (I-45) corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, 34 bodies have been found, and specifically to a patch of land in League City, ...
'',
and
Ari Aster
Ari Aster (born July 15, 1986) is an American filmmaker. After garnering initial recognition for the short film '' The Strange Thing About the Johnsons'' (2011), he became best known for writing and directing the feature films '' Hereditary'' (2 ...
acknowledged that it was a key influence on ''
Hereditary
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...
''.
Its imagery has been directly referenced in several works. The 2006
James Bond film, ''
Casino Royale'' contains a small
homage where
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
pursues a female character through Venice, catching glimpses of her through the crowds wearing a red dress.
The Belgium set thriller, ''
In Bruges
''In Bruges'' is a 2008 black comedy, black comedy-drama crime thriller film directed and written by Martin McDonagh in his feature-length debut. It stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two London-based Irish hitmen hiding in Bruges, with ...
'', starring
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell (; born 31 May 1976) is an Irish actor. A Leading actor, leading man in blockbuster (entertainment), blockbusters and independent films since the 2000s, he has received various List of awards and nominations received by Col ...
, includes a number of explicit references;
director
Martin McDonagh
Martin Faranan McDonagh ( ; born 26 March 1970) is a British-Irish playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his Absurdism, absurdist Black comedy, dark humour which often challenges the modern theatre aesthetic. He has won List of awards and no ...
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
A pastiche () is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking ...
of ''Don't Look Now''". ''
Flatliners'', a 1990 supernatural thriller directed by
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher (; August 29, 1939 – June 22, 2020) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designe ...
, also draws explicitly on the red-coated childlike 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 William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born 21 December 1966) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his starring role as Jack Bauer in the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox drama series ''24 (TV series), 24'' (2001–2010, 20 ...
, Donald Sutherland's son. In the 2007 stage play of ''Don't Look Now'', written by
Nell Leyshon and directed by
Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey is a prolific British theatre director, known for productions such as ''Baby Doll'' at Britain's Royal National Theatre, National Theatre
and a notorious ''Titus Andronicus'', The Guardian review said, 'There is no getting away from o ...
, 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'' is a 1998 American action comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Frank, adapted from Elmore Leonard's 1996 novel. The first of several collaborations between Soderbergh and actor George Clooney, it was ...
'', a 1998 film directed by
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh ( ; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. A pioneer of modern Independent film, independent cinema, Soderbergh later drew acclaim for formally inventiv ...
. The intercutting technique used in the sex scene was used to similar effect in a sex scene featuring
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, and philanthropist. Known for his leading man roles on screen in both blockbuster and independent films, Clooney has received numerous accolades, including two Ac ...
and
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969), also known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and businesswoman. Lopez is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of her time, credited with breaking ...
.
The film's imagery and stylistic techniques have served as an inspiration to films such as ''
Schindler's List
''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel '' Schindler's Ark'' (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows ...
'' directed by
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...
,
''
Memento'' by
Christopher Nolan
Sir Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Blockbuster (entertainment), blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmma ...
,
''
The Dark'' by
John Fawcett,
''
Frozen'' by
Juliet McKoen,
''
Submarine
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
'' by
Richard Ayoade
Richard Ayoade ( ; born 23 May 1977) is a British comedian, actor, writer, director and presenter. He played the role of socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom ''The IT Crowd'' (2006–2013), for which he won the 2014 Br ...
,
and ''
Snow White and the Huntsman
''Snow White & the Huntsman'' is a 2012 American fantasy film, fantasy action film, action-adventure film, adventure film based on the German fairy tale "Snow White" compiled by the Brothers Grimm. Produced by Roth/Kirschenbaum Films, Roth Films ...
'' by
Rupert Sanders.
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a principal originator of the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and ...
regards it as the most frightening film he has seen,
and its influence has been detected on Cronenberg's ''
The Brood''.
Paranormal investigator,
Danny Robins, presenter of the radio series ''
Uncanny
The uncanny is the psychological experience of an event or thing that is unsettling in a way that feels oddly familiar, rather than simply mysterious. This phenomenon is used to describe incidents where a familiar entity is encountered in a frig ...
'', is a huge admirer, describing it as "a really beautiful, amazingly shot, artistic movie, and yet, it still manages to be really bloody scary". Robins wears a red coat in the television spin-off of his show as a homage.
Roeg frequently drew upon the world of pop music for his work, casting
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician. He is known as the lead singer and one of the founder members of The Rolling Stones. Jagger has co-written most of the band's songs with lead guitarist Keith Richards; Jagge ...
in ''
Performance
A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Performance has evolved glo ...
'',
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...
in ''
The Man Who Fell to Earth
''The Man Who Fell to Earth'' is a 1976 British science fantasy drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg and adapted by Paul Mayersberg. Based on Walter Tevis's 1963 novel of the same name, the film follows an extraterrestrial named Thomas Jerom ...
'' and
Art Garfunkel
Arthur Ira Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is an American singer, actor and poet who is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel.
Born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, Garfunkel became acquainte ...
in ''
Bad Timing'', and in turn his films have served as inspiration for musicians.
Big Audio Dynamite
Big Audio Dynamite (later known as Big Audio Dynamite II and Big Audio, and often abbreviated BAD) were an English band, formed in London in 1984 by Mick Jones (The Clash guitarist), Mick Jones, former lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of th ...
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 Michelle Ellis-Bextor (born 10 April 1979) is an English singer and songwriter. She first came to prominence in the late 1990s as the lead vocalist of the indie rock band Theaudience. After the group disbanded, Ellis-Bextor went solo and ...
performed a "pop synth homage" to ''Don't Look Now'' with her song, "
Catch You",
and portions of the film were sampled in the
M83 song "America".
References
Bibliography
* .
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External links
*
*
''Don't Look Now''at
BFI Screenonline
Screenonline is a website about the history of British film, television and social history as documented by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and tele ...
Nicolas Roeg discusses ''Don't Look Now''at
The Culture Show
John Landis on "Don't Look Now"at
Trailers From Hell
*
''Don't Look Now: Seeing Red''– an essay by David Thompson at
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
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