Unraveling the Knot - Dont Look Now - A Mesmeric Paradox of Grief in Uncanny Red - Part 1
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The basic tenet of horror movies – ‘ Nothing is as it seems ‘ and for me, Don’t Look Now is a death of all certainties.
In the early seventies, when even mainstream films could be fearless and experimental, smashing taboos and taunting the censors, it was non-conformists who offered cinemagoing a uniquely intense experience.
"Don’t Look Now 1973 retains its power and mystery today thanks to Roeg’s mastery of what Alfred Hitchcock famously called "pure cinema," manifest in his visual sleight of hand and, above all, in his refusal to be bound by the conventions of dialogue-driven narrative and simple chronology. All this has shaped a style that has justifiably come to be described as "Roegian."– (David Thompson: Seeing Red 2015 article CRITERION )
"Nothing is what it seems," says John Baxter, the protagonist of Don’t Look Now, at the start of the film. The rest of the movie depicts the tragedy of Baxter’s incapacity to apply this fundamental wisdom in his own life. "Nothing is what it seems" may be an untested platitude, but it’s a truism when it comes to movies, and Don’t Look Now is one of the great "movies-about-movie-watching" ever made. Primarily, it is about the act of perception itself… By seeing an event that has not yet happened as something that is already happening (what-will-be as what-is), he (John) fatally confuses the signs and makes the future the past, i.e., irrevocable, inescapable. Like a movie stamped on celluloid, or the glimpse of the satanic dwarf on the slide Baxter is handling in the opening scene, he fixes something in time, and thereby turns life into death."— (article – Jasun Horsley Cinephilia and Beyond)
"He was a genius, Nic. A visionary. He made a love scene between a grieving wife and herhusband with no cries of passion, no sounds of orgasm, no words. All you hear is Pino Donaggio’s music as Nic intercuts their making love with them getting dressed to go out to dinner. Magical. You don’t see that scene as a voyeur. You watch it and it reminds you of yourself, of you being loving and you being loved. We decided it would be wisest not to shoot John’s death scene until we’d done everything else, in case the unreliable prop knife failed and my throat would be cut, spilling red. Fragmented, abstract images colour and tell his stories. Look at Omar Sharif on a camel, coming from the other end of the desert towards the camera. That’s Nic. Look at the Sahara’s empty foreground and suddenly the smokestacks of a steamer crossing from left to right along the unseen Suez canal. That’s Nic. He was the was the first to use Panavision’s R-200°, which meant he had 15 degrees more shutter for Don’t Look Now than the 185°s that were the best before. He was everything I ever wanted from a filmmaker. He changed my life forever. Francine and I asked him if we could name our firstborn after him. He said yes. Our glorious son is named Roeg." – (Interview – Donald Sutherland)
☞ Warning: Spoilers ahead – So you may proceed if you wish to know!
WELCOME TO a RED WORLD:
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now 1973 is one of the most stunning and wistful horror films and a defining masterpiece. The opening sequence depicting the tragic drowning of young Christine Baxter and the disturbing climax stand as some of the most hauntingly beautiful and psychologically complex moments in British cinema. The film is a sustained work of anxiety, melancholy, and dread. Through his masterful use of color, editing, and sound, Roeg crafts a visceral exploration of grief, premonition, and the fragility of human existence. Don’t Look Now ultimately culminates in one of cinema’s most horrific, stunning conclusions. The initiation of Roeg’s film employs a dreamlike, fractured editing style that interweaves moments of innocent play and sudden, devastating tragedy.
The mesmeric quality of Don’t Look Now surrounds every cipher fixed within its simple story, which is enhanced by waves of symbolism. The film premiered in Britain in 1973 as part of a double feature, paired with Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, a horror film that fetishizes Paganism and centers its story around a small village’s enigmatic Pagan rituals on a Scottish island.
Edward Woodward, Diane Cilento, Christopher Lee, and Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man 1973
Don’t Look Now bares a striking affinity with The Wicker Man; not just for its grim narrative but its voyeuristic glimpse at cruel fate – like the unfolding of a palimpsest, each layer revealing a deeper etching of John Baxter’s (Donald Sutherland) and Sergeant Howie’s (Edward Woodward The Wicker Man) tragic destiny. Both films share a DNA of innovative cinematic horror. Both involve the most shocking and wicked twist endings as their protagonists are led to their demise while searching for an elusive little girl. While pushing the boundaries of and redefining the genre, these two films masterfully include essential genre devices, gruesome and brutal denouements that, up until the final moments, have expertly delayed revelations of the ever-present threat and looming oblivion their main characters face.
Even those unfamiliar with Don’t Look Now might recognize critics’ and fans’ references to its striking, iconic imagery, textural richness, and 1970s realism. The haunting opening, featuring a grieving father pulling his drowned daughter, clad in a bright red Macintosh from a quaint pond, instantly sets the unsettling tone. In stark contrast to the solemn opening scene, yet equally as resonant and unforgettable, is the significant love-making scene between John (Sutherland) and Laura (Christie) Baxter, who portray, very authentically, a married couple in flux trying to navigate their sadness.
The film was also released in the same year as William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, which took center stage and became much more of a cultural phenomenon. Both films share a fixation with religious themes and iconography.
"… and both sustain a terrifying worldview. Where The Exorcist re-imagines the ancient ‘evil’ of Satan and debunks modern science and medicine in the process, Don’t Look Now instead posits a frightening world in which the unfathomable hand of fate leads mortals step by step to disaster. " – (John Kenneth Muir)
Steeped in psychological foreboding, Nicolas Roeg’s landmark British horror transforms the canals of Venice into a chilling tableau of premonitions and heightened fear. An environment where every detail potentially carries prophetic weight, inviting us to scrutinize each frame for clues to the characters’ fates. It reflects the complex nature of the soul in sorrow and the human struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible.
Venice, a labyrinth of canals and winding streets, becomes a stage for mounting anxiety. A suffocating sense of portent hangs heavy as crisscrossing paths and frustrating detours conspire to keep John and Laura Baxter from connecting.
The film elegantly unites psychological depth with suspense, using the city’s serpentine stone and flowing passages to amplify the sense of dread and disorientation. This approach creates a ghostly ambiance where the protagonists’ inner turmoil is mirrored by their surroundings.
Don’t Look Now is a hypnotic fusion of cinema on the margins and an observational character-driven storyline with a devastating climax, a nightmarish descent into the surreal, and stands as a monument to horror cinema’s capacity to astonish. The film’s brilliance lies in its seamless marriage of art-house aesthetics with a deeply emotional narrative, arriving at a crescendo as grotesquely unexpected as any the genre has to offer.
Daphne du Maurier circa 1940s
DAPHNE du MAURIER’s Dark Romance:
Don’t Look Now is based on the short story of the same name from a collection of work in Daphne du Maurier’s Not After Midnight, and Other Stories (1971).
The original title, Don’t Look Now, was initially dismissed by distributors who worried that critics might be harsh and use it as a flippant commentary on the work. Ironically, the film was based on one of the greatest authors who provided director Alfred Hitchcock with source material for his classic films, Rebeccaand My Cousin Rachel, as well as The Birds.
Du Maurier, a radically modern writer veiled by the "romantic novelist" label, defied expectations. Her works, laced with dark undercurrents, hinted at a hidden strength she described in her autobiography, Myself When Young, published in 1977, as a "decidedly male energy." As success bloomed, du Maurier retreated to her Cornish estate, where many of her haunting tales were born and set in Cornwall, England.
Her published short story begins with a gripping bit of dialogue between a married couple, the Baxters; "Don’t look now," John says to his wife Laura, "But there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotize me." John and Laura have recently lost their five-year-old daughter, Christine, to meningitis. While on holiday in Venice, they encounter two eccentric ‘sisters,’ one who is blind yet has the gift of second sight and claims to see their daughter sitting beside them.
Du Maurier’s short story and Roeg’s film adaptation both highlight the irony of John’s death. In the original story, his final thought as he lay dying is "Oh God… what a bloody silly way to die…"(p.55). The story uses a sardonic final thought, while the film employs visual cues. That being — the killer female dwarf’s smirking smile while shaking her head at the moment before she slashes John’s throat. Roeg was drawn to the adaptation because it fit his creative vision and presented him with a compelling narrative arc. A story ‘That would complete in some way, or continue in some way, a line of thought’ (Milne and Houston interview) for his exploration of certain themes.
In du Maurier’s short story, John realizes that ‘The experts are right… Venice is sinking. The whole city is slowly dying’(p.26), and Roeg’s film perfectly captures this by showing a city’s slow sinking into ruin and finality.
Together, various images and themes are introduced throughout the movie. This technique helps viewers connect the dots and see the turning point and resolution of the plot, even if it is difficult to watch. The montage creates a sense of inevitability and reinforces the connections between the images, leading up to the tragic ending where the story’s protagonist meets his end.
In a 1973 interview, Roeg described himself as a ‘Great admirer of Daphne du Maurier; she’s an extraordinary writer. It’s not a fluke that such interesting movies are made from her novels’ (Milne and Houston, p.3). And aside from the sex scene, du Maurier approved of the adaptation. She described the photography as ‘glorious’ in a letter to Oriel Malet and in a letter to the actor Alec Guinness (who had starred in the 1957 adaptation of du Maurier’s The Scapegoat), she said that Julie Christie was ‘enchanting’, the ‘two old sisters terrifying’, and despite the alterations, ‘the whole effect is pretty grim, one reaches for one’s whiskey afterward.’ – from an article by Dr. Laura Varnam on the adaptation of the original short storyRoeg commented that ‘du Maurier was a true writer and understood about translating a story into another medium’ (Sanderson, p.79), and in his film, he made a number of changes to the plot and imagery that enable the story to work more effectively for cinema. Du Maurier approved of his adaptation, and the changes that he made are very much in keeping with the atmosphere and imaginative world that du Maurier had created. Roeg’s sensitivity to du Maurier’s visual style and to the mechanics of her plot structures means that, in the main, his alterations enhance and enrich her creation rather than feeling like a director’s attempt to stamp his own mark on a narrative. Unlike Hitchcock in his adaptation of Rebecca (1940), Roeg wasn’t hampered by the requirements of the censors, despite the controversy caused by the notorious sex scene." – from Dr. Laura Varnam’s article on the adaptation of the original short story.
Translating Grief – The Screenplay:
"There is no doubt that Nic Roeg is an auteur. But how does that come about since he shot the script as written and handed to him? Well, first, he cast it. Second, he had us in day-long sessions, revising and reading, testing and checking every single page. In later years, I saw this as his way of becoming absolutely familiar with the material. But the sessions also brought wonderful little tweaks, ideas, or visual inspirations. I remember Nic asking for a line for our blind lady as she crossed St. Mark’s Square. He even proffered a large book of philosophy to stimulate us into a startling sentence. We came up with "Milton loved this city, you know," referring to both the lady and poet being blind." – (screenwriter Allan Scott article on Roeg 2023)
One of the ways the film diverges from du Maurier’s novel, in Chris Bryant and Allan Scott’s screenplay, is that Christine’s tragic death is the result of accidental drowning and not meningitis. The Baxter’s trip to the moldering water-bound city of Venice involves John being commissioned to restore one of the old churches. In particular, his specialty is mosaics. (Screenwriter Allan Scott later went on to co-write with Roald Dahl The Witches in 1990, also directed by Roeg). To better reflect Roeg’s interpretation of the story, the depiction of Christina’s death invoked a more poetic revision. Ambivalence, unease, and yearning are transformed into a tale of uncanny dread, significant motifs, and hidden meanings in this story.
CASTING – IN GRIEF & VISIONS:
Initially, real-life married couple Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were suggested for the part of the Baxters. In my mind, there is no one else but Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland who could have played the Baxters, haunted by the tragic death of their daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams). Christie and Sutherland deliver exceptional performances as Laura and John, embodying a genuine married couple who possess remarkable chemistry. Roeg’s initial desire to cast them proved fortuitous when their schedules unexpectedly aligned, allowing both actors to take on these career-defining roles. Their instinctive interactions and nuanced portrayals brought veracity to the characters, elevating the film’s emotional depth.
The actors, as the on-screen couple, navigate a world where parents must confront their worst nightmare. Yet, through the film’s melancholy tone, they manage to deliver fleeting moments of normalcy, intimacy, vulnerability, and tenderness. Julie Christie looks exquisite in her subtle, fashionable 70s wardrobe designed by Marit Allen and Andrea Galer. Her tailored silhouettes emphasized a polished look. Her look in Don’t Look Now, as well as Sutherland’s stylish wardrobe, adds to the overall tailored look, emphasizing the understated style that complimented the film’s psychological themes.
Christie and Sutherland are transformed into a couple lost in a disorienting world, stuck in a chilling limbo. Reality and stability begin to crumble, and the grieving John and Laura are trapped in their own psychological torment. Memories blur as Roeg’s almost hallucinatory, dreamlike style of recurring themes paints a vivid picture of a suffocating sense of déjà vu and implies a cruel, enigmatic force writing their fate and pushing them toward their frightening descent. The film is initiated and concludes with two tragic deaths.
The director’s use of vivid red imagery – from the daughter’s hooded slicker to the grey-green hues of the decaying canals of Venice – acts as a chromatic refrain, luring the couple deeper into a maze of supernatural mystery, a heavy heart, and an ominous whisper. As John becomes consumed by his restoration work on a Byzantine church, Laura is drawn to the psychic ravings of two elderly sisters, who claim to be in contact with their dead child. Roeg’s vision captures the Baxters’ emotional turmoil through a series of haunting, elliptical sequences, interweaving hallucinatory past and present memories.
At one point in flashback, while Laura is off with sisters Heather and Wendy, while John is in quiet contemplation- there is a moment where Roeg seamlessly cuts to a shot of the Baxters leaving their home in England after the death of their daughter. It’s a typically dreary rainfall, and the house has just been closed up. Laura stares out the window of the car; she looks like a hollow shell as John gets in to join her, closing the door. Another scene has both actors maneuvering within a small church in a combined acting effort to convey silently, where they are in their psyches.
These are just a few examples of Christie and Sutherland delivering a masterclass in silent communication, their bodies speaking volumes through subtle gestures and how they move within the space Roeg has laid out for them. For instance, in the scene where Laura suddenly decides to enter a church, the serenity of the interior space casts a spell over them, drawing Laura into a meditative ritual while prompting John to sink into lackadaisical reflection. Roeg reacts instinctively to watching the two actors and their impressions of the building rather than filling in the scene with dialogue. What manifests is a quiet deliberation of Christie lighting candles for her daughter as Sutherland fiddles absentmindedly with an electric lamp. It says so much without speaking a word.
In this beautiful couple, John and Laura Baxters’ grief is masked by their public persona and the appearance of marital bliss. Their outward beauty hides their emotional scars, which are made more palpable with the arrival of the sisters. The sisters intensify the strain between John’s denial of Heather’s ethereal connection to the otherworld and Laura’s willingness to embrace it.
As the quirky sisters, Roeg cast Hilary Mason and Clelia Matania as Heather and Wendy, who are a significantly more proper British pair, unlike the pigeon sisters on The Odd Couple; for what those two flighty giggling girls had in colorful banter, these two older actresses master a jarring collision of the banal and the eccentric. Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania) are a bit staid and yet quite batty as the odd pair.
Ideally, cast for a perfectly off-center pair who lay The Uncanny at Laura’s feet and challenge John, who denies his own connection to it. We are also left to wonder about their motivations. Are they truly sincere, or is there something a bit sinister about their presence? One such moment that might suggest this is when we catch them laughing riotously, almost maniacally, at some of their ‘family’? photographs as if they are privy to an inside joke.
In the role of Inspector Longhi is Renato Scarpa (who plays Prof. Verdegast Suspiria 1977, perhaps a nod to Lugosi’s character in Edgar Ulmer’s The Black Cat 1934), who seems bent on obstructing John as he suspects the sisters have abducted Laura. It is only when the body count rises, and vague anxieties grip the city that these figures of authority are stirred into action.
In John’s encounter with Inspector Longhi at the police station, Roeg employs clever visual cues to create a sense of disconnect between the two characters. The inspector comically sits behind a desk and, at first, cannot be seen as he is eclipsed by a large lampshade. It reinforces the cultural chasm between the anxious John and the skeptical Italian cop.
Roeg deliberately cast an Italian actor who struggled with his English, only learning his lines without fully grasping what he was saying. This choice added an extra layer of authenticity to the communication barriers and misunderstandings between the characters.
For the role of the fiendish killer dwarf, Roeg cast British/Italian actress Adelina Poerio, who was known for The Clowns in 1970.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE TALE:
Don’t Look Now distinguishes itself through its artistic approach, highlighting the intense emotional journey of du Maurier’s proposed male intensity. John and Laura Baxter’s world has been shattered by the recent drowning of their daughter, Christine. And they will each deal with their grief in diverging ways.
In the profoundly haunting opening sequence, Sutherland astonishingly expresses his anguish, exhaling a soul-stirring cry of torment as he clutches the lifeless body of his little girl. The scene is both visceral and horrifying, so much so that during the initial takes, the little actress’ father felt compelled to leap into the water to rescue her.
The central characters, a grief-stricken couple, architect John Baxter and their wife Laura, temporarily go on a work/holiday to Venice, where he is commissioned to restore the crumbling Cathedral of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli. In Venice, John throws himself into the restoration project.
Following their daughter’s death, John grapples with his sense of loss and responds with emotional detachment, while Laura is sensitive and impressionable. The couple’s tenuous hold on normalcy unravels as their diverging responses to their shared heartbreak lay bare the fragility of their relationship in the aftermath of their loss. John is a loving husband, but he is a staunch skeptic who is unwilling to yield to the stark premonitions connected to his daughter’s drowning that flash in his head at the film’s outset.
In a cafe one day, melancholy Laura has a chance encounter with two odd ducks: two elderly ‘sisters,’ Heather and Wendy. Heather, a blind clairvoyant as well as a medium, throws John and Laura’s world askew when she tells Laura that she sees her dead daughter’s spirit sitting next to them and claims that she can communicate with her. The psychic, Heather, reveals that their daughter’s spirit lingers, desperately trying to shield John from an impending threat. However, John is nonetheless reflexively trapped by his own convictions that deny the existence of the otherworldliness surrounding him.
He rails against the warnings of the blind psychic, Heather. Laura, however, finds solace in a different direction, yielding to the message that Heather offers – that there is life after death.
Heather, plagued by visions of Christine, seeks out the couple and recognizes a tragic truth: John has unwittingly suppressed – no… that he has rejected his own gift of second sight. Now, at the mercy of his fragmented visions, John receives glimpses of a future shrouded in ambiguity, offering no solace or control. John relies on control.
The intimacy and affection of John and Laura’s relationship becomes tested. Underlying anxieties and the simmering dissonance take shape when John harshly criticizes Laura for allowing herself to fall victim to the sisters, reckoning them as imposters and nutters.
Laura’s hope, rekindled by the idea of their daughter’s presence, embraces her belief that Heather’s gift is genuine. John, however, remains stubbornly unconvinced, clinging to his rationalism and dismissing the elderly psychic, much to the dire consequences John will face. His resistance to embrace the fatalism he so readily denies will cost him his life.
Despite John’s outward dismissal, a phantom flickers at the periphery of what he sees. A flash of red, a child’s silhouette in a crimson hooded coat mirroring Christine’s, darts around corners and vanishes into the foggy claustrophobia of the city’s shadowy alleys.
Meanwhile, there is an atmosphere of unease spreading throughout the city, with a series of gruesome murders unfolding, baffling police. They continue to discover mutilated bodies dumped in the murky depths of centuries-old canals and the dampened catacombs beneath the streets. The victims all bear the mark of an elusive and deranged killer. Roeg establishes the grim tableau of these modern murders set against the backdrop of the city’s ancient waterways and the subterranean passages, creating a haunting narrative that bridges past and present.
While Venice surrenders to this faceless killer’s gruesome handiwork, Laura is called back to England by their son’s minor accident and leaves John alone to confront the small red phantasm that has been relentlessly haunting him.
The line between art and life blurs as past, present, and future shatter, with the fragments whispering to each other and so begins to unravel the knot.
NICOLAS ROEG: UNVEILING THE UNSEEN
Nicolas Roeg’s audacious method is an unforgettably unique blend of jarring dissonance and sensual indulgence that emerged with a visual language and singular perspective completely his own. Roeg’s intuitive, semi-experimental editing helped push the boundaries of commercial cinema.
In a 2011 interview, Roeg remarked that "life isn’t linear, it’s sideways" (Gilbey), a whimsical reference to the possibility of time existing simultaneously. This concept aligns perfectly with the themes explored in du Maurier’s narrative.
A master technician honed by the studio system he defied expectations to become a provocateur. His background as a cinematographer unleashed his fluid imagery as a director, but it’s his timing that’s truly remarkable. Emerging alongside a wave of cinematic rebels, Roeg pushed boundaries further. His early films are a thrilling clash of narrative and experimentation and a dazzling visual sensibility – he was adept at playing with time, composing each frame with unconventional composition.
He steadily rose through the studio system, eventually landing camera operator gigs on prestigious films during the late 1950s and early 1960s. His true breakout came with his acclaimed second-unit photography work on Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Even before becoming a director himself in 1968, Nicolas Roeg established himself as one of Britain’s leading lighting cameramen. And though Alfred Hitchcock was masterful in accessing his palate of striking colors to partially paint the mood of his films, Nicholas Roeg, too, showcased his keen eye for color as a cinematographer, particularly the symbolic use of red.
Roger Corman’s Masque of the Red Death 1964
Roeg’s discernible narrative power quickly propelled him to the role of cinematographer on a string of diverse films, including Roger Corman’s visually stunning gothic horror The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and François Truffaut’s hauntingly nihilistic Fahrenheit 451 (1966). During the 1960s, Roeg immersed himself in an era of new progressive cinematic energy and exploration.
We see this in three films he shot: the crimson-clad figure of Death who teaches Vincent Price a lesson in irony in Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death (1964), the vibrant fire engines in François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966), and the uniform of the captivatingly caddish Sergeant Troy (Terence Stamp) in John Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1967).
Truffaut’s dystopian – Fahrenheit 451 (1966) – Cyril Cusak and Oskar Werner
Though his later films adopted a more conventional style, Roeg’s early cinematography, like the emotionally sterile and cruel Petulia 1968, directed by Richard Lester and starring future Don’t Look Now lead Julie Christie, was a film that established his signature visual alchemy. Films that defied the norms of British cinema were typically lauded for their restraint and literary leanings. Roeg pushed boundaries, taking experimentation with structure and time eventually to hallucinatory extremes in his earlier debut features, like his collaboration with Donald Cammell and what would be his directorial debut with their Performance 1970 and his second film, Walkabout 1971. Roeg had already boldly forged his direction with an individual and eccentric road ahead.
Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout 1971
With these first two films, Roeg had already blazed an unconventional path, setting himself on a distinctly individual, creative journey giving rise to fractured narratives, volatile juxtapositions, and toying with daring temporal experimentation.
While Performance featured a mind-bending experience that explored the blurring of identity while reflecting the chaotic and surreal mix of cultures happening in Swinging London, Roeg’s Walkabout is his odyssey about the Australian outback. It explores two completely divergent cultures—equally incomprehensible—as they are presented in a disjointed reality. Eventually, this vision led him to his surreal The Man Who Fell to Earth 1976, which starred a more subdued performance by pop phenom David Bowie, iconic for his artistic versatility and sartorial audacity.
Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth 1976 – David Bowie
By now, with his third film, Nicolas Roeg continued his exploration of temporal shifts with Don’t Look Now in 1973, which had become what some would say exemplified his artistic mastery. The film resonated powerfully with audiences and achieved commercial success because the director had discovered the ideal genre framework that reflected his own preoccupation with uncanny themes. Don’t Look Now is a mosaic of disparate images that merge into a holistic tale that makes sense in the hands of an artistic genius like Roeg, who practiced a formalist theory and completely emphasized the technical aspects of filmmaking, including elements like innovative editing, such as cross-cuts. He focused on lighting, music, sound, set design, color choices, how shots are framed, and innovative editing to create the most meaning and impact in his films.
Roeg’s meditation on grief, Don’t Look Now, unfolds in a decaying, eerily empty Venice. He opens and closes the film with two distinctive exercises in editing The first deals with the death of John and Laura Baxter’s little girl, Christine, and the second with John’s murder. In the opening sequence depicting Christine’s accidental drowning, Roeg employs a feverish editing style, cutting between shots that foreshadow elements that will recur later in the film.
The director’s innovative curation of the scenes creates a sense of disorientation and unease that reflects John Baxter’s own inner conflict. Roeg carefully positions the scenes of intimacy and violence, past and present, by blurring the lines between reality and premonition. This disjointed method of storytelling mirrors John and Laura’s inability to make sense of their overwhelming grief and the mysterious, supernatural forces that appear to control their destinies.
This evokes a déjà vu-like moodiness and anticipation, hinting at the psychic phenomena that will be central to the story. In the final moments, as John lies dying, Roeg revisits a collage of images from earlier in the film. This technique suggests that in the face of mortality, one’s life races before their eyes, with significant moments and symbols resurfacing for the heart to absorb and the mind to ponder. However, rather than a linear recollection, Roeg presents these images in a fragmented, non-chronological manner, reflecting the fractured nature of memory and the director’s own unconventional approach to storytelling.
Roeg employs his passion for montage right from the film’s opening sequence, bringing these images full circle in the shocking climax. Echoing these symbols throughout the film underscores the power of these visual clues, gradually revealed to us throughout John’s journey, ultimately leading to the tragic finality of his life.
We will come to realize—as John poignantly remarks early on—that "nothing is as it seems." From the outset, during the credits, Nicolas Roeg overthrows our expectations, blurring the boundaries between what is tangible and what is illusory.
Throughout Roeg’s filmography, this restless visual style serves to unsettle the viewer, challenging our perceptions and subverting our expectations. He artfully disrupts our perception by suggesting that if we only rely on our visual understanding, he needs to challenge our assumptions about the nature of reality.
Rather than a static or conventional cinematic language, Roeg’s films are characterized by a troubled, unsettling rhythm—one that reflects the fractured nature of memory, identity, and the human experience.
The opening sequence sets the tone, as a tranquil shot of a pond under rainfall seamlessly transitions into a disorienting image of light filtering through a slatted window. This shift in visual perspective is accompanied by the aural cues of a man’s (John) humming and the tolling of church bells, which gradually reveal the setting as the interior of the Baxters’ Venetian hotel room. This deliberate interweaving of sensory elements creates a presence of temporal ambiguity, leaving the viewer to ponder whether the images and sounds we are experiencing belong to the past, present, or future. Roeg’s masterful manipulation of time and space destabilizes our conventional understanding, urging us to engage with the film on a deeper, more contemplative level.
Venice’s decaying grandeur, with its maze-like canals and crumbling architecture, serves as a potent metaphor mirroring the characters’ psychological turmoil through the series of chilling, unnerving incidents and the lurking dangers. John’s brush with death on the church scaffolding, while he’s inspecting the church’s mosaic, foreshadows his ultimate fate, and the inexplicable air that blows out Laura’s memorial candle for Christine subtly hints at the futility of their attempts to find closure.
These incidents, seemingly mundane, take on a sinister significance when viewed through the lens of the film’s overarching themes of premonition and inescapable destiny. The discovery of a murdered woman pulled from the canal, bearing a disturbing resemblance to Laura, serves as a troubling parallel, blurring the lines between past trauma and present danger.
This event, coupled with John’s troubling vision of Laura on a funeral barge with the two strange sisters, challenges the viewer’s perception of reality and time. The fact that this vision occurs while Laura is supposedly en route to England adds to the perplexing flow and layer of temporal dissonance, further destabilizing our understanding of the narrative’s continuum, where time seems fluid and unpredictable.
Don’t Look Now has undergone a remarkable critical reevaluation. Once dismissed as a genre piece, it’s now considered by some to be a crowning achievement of British cinema. This acclaim is particularly striking for a horror film—a genre typically relegated to the fringes and often confined to the shadows of critical discourse. But Roeg defied expectations. He used the genre as a canvas for audacious stylistic flourishes and groundbreaking cinematic techniques, echoing the innovative spirit unseen – at the time – since silent cinema and the haunting visuals of German Expressionism.
Though Don’t Look Now first appears to be a more straightforward story, unlike traditional horror films, Roeg’s lucid, chilling dream transcends the way it manipulates our fear. He constructs an intelligent, atmospheric, and unsettling narrative that is equally intriguing as it also succeeds in offering some of the formulaic standards of the horror genre. Far from being oppositional, both artistic and generic forms of visceral dread create a fascinating synergy, and this convergence strengthens and deepens their individual impact. At the same time, the film works with its enigmatic tableau, taking us on a descent into a labyrinthine and disorienting world that uncovers a pervasive, ubiquitous psychological crisis of faith and alienation.
Bound like two threads by fate, the Baxter’s marriage is a crucible of profound love and loss, passion and grief, which becomes the emotional core of this film. It is connected by the foundation of and culmination of — two significant deaths and delves into the impermanence of life, and the whisper of the possibility that there is something beyond us that transcends the limitations of our lives here.
Does Don’t Look Now (1973) Wear the Mask of Giallo?
Giallo was a distinct Italian school of suspenseful horror that flourished in Italy at the time of Don’t Look Now’s release. Imagined by Mario Bava and taken up by a wave of talented directors, including Dario Argento, these films were a visually stunning and narratively baroque homage to Hitchcock. Artful visuals, lush cinematography, intricately woven and convoluted plots, winding and misleading, often bordering on the surreal, became the hallmarks of Giallo. They were a suspenseful blend of highly stylized and a quirky brand of substance that transformed the way we experienced horror and suspense.
However, Roeg’s film is a singular, sophisticated, and beautifully moody elevation of the then-popular subgenre. Don’t Look Now’s startling climax as the killer is revealed might evoke elements of Giallo. And he doesn’t completely shed the shock value during the revelation at the end. Yet, his film transcends Giallo’s gratuitous suspense and, at times, assaultive gore and presents a breathtaking visual aesthetic that becomes a deeply reflexive, emotional, spiritual, and existential journey.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: LOST IN THE LABYRINTH:
Anthony Richmond and Donald Sutherland on the set: filming the drowning scene
Roeg and his director of photography, Anthony B. Richmond, create a moody, evocative style of early 70s cinema. The scenes unfold in the hazy, languid air that haunts the screen. Using handheld cameras and zooms, they exploit the serpentine realms of the narrow backstreets, where each twist transports you from shadowy dark isolation to Italy’s public rituals and back again in dark solitude in one breath.
Its diffuse veiled light filters through the gauzy fog and bathes the landscape in a natural palette of muted earth tones and shades of the English countryside or the subdued colors of a chilly and inhospitable Venice. Roeg and Richmond utilize these fluid zoom shots and handheld camerawork throughout, allowing a jarring rhythm, shifting perspectives, and varying angles, either navigating height or depth, a God’ s-eye view, or the intimate realm of floor level. All this – sudden zooms, handheld shots, dizzying heights, shots of anonymous voyeurs closing their shuttered windows, and darkened lower angles contribute to a disorienting and disquieting atmosphere. Roeg and Richmond’s camera subtly intimates the relentless grip of fate on John Baxter, lingering on unstoppable portents.
Through a chilling lens, John Baxter’s fate feels sealed. Subtle signs ( a person at a dark window) or overtly eerie as Heather’s vacant eyes – superimposed sightless eyes – haunting John’s ascent on the precarious scaffolding to compare mosaic tiles when a falling beam crashes through a panel of glass nearly ends him. This foreshadowing of his inescapable destiny hints at the unavoidable doom awaiting him. The camera lingers on these ominous portents, establishing a relentless feeling of psychological unrest that is unshakable.
Richmond’s camera taps into Roeg’s visual ideology, disorienting editing, restless and apprehensive, at times shifting into a contemplative rhythm, for instance, in the prelude to John and Laura’s indelible sex scene. In contrast to that signature love-making scene, he employs a series of rapid-fire cuts, disjointed framing, and juxtapositions that create a sense of mounting tension and unease. Roeg and Richmond’s dynamic camerawork and destabilizing shifts in perspective mirror the psychological turmoil of the protagonist, John, as he eventually chases the red devil and races toward his tragic fate. Richmond opens our eyes to the soul-shredding hysteria and stunning camerawork he fixes on during the finale.
Intimate Realism: The Immoral Sensual Interlude
Interview question by David Jenkin in 2010 Time Out London Magazine – about The infamous sex scene in the film: "Some people see it as this moment of pure bliss, while others read it as an outburst of anguish.
Nicolas Roeg interview continued : "Sex, whether you like it or not, we all know that it’s the prime force of life. There is no other reason to be here. It’s quite curious in many films you only see the meeting, the flowering of sex. You hear all the intrigue about how, ‘oh, she loved the other guy at the party’. It’s not about a happy marriage. The first stage of recovery—here, from the loss of a child, who was made by you-know-what—would only be a reminder, and that’s why it’s wonderful when Donald smiles at the end of it. It was an affirmation of their love. For me, sex is very rarely rude. It’s a fresh thing. I think that people secretly connected to Don’t Look Now for that reason. The censors saw things that didn’t happen in the sex scene. Did this happen? Did that happen? It’s not unusual. The wonder of film is that because we relate to moments and emotions so deeply, we often see things that aren’t there. That there was no passionate stripping off beforehand—he just wanders in from the bathroom. It was a step towards getting back to normal and getting rid of a terrible sadness that can strike again. Maybe that’s a reason why, after all this time when it’s looked at, people see that more clearly. When it came out, audiences were probably less used to it. Back then I imagine that scene would’ve been like someone bursting out of a cupboard and shouting ‘boo!’"
In the decades following the film’s release, this hyper-realistic scene has been the subject of persistent speculation. Viewers and critics alike have pondered whether the steamy rendezvous was the result of meticulous direction and skillful acting or if Christie and Sutherland had genuinely engaged in an unscripted moment of passion before the cameras. This ambiguity has only added to the scene’s enduring intrigue and the film’s legacy. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) at the time said it went beyond what it would usually pass, redefining boundaries of how sex is shown on the big screen.
Shooting the pivotal sex scene between John and Laura in Don’t Look Now, Roeg and Richmond’s camera swoops and darts, capturing the couple’s intimacy from unexpected angles as if intruding upon a private moment.
While Julie Christie has also said on record that it was nothing more than ‘pretend sex’, in a 2015 interview with BBC Radio 4.Christie lauded Nicolas Roeg saying the director ‘managed to get the extraordinary thing that happens when you are making love’.She added: ‘It was just flesh squirming and rolling and touching, and God I thought it was absolutely lovely. I loved the squirming bits and all those things you don’t see.’She added that the scene captured the moment that ‘you know you don’t exist, the other person perhaps doesn’t even exist. It’s just bodies that are existing.‘It wasn’t even necessarily sexy, what it was – it reminded you of making love.’
Interview with cinematographer Tony Richmond – " To do a sequence like [the sex scene] that takes it so close to the edge that people insist they actually see Laura (Christie) and John (Sutherland) making love—which they don’t because they didn’t—is all to do with trust. This was the fourth time Nic and I had worked with Julie Christie. We’d worked with her on Doctor Zhivago, Fahrenheit 451, and Far From The Madding Crowd, too, so there was a lot of friendship and a lot of trust. We shot it one Saturday afternoon at the Bauer Grunwald Hotel. The brilliance of that scene was in the cutting room. I didn’t know that Steven Soderbergh had homaged it in Out Of Sight—that’s great."Interview continued –" The interest in the scene is great for the movie, although the idea that they did it for real is crazy. Donald (Sutherland) emailed me about it the other day. Peter Bart, who was an executive at Paramount at the time, says he came to Venice and watched it in the room [Bart’s new book reiterates his claims that he witnessed Sutherland and Christie having sex for real]. I don’t remember him coming to Venice, and I certainly don’t remember him in the room. There were five of us: Donald, Julie, Nic, me, and the focus puller. We had some mics in the room and a sound mixer in the hallway. We shot it in an hour, and we left. Donald went completely mad about it."
Orchestrating time and tension: Graeme Clifford’s Editing:
For a film like Don’t Look Now, there are segments at the beginning and end that are cut and edited in a mosaic pattern.
"I find them in the edit. I like it to surprise me, and I shoot a lot. I like shooting a lot because the urgency is essential to the opening of the work. Some people like to take a long time to do scenes, but I like to get a lot of shots and get involved with, say, characters sitting in a room. Making a shot of two people in a room interesting, you have to create distractions and suggestions: the characters are looking at one another and thinking, ‘I know you’re not just thinking of me…’ – From – Time Out London Magazine interview with Nicolas Roeg by David Jenkins 2010
Edited beautifully by future film director Graeme Clifford (who had credited works for Twin Peaks and worked with Roeg for ambiguous science fiction – The Man Who Fell to Earth), time collapses in Don’t Look Now. The past and future are folded into the present. Editor Graeme Clifford’s work on the film helps shatter the linear flow of past and future bleed into the present and deliver us across realities with such fluidity, often within the same sequence. Roeg and Clifford transport the audiences through boundless time by way of intricate cross-cutting techniques during the editing process. It is these passages where the cross-cutting of images takes place that suggest that the confluence of events is not necessarily all random.
Throughout Don’t Look Now, profound and unexpected connections are made by a deft editorial shift. For example, the shot of the dead woman being raised out of the murky canal waters is simultaneously haunted by the image of Christine drowning.
Clifford’s editing helps Roeg and cinematographer Richmond create a disorienting, immersive experience for the audience. This blurring of chronology intensifies the film’s uneasy awareness, leaving the viewer as lost and on edge as John’s frantic search through Venice as he desperately pursues the enigmatic little devil in red.
Clifford helped to create these overlapping moments in time and imbued Roeg’s narrative with psychological complexity, suggesting a quest for the truth and an understanding of the inconsistencies of memory and perception.
LOVE, SEX, DEATH & THE ALCHEMY OF BLOOD
In a manner characteristic of du Maurier’s literary style, the film presents a world rich in doubles—such as Christine and her shiny red slicker and the killer dwarf in her red wool coat, the perilous waters of the pond and the canals of Venice — all imbuing the narrative with a profound sense of duality.
Much like the small figure in red, which embodies both vulnerability and menace, we are presented with a complex interplay of danger and threat. We are encouraged to draw connections while remaining cautious about their implications. Ultimately, as John Baxter asserts, " Nothing is as it seems."
Don’t Look Now asks for an exploration of the connections that may or may not be present. The vivid symbolism of the color red irresistibly draws our attention.
The film provokes us to reflect on the degree to which apparent similarities actually share meaning or whether such misleading similarities are intentionally designed to distract us and lead us astray, just like the little enigmatic killer red dwarf.
THAT COLOR — RED:
Nicolas Roeg has frequently stated that his cinematic philosophy embraces the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated events, a concept that permeates his work, particularly in Don’t Look Now. This belief, instilled in him by his father’s wisdom that "everything is connected," forms the foundation of Nicolas Roeg’s approach to storytelling and visual composition.
In his essay on Don’t Look Now, Mark Sanderson comments that " The network of sulci—the serpentine grooves on the surface of the brain" resemble the labyrinthine structure of the film: " – In one sense, the whole film takes place inside Baxter’s head." His analysis of the film draws a seemingly endless pattern of relations and synchronicities both within the movie and outside it: "The film creates such an atmosphere of the paranormal and the paranoid that there seems no room for harmless coincidence." In his shot-by-shot breakdown of the opening sequence…Sanderson also writes: " The red forms a foetal shape on the slide. A terrible evil is born… An eye has developed in the foetus as it continues to grow. It forms exactly the same shape as the drowned Christine (and Wendy’s mermaid broach)… Water kills (Christine) and gives birth to the evil embryo on the slide… The inversion shows that the woman in red is the opposite of the child whose name means a follower of Christ: a withered limb of Satan." – from Cinephilia & Beyond: article by Jasun Horsley: Fixed Images of Eternity: Time, Perception, & Grief in Don’t Look Now
Ben Wheatley from The Guardian, in 2013, commented on the film – " It felt to me that there was something trapped in the film itself… it never really shows its face but lurks in the edits, in the performances and casting.’ Part of that sense of a lurking danger is established at the beginning of the film by the red triangular shape that appears in the photographic slides of the church that John is restoring, and he peers closer, trying to figure out what is hiding there. Roeg’s introduction of the colour red as a leitmotif that recurs throughout the film is another major addition."
Roeg employs a visually charged approach by channeling his insight through his signature use of color and symbolism. A single spill from an ordinary glass of water bleeds across John’s photographic slide, transcending the immediate moment. Simultaneously, as it shares its presence several times during the scene, it becomes a harbinger of future events, foreshadowing both devastating loss and paralyzing terror that lies in wait.
The opening sequence establishes several key symbolic elements: in addition to the recurring presence of glass (both shattered and pristine glass) and the presence of water, most notably, is Roeg’s use of the evocative power and symbolic complexity of the color red. This color enters into a perpetual relationship with Christine’s death, potentially referencing the red Macintosh she wears.
Christine’s primary color, the red of her Mac, flares up in the opening drowning scene and stands out against the muted backdrop with an almost foreboding intensity amidst the tranquility of the English countryside as she playfully wanders near the pond’s edge. Roeg’s deliberate use of color is imbued explicitly to signal forewarning and allegorical implications. The color red also hints at broader consequences or effects that arise from this symbol, much like other symbology used throughout Don’t Look Now. It implies that there are deeper layers of understanding that may not be immediately obvious.
" Roeg once told me that he had extensively rehearsed this scene with the girl’s father present but with her wearing a swimming costume. When the time came, however, to shoot the scene for real, and the child was fully clothed in the famous Mac, the parent simply couldn’t stop himself rushing forward and trying to grab his daughter out of the water. Wearing clothes was what made this moment so painful, so transgressive." (Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian 2011 article)
The fiery red of Christine’s raincoat becomes a recurring motif, a haunting omen that will be the reverberation of the tragedy soon to show itself throughout the film. The child first vanishes beneath the dark lentic waters, then resurfaces floating face up (it reminds me of the painting of Ophelia 1851–52 by British artist Sir John Everett Millais), a poignant visual representation of the family’s crushing grief. Roeg’s masterful use of color transcends mere aesthetics, instead serving as a window into Laura and John’s turbulent emotional landscapes.
The color red that prevails during the opening sequence returns in the film’s climactic final moments, as John frantically chases a figure clad in the red hooded coat through the winding streets of Venice. This time, the color takes on a new significance, symbolizing not just death but John’s own all-consuming psyche, a tangible, visual realization of his relentless pursuit of the truth.
Director Nicolas Roeg, along with writers Allan Scott and Chris Bryant, collaborated with the acclaimed costume designer Marit Allen (later known for her work on Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut) to create a single, remarkable garment. This seemingly ordinary red coat undergoes a chilling transformation from playful to sinister, taking on a new incarnation, from a child’s bright red raincoat to a serial killer’s sinister blood-red coat.
Crimson red – threads itself throughout the film, a constant visual anchor that captivates the viewer’s eye and casts a long red shadow over the future (much like the long red trail across the photographic slide) and John’s perilous journey. It acts as a siren song, luring him down a dangerous path and marking him for death. As John pursues his red-hooded phantom, he continues to seal his own fate, shadowed by the inescapable truth – death is his constant companion, which is coming to claim him.
While In Venice, John experiences a chilling moment of déjà vu when he catches sight of the small figure clad in red, darting through the narrow streets. This fleeting glimpse of red, scampering low to the ground and menacing, triggers a complex emotional response in John, as the color red immediately evokes memories of Christine’s tragic death. The ambiguity of this tiny specter in blood red adds to the psychological tension of the scene. Is it a child? Could it possibly be Christine? Or is it something more sinister? Regardless of its true identity, this mysterious figure becomes John’s threatening pied piper, a haunting presence that both draws him in and fills him with unease and longing.
Nicolas Roeg also employs a deliberate color strategy to heighten the visual impact of Christine’s red coat by carefully limiting the use of red in ordinary spots throughout most of the film in order to create a stark contrast when the vibrant red coat appears on the screen, endowing it with greater symbolic significance.
One of the few items in Don’t Look Now that allows another red garment to become visible on screen is when Roeg strategically introduces the red element: Bishop Barbarrigo’s (Massimo Serato) red Mitre he wears toward the end of the film. He also possesses a small red votive candle that is lit by the side of his bed. The camera pays special attention to this detail in the sequence where he is awakened by a shudder of panic that is synchronized with John’s fatal descent. Notable is Laura’s hot red knee high boots she wears to the séance. They are prominently juxtaposed with Wendy’s red slippers and Heather’s red socks all seen under the table as she channels Christine’s spirit.
These carefully placed visual cue stands out against the film’s otherwise muted color palette, serving as a rare exception to Roeg’s deliberate restriction of red hues. There is one other noticeable article that has striking red elements (noticeable to me anyway), and that is the vibrant red stripe on John’s scarf. This he frequently has wrapped around his throat. The throat – that will eventually be – cut.
Screenwriter Allan Scott has revealed a fascinating detail of the film’s iconic red coat motif. According to Scott, the use of red for Christine’s Macintosh and the mysterious figure in Venice was entirely Nicolas Roeg’s creative decision. This striking visual element, which has become inseparable from the film’s unsettling mood and haunting atmosphere, was not present in Daphne du Maurier’s original short story nor in the screenplay written by Scott and Chris Bryant.
Don’t Look Now recurring iconography, like the blood-red color and the depths of water drenched in the narrative, symbolizes the depths of grief, simmering fury, a sense of loss, and the undoing of spirit and hope. These elements haunt and torment the characters, and the film’s use of powerful visuals emerges fully in its shocking conclusion, which remains gut-wrenching and disquieting.
The hauntingly ambiguous ending of Don’t Look Now, with its shocking reveal of the murderous red-hooded wraith, might leave us to ponder the significance of the color red’s deeper meaning. Could red echo John’s visions of Christina and a more profound connection between her tragic death and his own? Perhaps it foreshadows his anguishingly poetic and inextricable fate. Maybe it does serve as a chilling reminder of the cyclical nature of loss and a symbolic warning of his own vulnerability. Quite possibly, the red-hooded killer in the desolate finale embodies the physical manifestation of the death of our spirit, a chilling personification of John’s unrelenting grief finally closing in and catching up with him in the end.
WATER’s Symbolic Depths:
"Yet another dark side of Venice is the ‘acidity in the air’ that destroys its buildings. The city is as ambivalent as everything else in the film. The city standing in water, besides being a romantic place and kind of a miracle of civilization, also implies the danger of being devoured by that water. This makes Venice the perfect example of mankind desperately trying to fight against the symbolic depths of water." (Film Obsessive article by Magda Mariamidze: What We See When We Refuse to Look 2024)
In Roeg’s film, water also becomes yet another element directly connected with Christine’s tragic accident. It evolves into an omen that signals death. It seeps into every frame, from the film title’s opening downpour onto a pond to the shadowy canals where victims resurface. Venice’s omnipresent waterways serve as a constant reminder of the tragedy that set the story in motion, creating a sense of unremitting influence and inescapability.
The abyssal depths of the Venetian canals, much like the unseen roots of an ancient tree, bind an inextricable link to the occult and the ineffable, connecting us with centuries of secrets, the arcane, and a place that hides inscrutable mysteries. As the lifeless forms of the killer’s victims are recovered from these murky, unfathomable waters, the unknowable realms association with the underworld and the realm of the dead becomes ever more palpable. When the unthinkable happens and Christine drowns, it is her grief-stricken father, John, who dives into the turbid water to retrieve her lifeless body. In that moment, he crosses a threshold into a world of darkness and despair, mirroring the journey of mythic heroes into the underworld.
The pond water itself takes on an otherworldly, Stygian quality – a portal to the domain of the dead. As John plunges beneath the surface, he leaves the world of the living behind, entering a liminal space where the normal rules no longer apply. The gloomy depths evoke the realm of Hades, where souls are judged and tormented. Just as Orpheus ventures into the underworld to reclaim his beloved Eurydice, John is driven by a desperate love for his daughter to confront the mysteries of death itself.
He battles the crushing pain and sudden blackness, driven by a father’s primal need to save his child from the jaws of oblivion. In the end, John emerges from his harrowing descent, cradling Christine’s lifeless body. The metaphor of the underworld journey speaks to the universality of grief and loss.
This mirrors the fluid nature of passage and memory, where the past, present, and future seem to converge in unpredictable ways. Imbued with prophetic significance, these recurring visual touches—water, flickering light, reflective motifs, mirrors/broken glass – the pane of glass Johnny crushes under his bicycle tires and the bottles of oil and wine at the cafe that shatter when Laura stumbles into the table), torturous alleyways surrounded by dark waters of Venice that narrow and coil (these dark alleys that almost seem familiar to John)—and primarily the color red are the animating principles of Roeg’s masterpiece.
The allegorical elements are distilled in a swift, climactic sequence, revealing and exposing the film’s metaphors and their full significance. The essence of the relevant symbology, emblematic of the film’s prophetic cues, gathers rapidly at the climax, rendering us speechless at the profound implications of the threshold between life and death. Don’t Look Now is rich with allusions to the liminal space between existence and oblivion.
Reflections: Distorted Reality & Shattering Reality:
There are many scenes with reflective mirrors. At times, the characters channel their dialogue through the intermediary of mirrors rather than engaging with each other face-to-face.
John sees Christine as a reflection in the water, which makes him follow the red-coated figure. But it’s both a reflection and a dark counterpart of the underworld. Succumbing to the illusion will ultimately betray him and draw him closer to his death because he cannot distinguish between his own subjective experience and what exists within reality. What is above in this world, or what lies below?
Roeg remarked on the film’s use of glass, describing it as "Fragile… so firm one moment and so dangerous the next."This observation captures the essence of the film’s symbolism and exploration of paradox.
Through the lens of symbolic interactionism, the recurring motif of shattering glass in these scenes serves as a powerful metaphor for the fragility of human existence and the sudden, often violent disruption of perceived reality. The parallel editing of John’s foot kicking out the alcove window as he lay dying in the fever dream climax and Johnny’s bike tires crushing a pane of glass underscores the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate events. Like the pervasive imagery of water in the film, it’s a ripple effect that influences their choices.
This visual synchronicity is further reinforced by the breaking glass on the scaffolding and the shattering bottles as Laura collapses, collectively forming the fragmentation that echoes the characters’ tenuous connection to life. Collectively, these moments serve to punctuate the shattering of illusions and the irreversible nature of the profound turning points in John and Laura’s journey through the labyrinth.
Falling – Apart:
" A recurring theme of water and falling is the most prevalent motif that screams at you throughout. Christine falling into the water, Johnny falling at boarding school, Laura falling at the restaurant after meeting the sisters, and adult John almost falling after a makeshift lift collapses from a falling board crashing into it. The family is plagued by this tumor-like sense of dread, which mirrors the unease of The Masque of the Red Death (1842) by Edgar Allan Poe. As John continues to follow this red-hooded girl, he continues to fall down the hole of his undoing. The reality that death will never leave us."– From Beyond the Void: Nov. 2019 article by Athena Hueber: Don’t Look Now Lessons Lessons in Grief, Mysticism, and Hidden Meanings
From Melancholy to Dread: Transforming Grief into Sound: Pino Donaggio’s Haunting Score:
Nicolas Roeg employs Pino Donaggio’s magnificent, evocative music throughout Don’t Look Now, particularly as an identifying theme, to reinforce the connection between the opening drowning scene and John Baxter’s death and the ride on the funeral boat. This melodic concept also plays throughout the film’s famous love scene.
In the film’s first sequence, Donaggio’s theme is played like an adagio, as if assembling a puzzle. With its tentative cadence, this hauntingly beautiful score, in its hesitation, laments the emotional impact of the accidental drowning of the Baxters’ daughter. Later, during John’s death scene, the same theme flows with a vibrant lucidity as he accepts his own death as a doorway to reunion with his daughter in the afterlife.
The evolution of the music from a stumbling, childlike version to a graceful, adult variation underscores the film’s themes of grief, loss, and the cycle of life and death. Donaggio, then known as a successful Italian pop singer, would later become Brian De Palma’s go-to composer. But in Don’t Look Now, his simple yet evocative theme serves as a musical thread tying together the film’s most pivotal moments. Through the transformation of the melody, Roeg suggests that death is not an ending but a continuation of life in another form.
At the conclusion, Donaggio’s triumphant score, infused with the majestic voice of a church organ, subtly merges with the more tender echo of the film’s driving theme to seem to hint at transcendence—yet another nod to life after death.
Roeg’s Haunting Vision of Venice: A City Shrouded in Mystery and Decay:
The critic Neil Sinyard comments that Venice has ‘ Never been more dramatically or expressively used on film’ (p.49) and Roeg filmed in the city out of the tourist season in order to create a bleak and barren atmosphere. The film deliberately avoids tourist hot spots like St Mark’s Square and the action is set in backstreets and alleyways, and in a hotel that is closing up for the winter, its furniture shrouded in dust sheets. In du Maurier’s story the crowds of tourists and the busy restaurants and squares are both suffocating and reassuringly familiar, but when the sun goes down the darkness casts the city in a different role and Du Maurier foregrounds this disjunction: – From Dr. Laura Varnam: article on du Maurier’s story adapted to film.
Arriving in Italy off-season, Venice functions as a bleak, monochrome canvas. Roeg unveils a genuine portrait of Venice, abandoning the tourist traps for authentic locales that capture the city’s true essence of the working class while evoking a sense of both familiarity and strangeness.
The director and cinematographer Richmond transform the romantic city of Venice into a gothic nightmare in winter. Emptied of crowds and tourists and shrouded in an oppressive overcast, the rot eroding the façades comes into relief, conveying a sense of deterioration seeping through the once-vibrant urban landscape.
The architecture creates a sense of distance, both physically and psychologically, suggesting that Venice’s design, which manifests both stylish modernism and an archaic aesthetic, may not fully reveal its purpose or beauty. It also intervenes and summons up the story’s psychic space. The architecture plays a significant role and profoundly influences the psychological landscape of the story. The entire discourse is centered on characters who can no longer rely on their inner thoughts and memories to remain unchanging and yielding in their predictability.
Roeg’s Venice isn’t a postcard plastered with vacationers and landmarks. Don’t Look Now’s Venice is a city steeped in decay. The acidity of the air eats away at its buildings. Its grandeur has long passed. It clings to its existence like a half-remembered dream rising up from the murky canals. The city is cold, gripped by the bleakness and solitude. This is a Venice echoing with the mournful persistence of a dismal grey death.
The city is on the verge of collapse, much like John’s crumbling churches, while its inhabitants face the looming danger of an unknown killer.
He presents a Venice enveloped in a deathly mood where even the hotel furnishings are literally shrouded. The city is transformed into a bleak, haunting landscape muted by the cold and dampness of winter. This oppressive ambiance serves as a metaphorical extension of the characters’ inner sense of disappearing into their sadness.
Both director and cinematographer Anthony Richmond’s bleached-out, muted tones transform Venice’s iconic canals into ethereal, monochromatic waterways. The city’s canals take on a silvery-green appearance, creating an otherworldly aura. Meanwhile, the deteriorating stone, worn down to the marrow, uncertain in its own identity – the streets evoke an almost living spirit that still bears its romantic classicism, a place where beauty and decay coexist in a delicate, unsettling balance.
In Roeg’s vision, Venice becomes a trial of human desires, having a deep-seated, primal attraction to the mysterious and the unknown, which is embodied in the romanticism of Venice. The city becomes a metaphor for the tangled pathways of our subconscious and is driven by an inexorable will that seeks fulfillment. As John and Laura navigate their journey of mortality, a dance of near-misses and fateful intersections takes hold. Don’t Look Now’s winding and torturous alleyways serve as grand theater, staging a performance of existential unease and emotional isolation.
Throughout, Venice plays tricks on John and Laura. Lost in a maze of identical alleys and bridges, John is plagued by a disorienting sense of déjà vu and relies on a strange gut feeling, a sixth sense that he has been to certain places before. Yet, denying Laura’s insistence, he’s been to other places that he swears he’s never been.
Nicolas Roeg’s lens reveals the unvarnished truth of Venice, where locals trudge through a city at its prime time, beset by the constant tide of tourists, and at its most authentic, its beauty sinking, eclipsed beneath the weight of its waterlogged burdens. The worn-out and desperate hotel staff where John and Laura are staying are exhausted by the remains of the endless stream of visitors who are now gone, clinging to fragile politeness as they count down the minutes until they can shut their doors to the few remaining patrons and find a fleeting respite from the chaos.
" Roeg’s discovery of a church (the Church of St. Nicholas, no less, who we are told is the patron saint of scholars and children) that was already being restored was a happy "accident," especially as it was already sporting a ‘Venice in Peril’ sign, as well as a poster for the 1959 short film compilation The Chaplin Revue, the title pertinently rendered here as ‘Uno contro tutti — One Against All." (From Criterion essay Seeing Red by David Thompson)
Through the commission of his work on the church John is introduced to a Venice that presents the seductiveness of interacting with the lifeblood of its memory of the past, with its worn beauty and complex history.
John’s work inherently blends the past with the present, delving into the essence of Venice as he reassembles mosaics and restores the eerily expressive gargoyles. He perceives it as a fragile illusion, one that can thrive through the watchful attention of an artist. He becomes excited when a small mosaic tile matches the existing mosaics he is replicating. John’s focus lies within the exploration of sentient expression. And the echoes of those long-gone reflections demand careful preservation.
Where the clairvoyant Heather shares her vision of the ethereal plane – of spirits who thrive unseen to the non-seer, John deals with the corporeal world.
Bloodstained Streets: The Red Coat Killer of Venice:
A killer is on the loose in the city; John witnesses a grim scene as the police fish the filthy, lifeless body of a young woman out of the mucky waters of the canal, her mostly naked, disheveled, and soiled body hanging by ropes like a grotesque catch on a hook.
The police, like the church, remain frustratingly aloof. They are detached in their observations rather than taking an active role in intervening to help John navigate his nightmare.
Who is this fiend? Why did John become a victim of this notorious serial killer who is terrorizing Venice? The story presents a series of unsettling coincidences that culminate in John’s tragic death at the hands of a malevolent apple-head doll in a red wool coat. From afar, in flashes, she gives the impression of an uncanny resemblance to his lost daughter. This adds a layer of cruel irony to the grim paradox. It’s a tragedy that mocks him, punctuating the ordeal with a ruthless twist. It underscores the situation with brutal poetry.
And… Who is she, where did she come from, and why is she killing people? Is she even human? Or is it something far more sinister? Conjured from Hell or from grief? But the ambiguity breeds a profound sense of unease at the end. We might yearn for a supernatural explanation, perhaps even the miraculous return of the Baxter’s lost child, or is it a monster fate summoned into being?
The film deliberately withholds explanations, urging us to confront the unsettling idea that a deeper universal order might be at work; its true nature remains largely inscrutable to John and us alike.
Faith in Flux: John Baxter’s Duality of Grief and the Church:
As John oversees the restoration that requires digging into the city’s past literally, he is confronted by what he himself calls layer upon layer of deception and artifice. The ancient buildings John is tasked with restoring reveal a history of "faux-Byzantine fakery," a metaphor for the way the city’s allure conceals a darker, more complex truth.
Bishop Barbarigo (Massimo Serato), a man of considerable privilege, wealth, and influence, is the one who has taken John on as part of a restoration project. He shows a genuine interest in the grieving couple and matters of their soul and psyche.
Bishop Barbarrigo: Are you a Christian, Laura? Laura Baxter: I don’t know. I’m kind to animals and children. Bishop Barbarrigo: St. Nicholas of this church is the Patron Saint of scholars and children. An interesting combination, don’t you think?
Under Bishop Barbarrigo’s watchful eye, John restores the church. The Bishop’s presence, marked by his distinctive headgear, adds a layer of spiritual authority and foreboding to the narrative. As John works selecting mosaics to replenish the Cathedral’s integrity, Bishop Barbarrigo becomes a source of ominous wisdom. He imparts a worldly view, speaking in hushed tones; he colors his pronouncements of an unforeseen, gathering storm that is approaching. It is a threat so potent that even prayer may not be enough. As the work progresses, it becomes clear that Barbarrigo shares a deeper connection with John.
Barbarrigo also seems to possess his own power of intuition; not only does he appear prescient of John’s danger, but he is somehow physically attuned to John, who has awakened a psychic bond between them.
He intuitively senses that John is in peril, having been present at his near-fatal accident during the church restoration. With a somber gravity, Barbarrigo reflects, " Churches belong to God, but he doesn’t seem to care about them. Does he have other priorities?"
The implication is that God has become indifferent to the very structures built in his honor. Through these interactions, Roeg paints a portrait of a complex, spiritually inclined figure who is both drawn to and perplexed by the Baxters’ grief. Barbarrigo’s role becomes a prism through which the film explores themes of faith, mortality, and the human search for meaning amidst life’s tragedies.
The first glimpses of John working in Venice paint a stark picture: he and the workmen methodically chip away at the church’s aged fabric, their tools echoing like a sculptor relentlessly carving away at a weathered stone. Dust dances and crumbles away from the wet stone, hinting at the secrets buried beneath centuries of accumulated history. Each percussive blow of the hammer echoed like a heartbeat, awakening the slumbering giant with John as small as a mayfly dancing in the shadow of this ancient church. As John leans into the stone face of the church’s gargoyle, its unblinking gaze seems to promise that the boundary between the inanimate and the living is about to blur in the darkest ways.
For John, religious belief seems hollow and insincere. The church’s restoration aligns with this perception of insincerity. The repaired windows and mosaics, while hard to discern the fake ones from the originals, are mere pretenses and imitations. ‘The options are – restore the fake or let it sink into the sea,’ John remarks wryly, cognizant of their artifice yet acquiescing to the ruse.
John’s tacit collaboration with the church’s restoration effort reflects his own meticulously constructed mask of composure. He labors to project the image of a stoic and supportive spouse while wrestling with his unhealed grief. His commitment to the restoration project, despite his awareness of its artifice, reflects a desperate need to maintain the appearance of control.
Just as the repaired windows and mosaics maintain the illusion of authenticity, John too keeps up the appearance of someone – who can’t cope with his pain and be there for his heartbroken wife, yet he is the one who is truly lost, grasping at the shreds of normalcy to stave off his own anguish.
John throws himself at his work as a means of distracting himself from his grief and guilt over the tragedy. But Laura had numbed her pain by downing pills. This sadness will make her at first vulnerable to the influence of the pair of elderly sisters, however ultimately liberated by them to release her grief.
Continued in Part 2
