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Don't Look Now

Started by Shoulders?-Stomach!, January 20, 2011, 10:03:59 AM

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Shoulders?-Stomach!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/18/dont-look-now-red-coat

I'll be back with more on this film but thought I'd share an excellent article about it by Peter Bradshaw, someone who evidently loves the film as much as I do.

Johnny Townmouse

Yeah, I read this yesterday and found it compelling. The issue with the coat is really jaw-dropping - they almost DIDN'T use the red mac? A swimsuit? A perfect example of why great film allows itself to be influenced by chance and improvisation and last minute decisions, rather than toeing the line, and the script.

It's hard to imagine that they didn't have the red coat as a motif throughout the entire production process, but as the article explains, the red coat belongs to another character in the original story. This raises my particular issues, constantly banged on about in these forums, about my hatred of films that try to be faithful to a source text. As Edwyn said, "rip it up and start again." Or indeed Hitchcock, who would read the book once and chuck it in the bin.

I also like the details about "going to Venice."

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on January 20, 2011, 10:12:25 AM
The issue with the coat is really jaw-dropping - they almost DIDN'T use the red mac? A swimsuit?

Oh, I don't think that's what the article is saying. The little girl rehearsed the drowning scene in a swimsuit - far more practical than going over and over the scene in wet clothes - and only had to wear the red coat when it came to the actual filming. The red coat, and the use of red - the blood on the photograph with the red figure in the church, etc - were obviously well planned out. But I do remember my surprise at finally reading the story, years after being terrified by the film, and discovering that the red coat had been transposed from wife to daughter, and thinking what a fantastic decision that had been.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: ColonelVolestrangler on January 20, 2011, 11:23:36 AM
Oh, I don't think that's what the article is saying. The little girl rehearsed the drowning scene in a swimsuit - far more practical than going over and over the scene in wet clothes - and only had to wear the red coat when it came to the actual filming. The red coat, and the use of red - the blood on the photograph with the red figure in the church, etc - were obviously well planned out. But I do remember my surprise at finally reading the story, years after being terrified by the film, and discovering that the red coat had been transposed from wife to daughter, and thinking what a fantastic decision that had been.

Aha, well there we are. I was starting to wonder if some of that stuff was put into the film on the hoof, but you have clarified that, thanks. The scene you mention is fantastic, it really is a wonderful bit of Roeg expressionism.



It is probably, alongside the sex scene, the closest the film gets to Performance, his other masterpiece.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteI also like the details about "going to Venice."

Yeah, I think I remember being told about that a while ago.

The article mentions how the red coat is transferred in the film adaptation from the mother to the daughter. I read the book after the film and couldn't quite get used to that.

The film is utterly wonderful, I remember writing about it in an old best films thread and like Bradshaw I mentioned how involving and convincing the married couple are. You hardly ever see films with on screen pairs at that stage in a relationship, and I think it provides an even more powerful contrast to the tragedy.

Santa's Boyfriend

I genuinely did see a little girl in a red raincoat when I went to Venice a few years ago.  Brrr.

SavageHedgehog

There's some interesting stuff about this in Michael Deeley's autobiography, particularly his claim that Julie Christie's then-boyfriend Warren Beatty repeatedly argued with him to cut the famous sex scene. Wouldn't have figured him for a prude

Mister Six

Thank fuck for that. When I saw the thread title I thought a remake was on the way.

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on January 20, 2011, 11:53:55 AM
Aha, well there we are. I was starting to wonder if some of that stuff was put into the film on the hoof,
I was watching the 20 minute 'Looking Back' documentary on the DVD, and it seems some things were very much made up on the fly. The scene where Laura lights candles in the church and John avoids the sisters originally had 4 or 5 pages of dialogue, but after Roeg overheard Donald Sutherland saying of the location, 'I don't like this church,' and Julie Christie responding, Roeg threw the pages away and filmed this short, true to life sequence. The editor also revealed that certain brief moments like the superimposed face of the laughing sister before John's scaffolding accident weren't in the script, just something he wanted to try out. Roeg saw it and liked it, so he cut in more of these little moments.

I did end up watching the film again yesterday, as it's been on my mind - and things have been nudging me in that direction; this thread, the book falling off the shelf when I tried to pick up a different book, a two page article about Sutherland in the paper at my folks' house this weekend titled 'Don Look Now', a returned copy of the DVd sitting on my desk when I nipped into work yesterday. I had to watch it early in the day, as I didn't want to go to bed with it fresh in my mind. This is one of the few films to ever genuinely frighten me - I'm also a bit nervous about watching 'A Warning to the Curious' and 'The Woman in Black' late at night when I'm alone in the house, though neither has had the same effect as DLN. I first saw it while in my mid-teens when BBC1 showed it late on a Friday night. My mum had gone to bed, saying something about not watching, 'that horrible film', so it was me and my dad.

I'd been dying to see it after a Starburst Annual devoted to horror films had finished a paragraph on it with something along the lines of, 'He follows a small figure believing it to be his daughter. Naturally it turns out to be something much worse...' I'd naively expected some kind of ghostly thing - and had pretty much failed to take note of all the stuff with bodies being dragged from canals - so when the red figure turned round... I think I let out a few moans of , 'Oh, no,' and walked out of the room before the film finished, and sat in my room reading comics, books, anything to try not to think about it. Was it a troll? A demon? Stop thinking about it! I think I even blanked out that paragraph in the Starburst annual with black ink to avoid being able to read about it, I was so freaked out by the whole idea of it.

A few months later, in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, browsing through books on film, I turned a page and found a photograph of the dwarf and it was all I could do not to drop the book and run. Finally, when BBC1 showed it again a few years later, I went back to my folks' house and forced myself to watch it, insisting someone came into the room with me for the last ten minutes. This kind of worked as a form of exorcism, though I remained nervous about the film ever since, even though I made a point of buying it when it came out on VHS, then again on DVD, listening to a radio adaptation, and buying the Du Maurier book. I even got horribly creeped out by the Tango advert with the dwarf in the orange raincoat appearing on a football pitch when I first saw it late at night, and the League of Gentleman reference to DLN in Series 3 had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

Yesterday's viewing was fine. I always pick up something I hadn't noticed before whenever I dare to watch it. Here it was one of the little moments of John Baxter's precognition, 'I know this place,' coupled with Laura's earlier, 'Wasn't this the place yow were..?', as if trying to make us suspect John as the murderer. I also remembered how much I love the music. And I discovered that the dwarf is actually even more disturbing in freeze frame and frame advance (not helped by visualising a 'Ringu' scenario of her clambering out of the telly, shaking her head from side to side as she does).

I did try to find information on Adelina Poerio, who played the dwarf, but there's very little around. Roeg, on the Film4 wesite, refers to her as being 35 or 40, turning up on set with her boyfriend who she'd run away with, and being very sweet, and there is speculation that she'd been a minor player in some Fellini film or other. Apart from that (and apart from discovering that there's an 'escort' by the name of Adelina Poerio working in London who bears no resemblance to her namesake... What a thought???) she's a bit of a mystery.

Doomy Dwyer

^ That there's a nice post.

This is one of my favourite films and that's a good article from Bradders. It's such an unusual film - melancholy, adult, disturbing and moving. Sutherland and Christie are amazing, one of the most realistic depictions of a relationship ever committed to celluloid. I like the quality of eavesdropping on them, the way we often seem to get only snippets of conversation and information, it's left to us to join the dots and make the connections. It's a film that doesn't patronise the viewer. I wish there were more mainstream films like it. The more I think about it, the more special it becomes. It makes me nicely sad thinking about it because you are made to genuinely care about the characters. I always feel a sense of loss after seeing it. But I'd quite like to see it again soon.


Danger Man

Quote from: ColonelVolestrangler on January 25, 2011, 11:13:25 AMThere is speculation that she'd been a minor player in some Fellini film or other.

The Clowns (1970)

You can see her at 2:02 in this brief clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4jYU2mOSW4

Quote from: Danger Man on January 28, 2011, 08:24:26 AM
The Clowns (1970)

You can see her at 2:02 in this brief clip.

Great. Thanks for that. Nice to see her without the red hood and the knife.

Johnny Townmouse



Shoulders?-Stomach!

Ooh one of my faves, that.

There's a short interview with Nic Roeg with the entry for DLN in Time Out's list of 100 Best British Films...
http://www.timeout.com/london/bestbritishfilms/

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Thank you, thank you.

Obviously this means lists are brilliant again!

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I showed my girlfriend this the other night and thought/noticed a few things.

-Nic Roeg's tendency to use strong female characters to drive a narrative

Spoiler alert

-The police chief is drawing a picture of the haggard old dwarf murderer as he's speaking to John. I can't believe it took me about 8 watches to notice that.
[close]

-Laura's expression at the end really baffles me. Almost like she's too grief-stricken to know what to do, but also hints that she's made her peace with fate or feels oddly self-fulfilled by having the prophecy come true. Mmm. I dunno. Just look at her face at the end scene. Really incongruous.