A married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter are in Venice when they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond. Nicolas Roeg. Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason.
Table of contents
A married couple enveloped in the unspeakable sadness provoked by the loss of their young daughter. Then, in Venice, among the rot, the beauty and the darkness, a ray of light. But this is not the kind of light that lets you see, no, this light is terrifying because it will persuade you to follow it. I've seen the film 9 hours ago and it's still with me I can smell the stench of the most beautiful city in the world and I close my eyes, hoping that it's just a dream.
Enjoy a night in with these popular movies available to stream now with Prime Video. Start your free trial. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! Michael Mando Teases 'Spider-Man: Millie Bobby Brown Before Eleven.
Have to have NOW. One day more - another day, another destiny.
Share this Rating Title: Don't Look Now 7. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Learn more More Like This. The Wicker Man Eyes Without a Face The Man Who Fell to Earth A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror. A violent gangster seeks refuge from the mob in the Bohemian home of a former rock star. Invasion of the Body Snatchers Edit Cast Complete credited cast: Laura Baxter Donald Sutherland John Baxter Hilary Mason Bishop Barbarrigo Renato Scarpa Inspector Longhi Giorgio Trestini Hotel Manager David Tree Anthony Babbage Ann Rye Mandy Babbage Nicholas Salter Johnny Baxter Sharon Williams Christine Baxter Bruno Cattaneo Detective Sabbione Adelina Poerio Its 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.
Sometime after the drowning of their young daughter Christine Sharon Williams in an accident at their English country home, John Baxter Donald Sutherland and his grief-stricken wife Laura Julie Christie take a trip to Venice after John accepts a commission from a bishop Massimo Serato to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters, Heather Hilary Mason and Wendy Clelia Matania , at a restaurant where she and John are dining; Heather claims to be psychic and—despite being blind—informs Laura she is able to "see" the Baxters' deceased daughter.
Don't Look Now: No 3 best horror film of all time
Shaken, Laura returns to her table, where she 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. Later in the evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura have passionate sex. Afterwards, they go out to dinner where they get lost and briefly become separated.
John catches a glimpse of what appears to be a small child Adelina Poerio wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died. When she returns to the hotel Laura informs John that Christine has said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John loses his temper with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son Nicholas Salter has been injured in an accident at his boarding school.
Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration. Under the assumption that Laura is in England, John is shocked when later that day he spots her on a boat that is part of a funeral cortege , accompanied by the two sisters.
Navigation menu
Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, he reports Laura's disappearance to the police. The inspector Renato Scarpa investigating the killings is suspicious of John and has him followed. After conducting a futile search for Laura and the sisters—in which he again sees the childlike figure in the red coat—John contacts his son's school to enquire about his condition, only to discover Laura is already 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, so an apologetic John offers to escort her back to the hotel. Shortly after returning, Heather slips into a trance so John makes his excuses and quickly leaves. Upon coming out of it she 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 elusive figure in a deserted palazzo and approaches it, believing it to be a child.
Instead, it is revealed to be a hideous female dwarf, and while John is frozen in terror the dwarf pulls out a meat cleaver and cuts his throat. As the life drains from him, John realises too late that the strange sightings he has been experiencing were premonitions of his own murder and funeral.
Don't Look Now ostensibly is an occult thriller, [2] but the genre conventions of the Gothic ghost story primarily serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple. Even the closest, healthiest relationship can come undone through grief. The associative use of recurring motifs , combined with unorthodox editing techniques, foreshadows key events in the film.
The plot of the film is preoccupied with misinterpretation and mistaken identity: 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. Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in Don't Look Now.
Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe. Don't Look Now is particularly indebted to Alfred Hitchcock , exhibiting several characteristics of the director's work. Nicolas Roeg had employed the fractured editing style of Don't Look Now on his previous films, Performance and Walkabout , but it was originated by editor Antony Gibbs on Petulia.
- Amiga und die Suche nach dem Goldenen Turm (German Edition);
- Don't Look Now - Wikipedia.
- Americas Royalty: All the Presidents Children, Revised and Expanded?
- Don't Look Now | Film | The Guardian?
Roeg served as the cinematographer on Petulia , which incidentally also starred Julie Christie, and Gibbs went on to edit Performance and Walkabout for Roeg. Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include Borges and Nietzsche ; Pauline Kael in her review comments that "Roeg comes closer to getting Borges on the screen than those who have tried it directly", [24] while Mark Sanderson in his BFI Modern Classics essay on the film, finds parallels with Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.
Filming began in England in December , breaking off for Christmas, and resuming in January for seven more weeks in Italy. 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 , Far from the Madding Crowd and Petulia in which she had starred.
Don't Look Now () - IMDb
Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations about the depiction of clairvoyance in the script. He felt it was handled too negatively and believed that Don't Look Now should be a more "educative film", and that the "characters should in some way benefit from ESP and not be destroyed by it". Roeg was resistant to any changes and issued Sutherland an ultimatum. 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.
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.
Sharon Williams, who played Christine, became hysterical when submersed in the pond, despite the rehearsals at the swimming pool going well. A farmer on the neighbouring land volunteered his daughter who was an accomplished swimmer, but who refused to be submersed when it came to filming. In the end, the scene was filmed in a water tank using three girls.
Nicholas of the Beggars , located on the outskirts of Venice. Finding an appropriate church proved difficult: Roeg decided not to use traditional tourist locations to purposefully avoid a travel documentary look. Venice turned out to be a difficult place to film in, mainly due to the tides which caused problems with the continuity and transporting equipment.
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 of the changes were due to the logistics of filming in Venice, some were for creative reasons, the most prominent being the inclusion of the famous love scene. The scene was in fact an unscripted last minute improvisation by Roeg, who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing. 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.
Ugo Mariotti, a producer on the film, spotted Donaggio on a Vaporetto on the Grand Canal in Venice, and believing it to be a "sign" contacted him to see if he would be interested in working on the film. Donaggio was 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 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 orchestral piece, but Roeg thought the effect was overkill, and wanted it toned down.
In the end the scene just used a combination of the piano, the flute , an acoustic guitar and an acoustic bass guitar. The piano was played by Donaggio again, who also played the flute; in contrast to his skill as a pianist, Donaggio was a renowned flautist, famous for it at the conservatory. Donaggio conceded that the more low-key theme worked better in the sequence and ditched the high strings orchestral piece, reworking it for the funeral scene at the end of the film.
Donaggio won a 'best soundtrack of the year' award for his work on the film, which gave him the confidence to quit his successful singing career and embark on a career scoring films. Donaggio became a regular composer for Brian De Palma films and credits Nicolas Roeg with giving him his first lesson in writing film scores, and expressed a desire to work with him again.
Don't Look Now has become famous for a sex scene involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, which caused considerable controversy prior to its release in British tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail , observed at the time "one of the frankest love scenes ever to be filmed is likely to plunge lovely Julie Christie into the biggest censorship row since Last Tango in Paris ".
The scene was unusually graphic for the period, including a rare depiction of cunnilingus in a mainstream film. Christie commented that "people didn't do scenes like that in those days", and that she found the scenes difficult to film: I just went blank and Nic [Roeg] shouted instructions. The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly, saying, "We cannot see humping. We cannot see the rise and fall between thighs. 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 Britain, the British Board of Film Classification judged the uncut version to be "tasteful and integral to the plot", and a scene in which Donald Sutherland's character can be clearly seen performing oral sex on Christie's character was permitted, but it was still given an X rating —an adults only certificate. The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release.
In his book, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, and Sex , Bart says he was on set on the day the scene was filmed and could clearly see Sutherland's penis "moving in and out of" Christie. Bart also reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him to complain about what he perceived to be Roeg's exploitation of Christie, and insisting that he be allowed to help edit the film. Peter Katz, the film's producer, corroborated Sutherland's account that the sex was entirely simulated. The film vied with Confessions of a Window Cleaner to be the top British title at the UK box-office in , ranking in the top twenty of the year overall.
Don't Look Now was chosen by the British Film Institute in as one of eight classic films from those that had begun to deteriorate to undergo restoration. 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 s 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 , as well as a "compressed" version of the film made by Boyle for a BAFTA tribute.