Don't Look Now (1973)

— What a bloody silly way to die.

A great work of art horror, and perhaps a Solaris-esque view into how grief might be partly a process of reconstructing a lost person within your own mind, all presented in a story by film actors who are, in Mark Sanderson's wording, "professional ghosts".

One piece of trivia in his BFI Film Classics monograph seemed precision-targetted to wind me up, though:

It is Hollywood tradition for the original writer to scream 'foul' when they finally see what has been done to their brainchild. After du Maurier had seen Don't Look Now she wrote to Roeg congratulating him on having captured the emotions of John and Laura.

Now. this is not quite the place for a lengthy excurces on my beef with how adaptations are judged almost entirely on their perceived fidelity to the original text... But simply imagine if the painted arts got stuck in the mid-nineteenth century, all new paintings were rated by how well they approximate or approach 'real life'. The situation in cinema is perhaps even worse than that insofar as whether an author "likes" or "hates" an adaptation becomes part of the adaptation; in literary theory terms, it becomes incorporated into its paratext. What would make a good hypothetical comparison? Consider if Courbet's stonebreakers let it be known around the Paris Salon that they didn't like what the artist had done to their work. Personally, I think Roeg's film is artistically stronger and a significantly deeper work than du Maurier's short story. But even if the original author likes (or 'approves of' the adaptation), the problematic thought process remains: the twin metrics of fidelity and authorial authority remain paramount.

Indeed, I harbour a suspicion that one of the reasons why film adaptations are usually less satisfying than their literary works is that their artistic goals rarely rise higher than ensuring a sufficient correlation back to the preceding material — as if adapting a literary work for the screen was merely a form of double-entry bookkeeping. Needless to say, these connections and associations tend perforce to be of an obvious and overly-literal kind, lest complaints are made that a character was renamed from Jonny to Johnny. Indeed, online fandoms around much-loved media properties (as well as rather literally-minded critical culture) have only reinforced this sort of thing, and so films advertised as "an adaptation of a much-loved book" are likely to be only narrowly entertaining.

Everything is happening all at once. Venice was sinking from the moment it was built. John Baxter was always doomed, even if he didn’t want to believe in prophecy. We feel the power of water throughout the film because John never left that pond where his daughter drowned, never clawed his way out of those dark and destructive waters. We see red all through the film because John’s not just remembering his daughter’s death, but surrounded by it. Every time we see red, she’s dying again, and John is dying already.

— Matthew Jackson (Paste Magazine)

[The opening] is a devastating sequence [of 102 shots], its impact increased for being so compact. Roeg has thrown a rock into the pond and the rest of the film simply watches the ripples spread out. How the Baxters react to the repercussions of the tragedy proves the storyline, but the viewer, too. […] In the [original] story, Johnny has suspected appendicitis but in the film he has been injured during a fire practice. Such drills are supposed to prevent accidents, not cause them: one example of how a well-intentioned attempt to achieve something ends up precipitating the direct opposite.

[…]

Don't Look Now does not adhere to a strict symbolic code. The colours are used impressionistically to enhance mood, not for their intrinsic meaning. [By] bombarding the viewer with a kaleidoscope of images, Roeg constantly forces us into the position of having to decide — instantly — whether a particular close-up is significant or irrelevant, part of the overall pattern or mere background. He makes nervous wrecks of us all so that we identify with John's predicament: neither of us know where to look. […] The film creates such an atmosphere of the paranormal and the paranoid that there seems no room for harmless coincidence. […] Don't Look Now cannot be reduced to a single interpretation, which is what makes it such an endlessly fascinating film. It is black, it is comic, it is Gothic, it is ironic. It says one thing while suggesting another. It can be, and often is, all of these things at the same time. Roeg might not say what he means but he always means what he says.

[…]

Roeg's repeated use of shots of sunshine reflected in water, windows and mirrors [:] the effect is literally dazzling, often making the viewer squint or think about holding up a hand to shield the eyes: don't look now.

[…]

When an object of your affections is summarily removed all that is left is the memory of them and it is truly astonishing what can be remembered. In recalling often long-forgotten details —something they once said, a certain laugh, the feel of their hair in your fingers — it is as if the mind is deliberately reconstructing the lost person, creating a mental replica of them. [You] reach the stage where it seems they have been virtually living in your head. [And] what are movie stars — who are said to have presence — if not professional ghosts?

— Mark Sanderson: BFI Film Classics: Don't Look Now

The girl who played Christine was very pretty — exactly the sort of child John and Laura would have had — and a good swimmer too. [But] as soon as she saw the pond she just would not go under. She screamed and screamed. The farmer on the neighbouring farm had a daughter of a similar age [but] as soon as she got the red mac on, she refused to go under the water. In the end we rigged it in a water tank with a double: there are actually three children in that sequence. All three, when they saw the pond and the weeds, must have felt the terrible truth: I'm drowning, I'm drowning.'

[…]

The famous love scene — the infamous love scene — was not written either. It suddenly struck me after four weeks that John and Laura were always rowing — the candlelight dinners are over. [It] comes at a point in the movie where it is important to confirm that they are a happily married couple, that they have a good overall relationship.

[…]

Du Maurier was not obsessed with the big I, she didn't cry 'But it was my idea! My idea!' The ideas are all around us; life, stories, plots are all here.

— Nicolas Roeg: Interview by Mark Sanderson included in BFI Film Classics: Don't Look Now (1996)