Don't Look Now

by Sanderson, Mark

• ISBN13: 9781844575152
• ISBN10: 1844575152
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-04
• Publisher: British Film Institute

Summary

'Don't Look Now', released in 1973, confirmed director Nicolas Roeg as one of the most stylish and innovative British directors of the postwar period. Adapted from a short story by Daphne du Maurier, it is both a complex study of how people come to terms with grief and a chilling tale of murder set among the canals and churches of Venice. Tellingly performed by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as the couple whose daughter has tragically died, 'Don't Look Now' depicts the way in which the macabre and the everyday are intertwined. In his lucid, detailed, and subtle account of the film, Mark Sanderson describes the collaboration between director and actors that sustained the emotional richness of 'Don't Look Now'. He returns to du Maurier's original text and to the traditions of Gothic writing that underpin the film's combination of horror, melodrama, and black comedy. Sanderson examines the intricate visual style of 'Don't Look Now', uncovering the way in which particular motifs are used to amplify the film's depiction of two terrible deaths. He finds compensation for the film's grimly fatalistic view of life in its celebration of sexual relationships and the power of recollection. The book includes an exclusive and in-depth interview with Roeg as well as rare and unpublished comments from Christie. This new edition of Houston's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author, and a stunning new jacket design.

Author Biography

MARK SANDERSON started his journalistic career reviewing films for Time
Out. He is now a literary critic for the London Evening Standard and the Sunday
Telegraph. He is the author of several books: Wrong Rooms (2002), a memoir, and
the novels Snow Hill (2010) and The Whispering Gallery (2011).

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jason Wood 1 "I'm getting out of here."
2 "So many impressions to seize and hold."
3 "We've been trying to reach you."
4 "What is it you fear?"
5 "The deeper we get the more Byzantine it gets."
6 "It's incredible you can't change your
course."
7 "Nothing can take the place of the one that's gone."
8 "We're almost there."
9 "I know where we are now." 
Credits