Another must-read (it’s been a good morning for that already):
Peter Bradshaw’s piece on that haunting red coat in Nicholas Roeg’s terrifying 1973 film Don’t Look Now. Ironically, I’ve been wanting to see Don’t Look Now again recently and wondered why on earth I do not own it: it’s been on my mind ever since I saw Blue Valentine (I mentioned it in that review).
Bradshaw’s piece is terrific, not only talking about how the color red works cinematically in the film, but possible connotations of red (including some speculation about its connection to the history of Venice). Normally I don’t read comments sections on pieces like that one, but on this article I happened to, and just want to say not to miss the comment in the comments section by someone called “iansport” – he offers a correction to Bradshaw’s assertion that Roeg tried to keep the color red out of his film, except for that red coat. That struck me as somewhat wrong. I seem to recall, off the top of my head, although it’s been years, quite a bit of red in the film, used very strategically, and “iansport”, while remaining respectful and articulate, goes into the use of the color red throughout Don’t Look Now.
Regardless, Bradshaw has done his homework, about Du Maurier’s original tale, and about the filming of Don’t Look Now. I found this detail about the filming of that opening scene (so it’s not really a spoiler) particularly good:
The death of John and Laura’s daughter is the climax of one of the most disturbing sequences in British cinema. After a leisurely weekend lunch, we see uncollected crockery, cutlery and a wisp of cigarette smoke from an ashtray. The little girl is outside, messing around, playing with a toy soldier, a sort of Action Man with a recorded voice; but for some reason, the recorded voice is not a macho male warrior’s but a woman’s. Her brother is riding his bicycle. Christine is also playing with a ball, white with a red pattern in the style of Escher, which makes the ball’s shape appear to undulate as it rolls along – another touch that subliminally discombobulates the viewer.
Then there is that red mac. Why on earth is this girl wearing a rainproof mac on a fine, warm summer afternoon? Evidently, she is very attached to it, though a waterproof garment is the most ironically wrong thing to be wearing. 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.
That’s pretty amazing, if you ask me, and strikes me as exactly right. I still haven’t recovered from the first time I saw that damn movie. It is truly eerie.
I’ve not seen the movie nor read the short story, but now must pull out my copy of Iain Pears’ Stone’s Fall – which I enjoyed very much, highly recommended – and see where the Daphne Du Maurier story comes in. Did he mean it as a tribute, a sly nod, or did he rip it off, this ghost in Venice that teased and taunted? Or is this a Venice thing that has been touched on by many artists and writers?
I haven’t read the short story either. it’s like all of these different writers keep elaborating on the same theme, using the same landscape. Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, which takes place in Venice during the Napoleonic era, covers similar ground.
To quote Anne Shirley, in Venice there is a lot of “scope for the imagination”!!
True; but the description in the article of the ghost/midget in Venice who was everywhere in the red coat was too similar to the “ghost” in Stone’s Fall’s Venice. Still, sounds a very good movie. It’ll go into my basket next to “In a Lonely Place” – another Sheila recommendation. :-)
It must be a steal/nod. Am not familiar with it!
Don’t Look Now is scary scary. My friend Ann Marie refers to such movies as “diamond-vision movies”, because you have to peek out through your fingers at the screen.
“Saw a really scary movie the other night,” I would say to Ann Marie.
Ann Marie would reply, “Yes, but was it diamond-vision scary?”
I should say in addition to seeking out this movie, too.
I also was unaware of the lesbian connotations that “going to Venice” had for du Maurier. I seriously have to see this movie again. “Harrowing” is the word I would use for it.
I saw Don’t Look Now right after it came out in 1973 or 1974. I don’t remember a lot of the details except the red coat, the end, and a surprisingly graphic sex scene. I probably still need another 20 years to build up to seeing it again.
Yes, it’s very graphic – there’s a reason I kept thinking about it in connection with Blue Valentine. I didn’t find it surprising, though. This was a couple whose marriage was disintegrating, and somehow, during their sojourn in Venice, the wife (Christie) starts to wake up again. They are trying to connect. She yearns to connect, and so does he. It’s sex that is full of meaning and intimacy – interspersed with shots of them clothed (I wrote about that scene somewhere on my site) – and sex is rarely rarely shown in such a realistic manner. Blue Valentine comes close. People have emotions about sex. It sometimes is complicated, especially with a couple who has been together long, or who have suffered some sort of trauma.
Anyway, yes, it’s very graphic, but not at all gratuitous. It’s character-based.
Love it, and wish I owned it. I would see it tonight. Maybe it’s on Netflix Instant.
YES. On Netflix Instant. I have one more review to write this week, but I can do that tomorrow. Tonight I’ll watch Don’t Look Now. With diamond-vision, of course.