{"id":32355,"date":"2011-01-20T11:21:57","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=32355"},"modified":"2011-01-20T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:46:08","slug":"that-red-coat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=32355","title":{"rendered":"That Red Coat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nAnother must-read (it’s been a good morning for that<\/a> already): <\/p>\n

Peter Bradshaw’s piece on that haunting red coat<\/a> in Nicholas Roeg’s terrifying 1973 film Don’t Look Now<\/i>. Ironically, I’ve been wanting to see Don’t Look Now<\/i> 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><\/a> (I mentioned it in that review). <\/p>\n

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<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Regardless, Bradshaw has done his homework, about Du Maurier’s original tale, and about the filming of Don’t Look Now<\/i>. I found this detail about the filming of that opening scene (so it’s not really a spoiler) particularly good:<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 another touch that subliminally discombobulates the viewer.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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>.<\/p>\n

Definitely go check out Bradshaw’s piece.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32355"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32366,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32355\/revisions\/32366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}