Success is not always achieved for proper reasons. It is indeed the case with this film, which became the subject of a great scandal at the time of its premiere simply because of an explicit sex scene, cut in very brief shots, which was censored in both the USA and the UK — and which, around forty years later, would see contesting and confrontational testimonies being given to clear up whether the sex act between the actors (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) was simulated, or whether penetration indeed took place during shooting. Now, the meaning and interest of the scene in question derives from the parallel montage of these carnal shots with others, equally abrupt, in which both characters dress themselves separately: an image that allows us to grasp the ephemerality of this communion between two beings. Despite the sincere love that connects them, the opposition between husband and wife will persist and evolve into an unexpected separation when they are confronted by the death of their son, eventually becoming definitive. The two protagonists will run after each other, but they will never find each other again. Nevertheless, the success generated by the scandal caught the attention of numerous critics and filmmakers, for whom the film became a reference.

Many directors have cited — almost plagiarised — elements of this work (and not only specialist directors of giallo like Dario Argento). From Danny Boyle to Steven Soderbergh and Martin McDonagh — who filmed a labyrinthine Bruges in the same model as Roeg’s Venice, and also reproduced the idea of a child replaced by a dwarf [1] — passing by Christopher Nolan, Fabrice Du Welz and Lars Von Trier. And David Cronenberg, of course, who mentioned it as a reference and influence for his own films. In fact, here, Nicolas Roeg takes up the metacinematographic problematic of Hitchcock, which postulates the visible as a projection, therefore an image, with his characters becoming just a figuration of the spectator themselves. This was made explicit in Rear Window, in which the window represents a screen onto which Jeff, immobilised, projects his desires and suspicions — and which Lisa, the true object of his fantasies, has the mission of verifying. Similarly, Vertigo, in which Scottie obliges Judy to embody Madeleine, and, on a smaller scale, Strangers On A Train, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Wrong Man.

Nicolas Roeg deepens this idea while also simplifying it: it is the blind woman who can see; her visions, much like the bloodstain or the funeral cortege, are not errors but premonitions; the faces — on statues or mosaics — must be reconstituted, although they only refer to the subject that projects, a subject that is consequently absent from the projected images. The film proposes to interrogate the visible: are the ghosts imaginary or are they simply asynchronous, premonitory or recollections? By formulating this question, the film alerts the viewer to our activity as voyeurs: might we not also, like the protagonist, deceive ourselves with our interpretations of the perceptive data in front of us? The rapid montage sequences are all composed of already seen fragments, short flashbacks intended to spark the viewer’s memory. The aforementioned sex scene is the exception, with its velocity merely accelerating the couple’s return to their divergent attitudes and feelings; notwithstanding the director’s explanation, in which he justified the scene with his concern to not overdo the number of arguments between the couple, is clear, thanks to the parallel shots of the two dressing themselves. The scene stands for the insufficiency of physical pleasure in maintaining a solidarity-based relationship between two lovers.

Aside from this exception, by using sequences composed from already seen fragments, Roeg develops his film like a puzzle for which he provides the pieces, so that the viewer can put them together one by one. Certain images recur, a little like the refrains in the children’s songs; on the other hand, certain elements appear in every scene, like a symbolic or premonitory leitmotif: water (and drowning), and broken glass (and bleeding), which, over the course of the film, figure and prefigure death. It was clearly, then, on a formal plane that the film made its biggest impact. None of Roeg’s later films — some of them indisputably more engaged, whether on a political level or in their analysis of behaviours and emotions — would experience the success of Don’t Look Now, though both Mark Cousins and Danny Boyle have named Eureka, from 1983, as one of their favourite films. Perhaps it is because Don’t Look Now took its position in a minor genre — that of the giallo, a psychological and fantastical thriller — that it stood out for its audacities and daring formal originality, making it a reference for younger directors. It is thus one of those rare examples where scandal — independent from the intrinsic qualities of the film — came with positive consequences.

[1]cf. review in Booklet of the Critical Course in Cinema, soon to be published by Batalha Centro de Cinema