In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from the public library.
John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) are the perfect 1970s power couple: he’s an in-demand specialist in architectural restoration, she’s beautiful and glamorous, they live in a spacious English country home with their two perfect children, and they’re planning a trip to Venice where John has accepted a commission. Then it all comes apart in a flash, as their daughter Christine (Sharon Williams) drowns in a backyard pond.
In Venice, John and Laura’s differing methods of processing their grief are driving a wedge between them, a problem that is exacerbated when they encounter a pair of sisters (Hilary Mason and Clelia Matania), one of whom claims to have second sight and tells them their dead daughter is trying to send them a message: John is in danger and must leave Venice at once. Meanwhile, a series of murders is keeping the Venice police occupied, and John starts to experience visions that cause him to question his own sanity.
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now is first and foremost a study in how differences in the way people work through their emotions following the death of a child can damage even the closest of relationships. But there’s plenty of action for the less introspective viewer as well, including a near-miss accident in a church, mysterious appearances of a small figure in a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing the day she died, several chases through the underbelly of Venice, and a sex scene so explicit that rumors persist that it was unsimulated.
The screenplay for Don’t Look Now, adapted by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant from a 1971 Daphne du Maurier short story of the same name, preserves the spirit of the story while making a number of strategic changes appropriate to a cinematic treatment. Scott and Bryant also removed some nasty transphobic remarks made by John, who’s more sympathetic in the film, and added the famous sex scene which, far from being gratuitous, serves to establish that the couple still have a relationship, whatever problems they may be having.
Don’t Look Now is a textbook example of using visual motifs to unify a film (maybe to a fault from today’s point of view, but it was innovative at the time). Although the daughter’s death occurs in the first few minutes of the film, Roeg keeps it foremost in the viewer’s mind (as it is in the minds of John and Laura) through the recurring use of the color red, recalling the raincoat she was wearing when she died, and repeated references to water, recalling the manner of her death (a change made for the film: in the short story, she dies of meningitis).
Critics mostly praised Don’t Look Now upon its initial release, despite some complaints about artiness and lack of suspense, and it has only grown in stature since then. To cite just a few examples, it placed #46 among the greatest films of all time in a 2022 Sight and Sound Poll, and was chosen as the #1 favorite British film in a Time Out poll of film industry experts. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 745
Technical details: 110 minutes; color, screen ratio 1.85:1, English
Edition reviewed: Director-approved Blu-ray 2-disc special edition
Extras: 2 making-of featurettes, interview with composer Pino Donaggio, analysis of Roeg’s style by Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh, interview with film historian Bobbie O’Steen and editor Graeme Clifford, 2003 Q & A with Nicolas Roeg at the Ciné Lumière in London, booklet with essay by David Thompson, and the film’s trailer.
Fun Fact: For the initial release in Ireland, the sex scene primarily responsible for the film’s R rating was removed entirely; it was also cut from the first airing of this film on the BBC.
Parting Thought: Have more successful movies been adapted from short stories or from novels? I’ll accept answers stated either in terms of counts or percentages.
