For me, the most terrifying scene in Don't Look Now is a testament to Nicolas Roeg's direction, Scott and Bryant's script, and Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie's skill as actors as the scene itself is nowhere near traditionally frightening, and out of context seems almost bland and/or relieving. The scene in question occurs after Sutherland's Baxter chases what he thinks to be his wife across Venice, only to call home to England and find she had arrived safe and sound earlier that day. The scene was terrifying not in that I wondered what kind of phantom he had seen, but in the absolute strangeness of the performances across the phone lines. Christie's voice is too-assuring and virtually prattles on that…

This has got to be one of the best ghost stories ever made. It is not scary, but has an unsettling atmosphere as it doesn't intend to scare you, but to make you part of a man's desperate attempt to make sense of a situation he doesn't (want to) understand.

Firmly rooted in realism, Roeg tells a tale of grief and love. The strength of this story lies in the fact that Sutherland and Christie portray a couple that comes across as genuine. Their predicament is easy to sympathise with and to invest in, granting us an emotional connection which in turn automatically makes us part of their plight. Feeling so connected to a story as unsettling and intriguing as…

I had already decided to like this movie before I was even two minutes in. It had the aesthetic of Robert Altman's "Images" AND it starred Julie Christie who played one of my favorite characters ever in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller." So this film was basically a combination of two of my favorite Altman movies, and Robert Altman is basically my favorite director. Basically. So basically, I knew I was going to basically love this.

Basically.

It was awesome. I loved it. The cinematography is the crowning achievement here. It emphasizes the strange, off-kilter mood of the film in a way that very few films ever have. And the acting was spectacular. Donald Sutherland can play a disturbed but overwhelmingly likable…

Nothing is what it seems.
-John Baxter

Based on the short story of the same name collected in the 1971 book Not After Midnight by Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now is a masterstroke in suspense through misdirection. It's not done in an overt manner like most modern films would attempt today, but instead relies on the viewers expectations and how they interpret certain events and visual queues.

Nicolas Roeg's direction is perfect for the film while being unconventional for it's genre. He has enough confidence that his audience will pick up on the reoccurring themes without having to draw unnecessary attention to them and therefore not making the foreshadowing present in the film blatantly obvious.

He's able to be…

Don't Look Now has left a strong impression on me. Starting with its gut-wrenching and visually devastating opening - made even stronger by a surrealist quality that is greatly reminiscent to David Lynch, a good four years before his debut film, Eraserhead. It uses thriller and mystery conventions as guardrails for deeper psychological and supernatural experimentations. But it is Nicolas Roeg's impressionist use of imagery and highly provoking atmosphere that I admired most. His innovative techniques flourish from evoking motifs used keeping each raw terror fresh in our minds and symbolism reflecting emotions and alluding to future horrors.

The story of a couple trying to cope with the death of their daughter (Sharon Williams) only to be met by a…

#4 for Great Movies May.

Half the compositions and editing choices in this film would get Nic Roeg laughed out of film school. But seeing this as a classical thriller/horror film would be a severe mistake (almost a big mistake as going to film school! Hah. Yeah, I'm finishing my first year in a few days and it's on my mind a lot). It's not about the story, which in a written synopsis is completely ridiculous, it's about the creation of a fluid time and space on screen that creates a subjective impression of the characters' experiences - first a great trauma in losing a daughter, then the growing isolation, paranoia and superstition that comes from living through the trauma's…