Don 39;t Look Now 1973 Full Movie Free
Abigail Tyrie
Don't Look Now is an exploration of the psychology of grief and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. The film is renowned for its innovative editing style, recurring motifs and themes, and for a controversial sex scene that was explicit by the standards of contemporary mainstream cinema. It also employs flashbacks and flashforwards in keeping with the depiction of precognition, but some scenes are intercut or merged to alter the viewer's perception of what is really happening. It adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colours using associative editing techniques.
Laura is taken to the hospital, where she later tells John what Heather told her. John is sceptical but pleasantly surprised by the positive change in Laura's demeanour. That evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura have passionate sex. Afterwards, they go out to dinner, and en route get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of a small figure wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died.
The next day, Laura meets with Heather and Wendy, who hold a sance to try to contact Christine. When she returns to the hotel, Laura informs John that Christine said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John argues with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son has been injured in an accident at boarding school. Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration. Shortly afterwards, John is nearly killed in an accident at the church when the scaffold he is standing on collapses, and he interprets this as the "danger" foretold by the sisters.
Shortly after returning to the hotel, Heather slips into a trance. John quickly leaves. Upon coming out of the trance, Heather pleads with her sister to go after John, sensing that something terrible is about to happen, but Wendy is unable to catch up with him. Meanwhile, John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red and this time pursues it. He corners the figure in a deserted palazzo and approaches, believing it to be a child. The figure turns to face him, revealing that it is a hideous female dwarf. When John freezes in shock, the dwarf pulls out a meat cleaver and cuts his throat. Dying, John realises too late that the strange sightings he experienced were premonitions of his own murder and funeral.
Don't Look Now is an occult-themed thriller[3] in which the conventions of the Gothic ghost story serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple.[4] The film's director, Nicolas Roeg, was intrigued by the idea of making "grief into the sole thrust of the film", noting that "Grief can separate people ... Even the closest, healthiest relationship can come undone through grief."[5] The presence of Christine, the Baxters' deceased daughter, weighs heavily on the mood of the film, as she and the nature of her death are constantly recalled through the film's imagery: there are regular flashbacks to Christine playing in her red coat as well as the sightings of the mysterious childlike figure also wearing a red coat which bears a likeness to her; the constant association of water with death is maintained via a serial-killer sub-plot, which sees victims periodically dragged from the canals; there is also a poignant moment when John fishes a child's doll out of a canal just as he did with his daughter's body at the beginning of the film.[6]
The associative use of recurring motifs, combined with unorthodox editing techniques, foreshadows key events in the film.[7] In Daphne du Maurier's novella it is Laura that wears a red coat, but in the film the colour is used to establish an association between Christine and the elusive figure that John keeps catching glimpses of.[8][9][10] Du Maurier's story actually opens in Venice following Christine's death from meningitis, but the decision was taken to change the cause of death to drowning and to include a prologue to exploit the water motif.[11] The threat of death from falling is also ever present throughout the film: besides Christine falling into the lake, Laura is taken to hospital after her fall in the restaurant, their son Johnny is injured in a fall at boarding school, the bishop overseeing the church restoration informs John that his father was killed in a fall, and John himself is nearly killed in a fall during the renovations.[12] Glass is frequently used as an omen that something bad is about to occur: just before Christine drowns, John knocks a glass of water over, and Johnny breaks a pane of glass; as Laura faints in the restaurant she knocks glassware off the table, and when John almost falls to his death in the church, a plank of wood shatters a pane of glass; finally, shortly before confronting the mysterious red clad figure, John asks the sisters for a glass of water, an item with a symbolic connection to Christine's death.[7]
Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in Don't Look Now.[16] This is best exemplified by the blind psychic woman, Heather, who communicates with the dead, but it is presented in other ways: the language barriers are purposefully enhanced by the decision to not include subtitles translating the Italian dialogue into English, so the viewer experiences the same confusion as John.[17] Women are presented as better at communicating than men: besides the clairvoyant being female, it is Laura who stays in regular contact with their son, Johnny;[18] when the Baxters receive a phone call informing them of Johnny's accident at the boarding school, the headmaster's inarticulateness in explaining the situation causes his wife to intercept and explain instead.[12]
Much has been made of the fragmented editing of Don't Look Now, and in Nicolas Roeg's work in general. Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe.[11] John's premonitions merge with the present, such as at the start of the film where the mysterious red-coated figure is seemingly depicted in one of his photographic slides, and when he 'sees' Laura on the funeral barge with the sisters and mistakenly believes he is seeing the present, but in fact it is a vision of the future.[13] A prominent use of this fragmented approach to time is during the love scene, in which the scenes of John and Laura having sex are intercut with scenes of them dressing afterwards to go out to dinner.[4][8] After John is attacked by his assailant in the climactic moments, the preceding events depicted during the course of the film are recalled through flashback, which may be perceived as his life flashing before his eyes.[19] At a narrative level the plot of Don't Look Now can be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy: it is John's premonitions of his death that set in motion the events leading up to his death.[13] According to the editor of the film, Graeme Clifford, Nicolas Roeg regarded the film as his "exercise in film grammar".[20]
Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include Borges and Nietzsche; Pauline Kael in her review comments that "Roeg comes closer to getting Borges on the screen than those who have tried it directly",[25] while Mark Sanderson in his BFI Modern Classics essay on the film, finds parallels with Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.[13] The film's setting and production status has also drawn comparisons with giallo films, due to its structure, cinematic language and focus on the psychological makeup of its protagonists sharing many characteristics with the Italian subgenre, although Anya Stanley has noted that it lacks the exploitational portrayal of violence and sexuality typically associated with the form.[26] In this regard, Danny Shipka has noted that Don't Look Now bears similarities to Aldo Lado's 1972 giallo Who Saw Her Die?, in which an estranged couple (portrayed by George Lazenby and Anita Strindberg) investigate the drowning death of their daughter. In his view, Aldo "eliminat[es] a lot of the extreme gore and sex [associated with gialli], but still manages to create an aura of uneasiness with his Venetian locales just as Roeg did a year later".[27]
Don't Look Now was Roeg's third film as director, following Performance (1970) and Walkabout (1971). Although real-life couple Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were suggested for the parts of Laura and John Baxter, Roeg was eager to cast Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland from the very start. Initially engaged by other projects, both actors unexpectedly became available. Christie liked the script and was keen to work with Roeg, who had served as cinematographer on Fahrenheit 451, Far from the Madding Crowd and Petulia in which she had starred. Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations about the depiction of clairvoyance in the script. He felt it was handled too negatively and believed that Don't Look Now should be a more "educative film", and that the "characters should in some way benefit from ESP and not be destroyed by it". Roeg was resistant to any changes and issued Sutherland an ultimatum.[31]
Roeg wanted Julie Christie to attend a sance prior to filming. Leslie Flint, a direct voice medium based in Notting Hill, invited them to attend a session which he was holding for some American parapsychologists, who were coming over to observe him. Roeg and Christie went along and sat in a circle in the pitch dark and joined hands. Flint instructed his guests to "uncross" their legs, which Roeg subsequently incorporated into the film.[15]
Adelina Poerio was cast as the fleeting red-coated figure after Roeg saw her photo at a casting session in Rome. Standing at only 4'2" tall, she had a career as a singer.[30] Renato Scarpa was cast as Inspector Longhi, despite not being able to speak English and so he had no idea what he was saying in the film.[32]
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