Posts from the Nicolas Roeg Category

Choose another category?

Editing To Mimic The Mind’s Eye Vision

At this moment, it was still very much style over substance. But this would soon change.
Performance
Donald Cammell / Nicolas Roeg, 1970
Cinematography | Nicolas Roeg

Having the opportunity to interview or chat with a filmmaker is always interesting, but once in a while it can be somewhat magical. From time to time a highly respected and successful film artist manages to escape the limitations of celebrity. Not all celebrated filmmakers live in bubbles.

And while it often feels a thing of the past, there are still filmmakers who are more concerned with filmmaking as an art form than as the opportunity for the wealth of a franchise. No artist desires creating work that fails to connect with an audience, but there are some who are far more concerned with a personal vision than worrying about selling tickets. While this can create limitations for the filmmaker, it also presents a great level of freedom.

Nicolas Roeg
BBC Arena Portrait
Photograph | David Thompson, 2015

One such filmmaker is Nicolas Cage. If you’ve ever watched or read an interview with eccentric auteur you will be aware that his style of conversing is at once intellectual and rather free-form. His style of discussing his work, history and ideas often ramble, but they never miss their mark.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to Nicolas Roeg speak, you will note a highly intelligent and genuine man. It is impossible to miss the fact that he is so filled with ideas that he tends talk in meandering and circular logic sentences. Last year, after overcoming more than a few challenges, The Criterion Collection re-mastered and re-issued Don’t Look Now. It features a discussion filmed in 2003 at London’s Ciné Lumière. It is an entertaining discussion and fully captures the way in which Roeg communicates. More importantly, it lets us see how he thinks and more than a little insight into how he makes films. He has always stretched cinematography and film editing to the limits to mimic the ways the human mind works. It may not always appear logical if we can slow down long enough to notice the jumbled order of our thoughts, but we are able to connect the dots of our odd assortment of ideas to lead us to the ways in which we operate.

If there is one element that shines through when listening to Mr. Roeg is the constant desire to find ways for film to connect with the human brain. When he made his debut as a film director it was a collaboration with writer/director, Donald Cammell.

There is a great deal more going on behind James Fox’s “Johnny’s” violent actions than simple thuggery.
James Fox
Performance
Donald Cammell / Nicolas Roeg, 1970
Cinematography | Nicolas Roeg

That debut film was Performance. Essentially a thriller in which a thug makes the mistake of hiding out in the home of rock star and his two groupies. The “thrill” aspect of the film takes a long fall as the film quickly evolves into a surrealistic study of a drug-fueled, hallucinogenic trip into identity. The film remains firmly seated as a dated but groundbreaking film of its time featuring Mick Jagger playing the odd rock star who pulls James Fox into a great deal more than his own isolated world.

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

There only appears to be no rules…
Mick Jagger
Performance
Donald Cammell / Nicolas Roeg, 1970
Cinematography | Nicolas Roeg

It is an iconic film. It is also offers a key insight into what would soon become Nic Roeg’s life long pursuit toward a whole new kind of cinematic language. The idea of filming and editing a film to reflect the inner-workings of the human mind is forming. As Performance was a collaborative effort and firmly rooted in the culture of late 1960’s Swinging London world of fashion, rock and drugs — the uses of this idea never fully form. Instead the film often employs stylistic choices of jittery fast cuts and odd perspectives that are as ornamental as they are meaningful. Even still Roeg’s approach human thought as a method of plot projection is there.

Even the smallest creatures fight to survive. A picnic in the outback turns into a journey of cruel awakening, self-discovery and survival. A Cinematographer becomes an Auteur.
Walkabout
Nicolas Roeg, 1971

Nicolas Roeg’s true directorial debut is filled with ideas and unique perceptions. A brother and sister escape the insanity of their troubled father to find themselves in the wilds of The Australian Outback. The title of the film comes from the Aboriginal concept of a male’s journey to adulthood. And with the assistance of a young man in the middle of his tribal ritual “walkabout” — the siblings journey through adversity and mystery toward their own adulthood.

What constantly threatens danger springs forward into a celebration of life’s possibilities…
Jenny Agutter
Walkabout
Nicolas Roeg, 1971

Along the way cultural differences cause confusion and alarm. It is a film about survival thanks to human kindness. But more than anything it is a startling view of how racism and cultural differences are so engrained, no amount of human kindness can make them go away. Roeg’s camera captures reality through a sort of surrealistic lens. The careful use of Antony Gibbs and Alan Pattillos’ editing allow us to view the realities and revelations from the perspective of two young adults and a child. It is here that we get a glimpse of identity perspective through the way the characters’ minds take in and view individual perceptions of experience.

A beautiful and tragic experimental film about both the strengths and flaws of the human condition. Another idea is put forward that hints that as our society applies more and more pressures, the concept of a walkabout could become a new sort of ritual for human beings contained within a society that only appears to offer safety and protection.

A young man takes a look at the land of his future and a shot becomes an iconic image.
David Gulpilil
Walkabout
Nicolas Roeg, 1971

When one watches Roeg’s 1980’s Bad Timing, a story of lust turned to obsession that not only pushes both individuals to the limits — it pulls one of them into the darkest corners of insanity. Bad Timing is graphic in the use of nudity, but the story it tells is not all that unusual. What makes this film standout as a work of cinematic art is the blending and discordant use of plot points into a fluid labyrinthine of perspectives that is often almost impossible to follow. The concept of flashback story-telling takes an almost hysterical detour into uncharted territories.

What often feels like a murder mystery is really far more complex in what it attempts to do. Bad Timing dares to toss a number of film genres our way, but the goal here is not suspense or even mystery. This film charts the deterioration of both the human mind and psyche after the requirements of desire, lust and sexual obsession have overtaken the rational.

“I’ll be dead in a minute; just wanted to say good-bye.”
Who is in control? Who is being seduced? And in what order are these experiences happening?
Art Garfunkel / Theresa Russell
Bad Timing
Nicolas Roeg, 1980
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond

Tony Lawson’s editing of Anthony B. Richmond’s oddly framed cinematography shifts the viewer perspective into a strange flow that is challenging to grasp. The majority of film critics and audiences at the time tended to dismiss the film. Art Garfunkel’s low-key performance mixing with Harvey Keitel’s intensity and Theresa Russell’s unhinged demonstration of carnal obsession often feels like a cinematic experiment with celluloid as rubber band. Bad Timing was so strange at the time it was released that it would take a good decade before it would be reconsidered and re-evaluated for the exceptional film it is. This film remains strange and refuses to give in.

“You tell the truth about a lie so beautifully.” Art Garfunkel / Theresa Russell Bad Timing Nicolas Roeg, 1980 Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond

Don’t Look Now takes us to a Venice steeped in decay, sadness and uncertain dangers. We are led through a series of seemingly endless loop of dark tunnels. We pass over aged bridges in a fog of mystery. Hope can become deadly. Grief can become a release. Like life, nothing is at it appears. Constantly shifting back and forth in time which only becomes obvious upon a second screening. Everything is viewed with disconnected logic and paranormal hindsight. There is a constant confusion of “real-time” with conscious and subconscious perceptions. An unrelenting sense of déjà vu that our protagonist refuses to own or fully evaluate.

Nothing is what it appears…
Julie Christie
Don’t Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond

A cinematic masterwork that captures a young couple trying to re-connect and support each other in order to survive the worst experience life can offer. It is a truly horrific film that somehow manages to be both beautiful and hauntingly sad. This is a surreal horror film about love, guilt, connections and grief.

“This one who’s blind. She’s the one that can see.”
Don’t Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973

This controversial 1973 film remains Roeg’s most successful film. Don’t Look Now is perhaps the best example of how Nicolas Roeg’s films work.

These films are about a whole lot more than seeing — these films are about how we think.

Matty Stanfield, 2.8.2016

“Nothing is as it seems.” or The Pure Cinema of Nicolas Roeg

After a decade in a successful career in cinematography, Nicolas Roeg found his way into the director’s chair. This led to a string of unforgettable films that blended his unique camera perspectives with an even more experimental editing to form

“I’m not a scientist. But I know all things begin and end in eternity.” David Bowie reflects in The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976.
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

much more than cinematic stories. Nicolas Roeg used cinematography, editing and obsessions to form film art that seeps into the senses that often lift the viewer into an experience that is more than unforgettable. Roeg’s cinematic voice reaches almost hypnotic levels. He creates atmosphere, tension, eroticism and human introspection that calls us to revisit his films.

“This one who’s blind. She’s the one that can see.” Hilary Mason’s character may be blind, but she is the only character who can actually ‘see’ in Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973.
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

With each revisit, the viewer discovers new aspects, ideas and meanings. Roeg quickly established a strong connection with both Cinematographer, Anthony B. Richmond and Film Editor, Graeme CliffordIn early on. Eventually, he would also establish a new film editing connection with Tony Lawson. These “connections” ran deep. In Roeg’s hands, filmmaking is no longer reduced to “orchestrated collaboration” “craft” or “storytelling” — Roeg’s cinematic work takes these fundamental concepts related to movie making to the level of true Film Art.

Art Garfunkel and Theresa Russells’ “terrifying obsession took them to the brink of death and beyond.” Bad Timing, Nicolas Roeg, 1980.
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Tony Lawson

It is more than a complex collaboration between the filmmaker and his/her cinematography and editor, in Nicolas Roeg’s work — it is clear that their is more than a shared aesthetic, the intermingling of all three aspects of filmmaking feel to be forming together in a genetic sort of alchemy. This is the magic of Pure Cinema.

The influence of Nicolas Roeg is undeniable. He has inspired far too many filmmakers to list. And, if one did comprise a list it would reflect a wide range of cinematic visionaries. Ridley Scott, Danny Boyle and François Ozon are just a few notably varied filmmakers who have listed Roeg as a strong influence.

It is often the most seemingly surprisingly magnified small detail that means so much. Candy Clark pours a drink. “You know Tommy, you’re a freak. I don’t mean that unkindly…” with questionable intent in The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976.
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

It is also important to note that Nicolas Roeg has never taken the stance of “Film Artiste” — Despite the complexities of what one discovers in his films, he has consistently dismissed the idea that he has ever pursued a film with one sole purpose. Instead, he will often shrug off aspects of his work as “accidental” or “luck” — And further to the point, Roeg claims to have never set out to rebel against fixed ideas of what cinema should be. He has always expressed how important his early work as a part of a camera unit or cinematographer were essential so the he could gain the essential knowledge of film craftsmanship. He once was quoted, “The rules are learnt in order to be broken, but if you don’t know them, then something is missing.”

“The churches belong to God, but he doesn’t seem to care about them.” Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

The use of sound and image do not always match in Nicolas Roeg’s cinematic world. What we are “allowed” to see is not always what we think we “want” to see. Mirrors and all aspects of reflection begin to take on added significance as these films move forward. The use of mirrors serves as far more than presenting an interesting thought — they are the tools that these characters discover everything insights into existentialism, desire, fear, vanity, gender roles and identity. The reflection of mirrors and glass have a similar impact on the audience but with added psychological dimensions that are inaccessible to the characters.

““I’ve used mirrors in a lot of movies. I think the mirror is an extraordinary thing, also the reflective, a reflection in water etc. Don’t you think it’s something strange that you rarely look at yourself in the mirror, except to do things like stand and ponder? ” Nicolas Roeg on the use of mirrors in his films. Here, James Fox, is forced to not only re-evaluate his identity but his gender in Performance, Nicolas Roeg & Donald Cammell, 1970
Cinematography | Nicolas Roeg

Like many great artists, Nicolas Roeg is sometimes so ahead of the audience that a film may fail to connect. This was the case with the controversial study of sexual desire turned to obsessions that potentially lead to insanity or something far worse. Largely dismissed when it was released, it has since gained much more success with audiences as time has passed.

Bad Timing, Nicolas Roeg, 1980
Cinematographer | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Tony Lawson

Roeg’s interests in how men and women connect sexually often become a core element found in every film. In Bad Timing he allowed his and the characters’ obsessions to overflow with a level of intensity that often resulted in confused responses. Seven years earlier, in Don’t Look Now, he created an almost uncomfortably level of erotic intimacy between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland that so shocked audiences that it is still a matter of discussion when the film is screened. The reality of sexuality becomes heightened to the abnormal in Bad Timing, but sexuality is used in a casually realistic way in Don’t Look Now.

Julie Christie and Donald Sutherlands’ characters infamously make love and cause Movie Rumor that remains today in Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

Viewers in 1980 seemed to have had a difficult time finding “reality” in the sex of Bad Timing. But well over 30 years later, the infamous sex scene in Don’t Look Now “feels” so real that many insist on believing that Sutherland and Christy were actually engaging in penetrative sex. The magical use of sex in Don’t Look Now is that it slowly dawns on the audience that this graphic display of sexual connection is not used for titaliation, but to capture the all too human need to connect to his/her lover in times of grief. It is a reconnection that almost helps this marriage in crisis pull itself out of disaster. Well, almost.

Another aspect of Roeg’s approach to his films that is rather thrilling is the ever present use of Surrealism. But it is the almost casual way in which surrealism mixes in with blunt realism. A level of disorientation flows off the screen because while we think we know that some of what we are seeing is “surreal” — it could almost as easy be called “real”

The Man Who Fell To Earth is a great example of film which refuses to ground itself into any conventional genre: Is it satire? Or is it an oddly ‘realistic’ Sci-Fi? Maybe it is dark humored metaphorical study of humankind? Is it surrealism? Is it about owning our identity no matter how our society tries to suppress us?

The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

What is real and what is often tangible but not easily labeled is often the most important aspect of our journey. Nicolas Roeg once noted, “I love that perhaps we don’t see the things that are there because we have no reliable yardstick to see things by, to compare them.”

Pass the warning…
Don’t Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

Over the last several years I have had the pleasure of spending a great deal of time with Don’t Look Now. As it made its way from the muddy VHS transfer to an improved but still lacking quality when it was released on DVD in both the US/UK to the beautifully restored version issued to blu-ray/DVD by the magic-makers at Criterion. I’ve needed to watch this film a number of times for various reasons. I’ve lost count of how many times I have seen it in the last three years. But every time I watch it, I notice something new. Never have I seen a film so disturbingly horrific turn itself into something of altogether different that can only be termed as “Human” beauty.

“One of your children has posed a curious question: if the world is round, why is a frozen lake flat?” The answer to his daughter’s question is far more complex than Donald Sutherland can fully grasp. He fights against his instincts in Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editor | Graeme Clifford

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to Nicolas Roeg speak, you will note a highly intelligent and genuine man. It is impossible to miss the fact that he is so filled with ideas that he tends talk in meandering and circular sentences. The newly released Criterion edition of Don’t Look Now features a discussion filmed in 2003 at London’s Ciné Lumière. It is an entertaining discussion and, in some ways, a revealing way in which Roeg not only communicates — but how he thinks.

And, this, to me, adds insight into the way he views film editing. There is not so much concern with editing a film in a linear or altogether logical way — because when we really think about it — Our minds are constantly racing through ideas, memories, feelings, emotions, worries and ever spinning topics as we navigate through ever part of our day.

Don’t Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973
gets the Criterion treatment. Now available on DVD/Blu-Ray

Nicolas Roeg’s movies strive to capture worlds through the lens of the human mind’s perspective. Our mind never fully allows our eyes, ears and senses to fully focus on one thing. Instead, our minds take in everything at once and while we are largely successful at deciphering our experience of the world and the situations we experience. It is only long after something has happened that we have the opportunity to “process’ an event. This is perhaps the strongest element to be found in the way Nicolas Roeg often transcends the normally anticipated scope of a movie.

I recently discovered a website called The TalkHouse which features brilliantly insightful writing and articles related to art.

Exceptional and Valuable insights regarding art can be found at TalkHouse.

http://thetalkhouse.com

Lance Edmands is a film artist himself and one of the contributors to the site. He has written a great piece in which he deconstructs Don’t Look Now‘s opening sequence. If you’ve not visited The TalkHouse or read anything by Lance Edmands, I encourage you to follow this link. He offers a far more in-depth discussion of Roeg’s experimental work.

http://thetalkhouse.com/film/talks/lance-edmands-bluebird-talks-nicolas-roegs-dont-look-now/