Editing Don't Look Now (section)

=== Sex scene controversy ===
[[File:Don't Look Now love scene .ogg|thumb|thumbtime=13|upright=1.35|right|Sample from the love scene]]
''Don't Look Now'''s [[sex scene]] involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland caused considerable controversy before its release in 1973. British tabloid newspaper, the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', observed at the time that "one of the frankest love scenes ever to be filmed is likely to plunge lovely Julie Christie into the biggest censorship row since ''[[Last Tango in Paris]]''". The scene was unusually graphic for the period, including a rare depiction of [[cunnilingus]] in a mainstream film.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=21–23}}

Christie commented that "people didn't do scenes like that in those days", and that she found the scenes difficult to film: "There were no available examples, no role models ... I just went blank and Nic [Roeg] shouted instructions." The scene caused problems with censors on both sides of the Atlantic.  The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly, saying, "We cannot see humping. We cannot see the rise and fall between thighs." The scene's much celebrated fragmented style, in which scenes of the couple having [[sexual intercourse]] are intercut with scenes of the couple post-coitally getting dressed to go out to dinner, partly came about through Roeg's attempt to accommodate the concerns of the censors: "They scrutinised it and found absolutely nothing they could object to. If someone goes up, you cut and the next time you see them they're in a different position, you obviously fill in the gaps for yourself. But, technically speaking, there was no 'humping' in that scene." In the end, Roeg only cut nine frames from the sequence, and the film was awarded an [[Motion Picture Association of America film rating system|R rating]] in the United States. In Britain, the [[British Board of Film Censors]] judged the uncut version to be "tasteful and integral to the plot", and a scene in which Donald Sutherland's character can be clearly seen performing [[oral sex]] on Christie's character was permitted; it was given an [[X rating]]—an adults only certificate.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=21–23}}<ref name="Film4"/>

The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release. The [[BBC]] cut it altogether when ''Don't Look Now'' premiered on UK television, causing a flood of complaints from viewers.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=76–78}}<ref name="Roeg (2008)"/> The intimacy of the scene led to rumours that Christie and Sutherland had [[unsimulated sex]] which have persisted for years and that outtakes from the scene were doing the rounds in screening rooms.<ref name="Morrison (2006)"/><ref name="Guthmann (1999)"/><ref name="Billson (2010)"/> [[Michael Deeley]], who oversaw the film's UK distribution, claimed on [[BBC Radio 4]]'s ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'' that [[Warren Beatty]] had flown to London and demanded that the sex scene—featuring then girlfriend Julie Christie—be cut from the film.<ref name="Clinton (2008)"/> The rumours were seemingly confirmed in 2011 by former ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' editor [[Peter Bart]], who was a [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] executive at the time. In his book '' Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex)'', Bart says he was on set on the day the scene was filmed and could clearly see Sutherland's penis "moving in and out of" Christie. Bart reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him to complain about what he perceived to be Roeg's exploitation of Christie, and insisting that he be allowed to help edit the film.{{sfn|Bart|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FNouo7FETbYC&pg=PA92 92]–95}}<ref name="Fernandez (2011a)"/> Sutherland subsequently issued a statement through his publicist stating that the claims were not true, and that Bart did not witness the scene being filmed. Peter Katz, the film's producer, corroborated Sutherland's account that the sex was entirely simulated.<ref name="Fernandez (2011b)"/>