Editing Don't Look Now (section)

== Analysis ==

=== Themes ===
''Don't Look Now'' is an [[occult]]-themed thriller<ref name="French (2006)"/> in which the conventions of the [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] ghost story serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=21–23}} 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."<ref name="O'Hagan (2006)"/> 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 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=30, 45 & 59}}

[[File:Don't Look Now 1.jpg|thumb|left|Water and the colour red are recurring motifs.]]
The associative use of recurring [[Motif (narrative)|motif]]s, combined with unorthodox editing techniques, foreshadows key events in the film.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=42–44}} 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.<ref name="Bradshaw (2011)"/>{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=10–11, 60}}<ref name="Morrison (2006)"/>  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.<ref name="Jones (2006)"/> 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=48}} 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=42–44}}

The plot of the film is preoccupied with misinterpretation and mistaken identity: when John sees Laura on the barge with the sisters, he fails to realise it is a premonition and believes Laura is in Venice with them.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=61–62}} John himself is mistaken for a [[Peeping Tom]] when he follows Laura to the séance,{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=16}} and ultimately he mistakes the mysterious red-coated figure for a child. The concept of [[doppelgänger]] and duplicates feature prominently in the film: reproductions are a constantly recurring motif ranging from reflections in the water, to photographs, to police sketches and the photographic slides of the church John is restoring. Laura comments in a letter to their son that she can't tell the difference between the restored church windows and the "real thing", and later in the film John attempts to make a seamless match between recently manufactured tiles and the old ones in repairing an ancient mosaic.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=42–44}} Roeg describes the basic premise of the story as principally being that in life "nothing is what it seems",<ref name="O'Hagan (2006)"/> and even decided to have Donald Sutherland's character utter the line—a scene which required fifteen takes.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=76–78}}

Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in ''Don't Look Now''.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=12}}  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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=25–27}} Women are presented as better at communicating than men: besides the [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyant]] being female, it is Laura who stays in regular contact with their son, Johnny;{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=47}}  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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=48}}

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.<ref name="Jones (2006)"/> 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=61–62}} 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=21–23}}<ref name="Bradshaw (2011)"/> 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=64–70}} 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.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=61–62}} According to the editor of the film, [[Graeme Clifford]], Nicolas Roeg regarded the film as his "exercise in film grammar".<ref name="Gregory (2002)"/>

=== Inspirations ===
''Don't Look Now'' is particularly indebted to [[Alfred Hitchcock]], exhibiting several characteristics of the director's work.<ref name="Morrison (2006)"/> The aural [[match cut]] following Christine's death from Laura's scream to the screech of a drill is reminiscent of a cut in ''[[The 39 Steps (1935 film)|The 39 Steps]]'', when a woman's scream cuts to the whistle of a steam train.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=14–15}} When John reports Laura's disappearance to the Italian police he inadvertently becomes a suspect in the murder case they are investigating—an innocent man being wrongly accused and pursued by the authorities is a common Hitchcock trait.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|p=30}} The film also takes a [[Hitchcockian]] approach to its [[mise en scène]], by manifesting its protagonist's psychology in plot developments: in taking their trip to Venice the Baxters have run away from personal tragedy, and are often physically depicted as running to and from things during their stay in Venice; the labyrinthine geography of Venice causes John to lose his bearings, and he often becomes separated from Laura and is repeatedly shown to be looking for her—both physical realisations of what is going on in his head.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=25–27}}

Nicolas Roeg had employed the fractured editing style of ''Don't Look Now'' on his previous films, ''[[Performance (film)|Performance]]'' and ''[[Walkabout (film)|Walkabout]]'', but it was originated by editor [[Antony Gibbs]] on ''[[Petulia]]''. Roeg served as the cinematographer on ''Petulia'', which incidentally also starred Julie Christie, and Gibbs went on to edit ''Performance'' and ''Walkabout'' for Roeg.<ref name="Sinyard"/> Roeg's use of colour—especially red—can be traced back to earlier work: both ''Performance'' and ''Walkabout'' feature scenes where the whole screen turns red, similar in nature to the scene during Christine's drowning when the spilt water on the church slide causes a reaction that makes it—along with the whole screen—turn completely red.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=31–32}} The mysterious red-coated figure and its association with death has a direct parallel with an earlier film Roeg worked on as cinematographer, ''[[The Masque of the Red Death (1964 film)|The Masque of the Red Death]]'', which depicted a red clad [[Personifications of death|Grim Reaper]] character.<ref name="Sinyard"/> The fleeting glimpses of the mysterious red-coated figure possibly draw on [[Marcel Proust|Proust]]: in ''[[In Search of Lost Time|Remembrance of Things Past]]'', while in Venice, the narrator catches sight of a red gown in the distance which brings back painful memories of his lost love.<ref name="Bradshaw (2011)"/>

Besides Proust, other possible literary influences include [[Jorge Luis Borges|Borges]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]]; [[Pauline Kael]] in her review comments that "Roeg comes closer to getting Borges on the screen than those who have tried it directly",<ref name="Kael (1973)"/> while Mark Sanderson in his [[British Film Institute|BFI]] Modern Classics essay on the film, finds parallels with Nietzsche's ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]''.{{sfn|Sanderson|1996|pp=61–62}} 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 [[Exploitation film|exploitational]] portrayal of violence and sexuality typically associated with the form.<ref name="Stanley (2019)" /> 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".{{sfn|Shipka|2011|p=110}}