Don't Look Now: BFI Film Classics (Paperback)

Don't Look Now, released in 1973, confirmed director Nicolas Roeg as one of the most stylish and innovative British directors of the post-war period. Adapted from a short story by Daphne du Maurier, it is both a complex study of how people come to terms with grief and a chilling tale of murder set among the canals and churches of Venice. Tellingly performed by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as the couple whose daughter has tragically died, Don't Look Now depicts the way in which the macabre and the everyday are intertwined.

In his lucid, detailed and subtle account of the film, Mark Sanderson describes the collaboration between director and actors which sustained the emotional richness of Don't Look Now. He returns to du Maurier's original text and to the traditions of Gothic writing that underpin the film's combination of horror, melodrama and black comedy. Sanderson examines the intricate visual style of Don't Look Now, uncovering the way in which particular motifs are used to amplify the film's depiction of two terrible deaths. He finds compensation for the film's grimly fatalistic view of life in its celebration of sexual relationships and the power of recollection.

The book includes an exclusive and in-depth interview with Roeg as well as rare and unpublished comments from Christie.