Don't Look Now and Other Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Don't Look Now's sex scene involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland caused considerable controversy before its release in 1973. During lunch in Torcello, she “sees” Christine sitting between Laura and John, describing her right down to one of her favorite dresses, and adds that Christine is doing well and is happy. Laura and John have lost their daughter but meet up with a blind woman who has visions of the dead child and can hear her warnings to her father.

Or possibly, he thinks, the twin sisters somehow tricked Laura, in her agitated state, and kidnapped her. John, however, cannot fathom a mind so at ease with the unexplainable and a heart that counters grief in a manner so different from his own, which is why he immediately begins discounting the sister’s vision as a ruse: “Give them half a chance and they would have got money out of Laura—anything.

In the end, Roeg only cut nine frames from the sequence, and the film was awarded an R rating in the United States. John hopes that the holiday “could yet turn into the cure she needed, blotting out, if only temporarily, the numb despair that had seized her since the child died. In both the literal and the metaphorical senses, Laura is “on her way,” leaving John and flying to England. Finding an appropriate church proved difficult: after visiting most of the churches in Venice, the Italian location manager suggested constructing one in a warehouse. 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.

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. Many say that Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 classic novel, Rebecca, is a variation of the Cinderella tale. Venice turned out to be a difficult place to film in, mainly due to the tides, which caused problems with continuity, and the transporting of equipment. Her grief and guilt over Christine’s death are somewhat mitigated by the thought that her child is happy and doing well, even though she is not living on Earth. She is able to speak with them about Christine, something she has not really been able to do with John, who simply wants her to get over their daughter’s death.Shooting the sequence was particularly problematic: Sharon Williams, who played Christine, became hysterical when submersed in the pond, despite the rehearsals at the swimming pool going well. 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.

Du Maurier’s world does not ask much introspection of readers, only that they come along for the ride. 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. A new 4K restoration—supervised by cinematographer Anthony Richmond—was released by StudioCanal in the standard and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats in 2019, and given a limited theatrical release.In the end the scene just used a combination of the piano, the flute, an acoustic guitar and an acoustic bass guitar.

The only disagreement over the musical direction of the film was for the score accompanying the love scene.The sisters also serve as a conduit for Christine, who has two messages to share with her parents: first, that everything is fine with her, and second, that John is in extreme danger and must leave Venice immediately.