Dec. 31, 2025

Don’t Look Now (1973) — Grief, Time, and Disorientation in Nicolas Roeg’s Psychological Horror (Encore)

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Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of The Cinematic Flashback Podcast, Chuck and Matt revisit Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film Don’t Look Now, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and explore why this haunting psychological thriller continues to unsettle audiences decades later.

The conversation examines how the film uses non-linear time, fragmented editing, and repeated visual motifs to create a constant sense of disorientation. Chuck and Matt discuss Roeg’s belief that time is “lateral,” not linear, and how that philosophy shapes the audience’s experience — particularly on a second viewing.

They focus heavily on the film’s central theme of grief, looking at how John and Laura Baxter process the death of their daughter in very different ways: John through work and rationality, Laura through spirituality, therapy, and eventually psychic mediums. This contrast becomes a key driver of the story and its emotional weight.

The episode also breaks down:

The importance of water imagery, from the opening drowning scene to the canals of Venice
The repeated and symbolic use of the color red, especially the red raincoat
How Venice itself functions as a fractured, maze-like environment that mirrors the characters’ emotional and psychological states
The ambiguity surrounding the two sisters, Wendy and Heather, and whether they are spiritual guides, manipulators, or something else entirely
The growing sense of dread created by the background murders and the constant suggestion that something is wrong

Chuck and Matt discuss the film’s most famous sequence — the intimate hotel room scene — in terms of its place in 1970s cinema, its controversy, and how it fits thematically rather than feeling gratuitous.

They also talk about Donald Sutherland’s performance and career, his physical and emotional vulnerability in the film, and how his work in the 1970s helped define a new kind of adult, psychologically complex cinema.

Finally, the episode looks at Don’t Look Now’s long-term influence on later filmmakers, including its parallels to films like The Sixth Sense and Christopher Nolan’s Memento, particularly in how narrative structure and delayed revelation reshape meaning on repeat viewings.

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You're listening to an encore presentation of the Cinematic Flashback Podcast.

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Welcome to the Cinematic Flashback Podcast. Get ready to hop

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into the wayback machine as we journey through the wild, bold,

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and unforgettable films of the nineteen seventies. Each episode will

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break down a classic or not so classic movie with

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a fun, fresh approach. We'll explore the who's who of

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each film, dive into the premise and the plot, and

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see how it performed then and now, and wrap things

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up with did it groof to the decades or lose

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its beat? Today we're covering Don't Look Now, a nineteen

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seventy three film by director Nicholas Rogue starring Donald Sutherland

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and Julie Christie, based on the short story by Daphne

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du Moyer. Welcoming back as Matt.

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Sergeant Matt, welcome back, Glad to be here.

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Ah, we missed you at the midnights last time. I

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had quite a bit of fun.

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Oh, I'm sorry I missed it and you have to apologize.

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I have to apologize for my voice today. I have

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a bit of a cold, so I have an even

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deeper voice today, which is hardly possible.

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I am sorry to hear that. However, we will enjoy

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your deeper voice today.

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Hey, Hey, what on earth?

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Essential?

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It was Christine, Christine's deadler.

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You're said, you're so sad and there's no need to be.

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I've seen her, my sister's psyche.

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You can't contact people, can you. She's trying to get

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in touch with us, just.

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Trying to warn us.

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Don't Look Now as a nineteen seventy three film starring

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Donald Sutherland and Julie Christy as John and Laura Baxter.

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They are supported by Hilary Mason and Khalia Mattina as

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the two sisters. The film was directed by Nicholas Rogue,

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music composed by Pino di Naggio, and was edited by

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Graham Clifford. You can find this film streaming with ads

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free on Pluto TV, or if you'd rather rent it,

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you can rent it from services like Apple, Amazon and others.

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Spoiler warning. If you've ever seen this film, you know

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it's difficult to discuss it or the elements of this

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film without giving too much away. In this episode, there

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will be spoilers. Roger Ebert said of this film that

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Don't Look Now remains one of the great horror masterpieces,

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working not with fright, which is, but rather with grief

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and fear Matt overall. What were your initial impressions of

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this film.

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I had never even heard of this film, so it

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was very new to me when I watched it, and

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I did watch it in kind of broken up into sections,

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which wasn't optimal, But then I watched it all the

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way through. Can you imagine going to the movie theater

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and just basically going, well, I got to sit through

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the whole thing, and I cannot. I don't have no

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rest of it. It would have been a lot different experience.

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I bring away a kind of a unique view since

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I kind of saw it twice without resolute once without

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resolution and the second time with the resolution of the end,

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which really was impactful because I had had so many

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questions for both watchings. You know, you figure that on

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the first watch you're like, oh, okay, I don't really understand

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what's going on because I kind of start and stopped it.

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So then I watched it the second time. I'm just

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as confused until the end. I'm not sure how much

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other people's experience is anything more than it's a pretty

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crazy movie. You should definitely see it because it'll probably

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be a different experience for you. So that's what I

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think we're going to come away with.

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The gamut of reactions for this film that I have

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seen runs the whole spectrum. Some people say this is

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the scariest film I've ever seen, and I'm not in

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that case either. I've read people say I was bored

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to tears all the way through up until the end.

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I might be a little bit more in that camp

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on my first viewing, but after others were saying that

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you need to watch it a second time is when

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I thought the film hit a lot better than it

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did the first time.

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Yeah, I would agree with that. I think we get

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upset when filmmakers sort of dumb everything down for us,

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right and sort of spoon feed us things. A lot

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of movies, this is not that film. This is not

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that film. This film is a film where you go

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in and you're like, he's expecting a high level of

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paying attention and understanding what you're seeing. And honestly, I'm

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probably in the camp of I've been used to being

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spoon fed so much that the first time I watched

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I was kind of like, I don't know what's going

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on here and there's some notes. I need a cliff

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notes of this thing. And I think movie viewers of

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the time, we're probably much more. This is a big event.

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We're going to the cinema and we're going to go

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see this movie. It's not just churn and burn, you know,

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shoot them up movies. These are cinematic masterpieces being put together,

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and so it required a next level of attention. So

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in our recommendations when we talk to people, if they're

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listening to this, I would say one of the things

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that you can really do a self a favor on

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this movie is to really sit down and be prepared

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to pay attention on the first time. I think you'll

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get a lot more out of it.

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Man, I want to play for you a clip of

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director Nicholas Rogue and what he was saying about Time.

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We tend to believe in the familiar. We tend to

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say that's the definite of course, that's the way we

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run into serious trouble. Time definitely has a linear sense

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to it. I don't believe it. I believe it's lateral.

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Film made me unsettled the first time I watched it,

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and I didn't really understand why, and that's because I

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did not realize that Nicholas Rogue was playing with time,

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and the movie is told more or less linearly, but

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there are elements of the film that are out of place,

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and that created for me a sense of not really

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sure where I was the first time I watched the film.

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On the second viewing, knowing that a lot of things

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started to make sense to me, and it reminded me

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of the sixth Sense with Bruce Willis, where the first

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time you watched the film, you really don't know what's

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going on, and then the last five minutes of the

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film changes your entire perception of the movie, and then

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you can go back and watch it again and you

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enjoy it from a different aspect because now you're starting

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to see how all the elements begin to weave together.

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And I believe that Don't Look Now also shares that

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same characteristic.

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I have to agree with you one hundred percent, and

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even more strangely for me, as I didn't watch the

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whole thing through the first time, I watched in sections

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and I didn't get all the way through, and then

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I said I'm going to sit down and watch the

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whole thing because I am so confused and it's so

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funny because if I had just watched to the end,

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I would have figured out what's going on in the film,

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and that's why things don't seem to make sense and

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really throw you for a loop doing it. I was

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really kind of like, I don't know what's going on

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in this. I think it was effective because I didn't

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really understand that's what was happening. I mean, you always

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have sent some flashbacks in movies because it gives you

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backstory without having to do a bunch of exposition, right,

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so your main character is able to explain why the

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why they are the way they are without having to

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actually say the words of you know. And we see

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this in you know, in classical plays the soliloquy and

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when the actor sits there and has a long speech

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to the audience. Those fulfilled basically what a flashback would

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be doing. Before they really understood the effectiveness of trying

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to stage a flashback on the stage, you know, they

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talk about, this is what the person's thinking. How do

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you show what somebody's thinking? You know? So to me

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it was like, okay, I didn't care about the flashbacks.

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That didn't sort of set me off, But then everything

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else was like super disjoint. But I didn't really realize

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they were disjoint because it wasn't like he was seeing

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them in radically different clothing or aged like. It's not

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like a flash forward where you see yourself in the

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future where you're very aged but the current person is

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very young.

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It was all very it's all very neat, it's all

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very near times.

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So it was confusing, which was super effective because it

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made you feel like uncomfortable and not understand exactly what's happened.

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I got to keep watching and then it started when

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things going to click in. It really is very It

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was very satisfying.

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So one of the major themes of Don't Look Now

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is how a couple deals with grief, and at the

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very beginning of the film, a tragedy happens. Let's let's

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talk about that now.

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Sure. I would also want to tell our listeners this

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is a is a powerful scene and if you have children,

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it can be tough to watch.

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The film starts with the death of John and Laura

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Baxter's daughter Christine, who is drowning upon that's on their property.

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No one wants to either childhard though the movie or

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since you're watching the movie, it's sort of a foregone

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conclusion that that something's going to happen to precipitate the

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rest of the movie. You know, in the scene when

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Donald Sutherland's acting it, he clearly doesn't know that his

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child is has died, and so you go through all

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of that emotional, heart wrenching acting, which is, in my opinion,

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it was excellent. It was excellent acting. But he's he's

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a master, so to be expected. It sets up the

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rest of the movie all throughout.

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Some of the imagery established in this opening scene repeat

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several times in the film.

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Sure.

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I think one of the ones we definitely want to

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talk about is water is huge in this movie. Obviously

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in this scene they're in the English countryside, but the

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salient thing that happens is drowning in water in a

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pond is raining, and when they get to Venice, virtually

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everything is water. I get around on water. Water is

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you know, they have to navigate around it because it separated.

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You can't get away from water.

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It's a very very powerful part of how that all

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winds through. I have a little problem with as the

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movie goes forward. You know, when parents lose a child,

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I think the last thing in the world they do

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is take the remaining child and send them off to

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boarding school. I just don't It didn't ring true to me.

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I think the first thing you would do after you

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lose a child is cling that other child to you,

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and because you're just you want to be the protector.

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So sending them off to boarding school seemed a little weird.

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And it might have been an artifact of the movie

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because later on in the movie we know that for

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some reason we have to draw the Julie Christi character

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Laura away from Venice, and so that's a good method

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to do that. But to me, I was like, yeah,

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I don't think that was gonna happen. Yeah, I don't

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think any parent I've ever met, if they lost a child,

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would let the other child just go to boarding school,

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especially because he was still quite young.

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So one of the things that I noticed in this

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particular scene was just the use of sound, and more

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like the lack of sound in some cases, because when

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you see John leaving the home, there's really nothing there,

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and it's not until he dives into the water and

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comes back up that he just releases this guttural cry

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as he's holding Christine and I could talk about how

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much I love this musical score, but right there, as

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he is crying out, the score comes in with this

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strong cello, Hugh that you just feel like it's coming

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so far inside of him as he's trying to revive

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his daughter.

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I think you're absolutely right. I mean that, and it

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sets up the tone for the rest of the film.

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But I mean, then we've just covered the opening scene.

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But I think it does talk a lot about the

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rest of the movie. It kind of gives you the

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feeling the dread and the foreboding even though things look

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like they're going well on the surface, and things like that.

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Well, one other aspect of the music that I wanted

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to point out was the piano piece that's playing at

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the very beginning. It's played as if it was played

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by a little child. It's a little choppy, it's very simple,

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and it's as if somebody was reading it for the

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first time as they were playing the music. Maybe this

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is Christine playing a song as we go through the movie.

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That melody keeps coming back through the film, getting stronger

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and bigger and more completely all the way up to

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the very final moments of the film.

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That's good observation. It probably was lost on me a

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little bit, although I feel like it was just yet

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one of another thing that was sort of building, that

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uncomfortable progressing dread. You know, we're doing movies of the

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nineteen seventies here, and I think this is a great

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example of what was generally happening. One of the reasons

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we picked the nineteen seventies is so much was happening

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in cinema at that time, so many changes, so much

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X experimentations, And this movie is a good example of

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that because it really the blurred genre. Is it a

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psychological thriller, is it a horror? Is it supernatural? You know?

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What is it? And and there are other movies that

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came out, The Exorcist and some other movies that came

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out later sort of exploring some of those same things.

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They deal with something that movies didn't deal with a lot,

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which was grief in psychological issues that would go on serily.

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Laura's obviously in therapy or because we see in the

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scene later on where she's like, I feel like I'm cured.

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Listen, I'm perfectly all right, and I haven't done as

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good as this in months and months.

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I feel really fine. I don't need pills.

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I'm not going crazy.

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I feel really great.

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And then you've already covered a lot of the techniques

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and the sound which was amazing, and there's a lot

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of ambiguity, which wasn't really a thing until the seventies

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came along. So the movies were you know, Act one,

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Act two, resolve in Act three and everybody's happy, and

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they leave, they leave the theater.

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We'll take a quick intermission here, just enough time to

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grab some popcorn or top off your drink. You're listening

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to the Cinematic Flashback podcast. Stay tuned. The show continues

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right after that, and we're back. I hope you enjoyed

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that brief intermission. Now let's roll the next reel and

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get back into the conversation. Okay, So now the movie

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shifts from into Venice, where John is working on a

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church restoration, and we're also introduced to two additional characters

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who will play throughout the rest of the film, Wendy

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and her blind sister Heather. And Heather has the gift

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to second sight, and in the bathroom, she tells Laura

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that she has seen their daughter Christine sitting between her

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and John.

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I hope you don't think is rude?

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Rude?

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Why I mean staring at you out there? Well, franctless

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stare is a two of us comes from living in

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the country.

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You know, country people.

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Oh, misty more, I'm Frctice.

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Sorry.

293
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Oh well, I didn't know Stephen, if you were any.

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Kind which I e.

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Is it tear the lift one? Well, let me help.

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How can you hilp?

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I can try?

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Oh no, just tie up. The last time you tried

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poking the foul.

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Perhaps I can help.

301
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Do you think?

302
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Oh that's awfully kind of you. My sister's blind.

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You see, You're.

304
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Said, was so sad, and there's no need to be.

305
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My sister's psychic.

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She wants you to know I've seen her, and she

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wants you to know that she's happy. I've seen your

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little girl sitting between you and your husband and she

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was laughing.

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Yes, oh yes, she's with you.

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She's with you, my dear, and she's laughing.

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She's wearing.

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A shiny little man.

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Christie.

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Oh, but she's loving. She's loving. He's happy as can be.

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They claim to see a little girl, They claim to

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relate that everything's okay. A drowning of a young victim

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in a young family is fairly unusual. And then for

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them to move to Venice. Remember those two ladies were

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from England as well, and they were in Venice. It

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could have been that they just knew. So there is

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some ambiguity where you're like, are these just a couple

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of grifters who are going to try to play a

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scam and get some money from you know, Laura and

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capitalize on a grief. So you're immediately you're suspicious. Yes,

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you're suspicious. Immediately it was like the whole scene, I'm

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going out. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Oh,

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so the prediction was the daughter that you recently lost

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that you're absolutely grieving for, is happy and fine. Talk

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about a receptive audience, right, You're going to go to

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someone and say the daughter that you recently drowned in

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your pond blames you and hates you. No one's gonna

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say that. So the setup for that thing is you're

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immediately supposed to be skeptical because it's such a patent,

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you know, truism that you would tell is that, oh,

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your poor daughter that just passed away cares about you

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and is happy and you know all those things you

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want to hear. And now if just for a few

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more dollars, I can I do a poem reading for

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you and tell you what's going to happen in the future.

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You know, Well, what I think it really shows here

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is that John and Laura are handling their grief differently.

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John is almost ignoring it and he's just throwing himself

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completely into his work, while Laura is trying to process

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her grief through counseling or through spirituality, trying to address

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it with religion, and now she's moving more into the

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mediums and seances. But you notice that all the men

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in the movie tend to be very pragmatic, while the

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women of the movie tend to be base less on

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what you can physically see, touch and more with what

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you can't see.

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I would agree. I would agree with that. I think

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it's a good observation, and it also might be a

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people hate to say it, but it might be something

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that's sort of true in a lot of cases that

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men handle their grief in one way with action. Women

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who are more thoughtful, generally more verbal, really want to

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talk it out, so they tend to handle their grief

359
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in another way. And again that's not a universal rule

360
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or anything, right in this particular story, that's how they

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were characterized in it, and it opens up the door

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for those two ladies.

363
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So, Matt, what did you think of the way the

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film used Venice as a backdrop.

365
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I thought it was effective, especially when you take in

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consideration the opening scenes with the drowning of the little

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child in the rain and in the pond. And I

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think Venice is like another actor in the movie because

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that she throws up lots of problems of navigating trying

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to get from one place to another, because you know,

371
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there are a couple of chase scenes and Venice really

372
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kind of throws a monkey wrench into chasing someone the way.

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Now we went over this bridge already.

374
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Well, I never mind it being lost in Venice.

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Down here.

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If we take a second left and we're going to

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break Oh yeah, yeah, nice, dark littlely.

378
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What I found interesting was normal when you see movies

379
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with Venice in it, you're always seeing all the big

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touristy spots. I really felt like that I was seeing

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the back alleys John and Laura get lost as they're

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going to dinner. Even the city that you're in is fractured.

383
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It felt fractured, is what it felt like to me.

384
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I think that's right on one more question, did you

385
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notice the use of red throughout the film?

386
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I mean it was a touch point in terms of

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the little girl when she drowned, was wearing a red raincoat,

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and then the person that you see around Venice it

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was wearing a red raincoat. And then there's I think

390
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there's red on the slide of some of the pictures.

391
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So it definitely sort of was the thing that kept

392
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a callback.

393
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One aspect that you had mentioned about the color red

394
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or the bright coloring of the red was when it

395
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was the muted colors of everything else, so that it

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