OCTOBER CHILLS: DON'T LOOK NOW (1973)

I envy anyone who's yet to watch Don't Look Now.  Even as a film that's only gained acclaim over the years since its 1973 release, it's still an under-the-radar classic waiting to be discovered by many of the most voracious film fans, despite recently being declared the best British film of all time by Time Out London.  Directed by the great Nicholas Roeg, whose 1971 film Walkabout is in my personal top ten, Don't Look Now tells the story of Laura and John Baxter (winningly portrayed by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland), a couple still processing the drowning death of their daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams).

Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier, whose other works had previously been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock for Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and The Birds, Roeg's treatment of the supernatural, manifested as psychic visions experienced by John and the questionable predictions of a clairvoyant blind woman (Hilary Mason), is a brilliant ploy to distract from the film's central theme; at its core, Don't Look Now is about primal, insurmountable grief from which there is no chance of recovery.

From the magnificently brutal opening where we witness Christine's drowning to the wicked irony of the film's denouement, the whole of the film is spent observing how tragedy has altered John, Laura, and their connection to each other.  Roeg's patented intercutting of time and space constructs a present where, though physically in Venice, John's emotional and mental states are frozen in the moment when his daughter perished back in England.  But even the current timeline offers no respite, as John begins seeing what could be visions of his daughter and wife against the waterlogged vistas of this iconic Italian backdrop. 

Don't Look Now is a challenging and ambitious vision of what horror films can achieve if the locus of terror is placed internally within the characters.  Nothing against films where the threat comes from without, but Roeg's map of the unspeakable is more finely illustrated than those of even the most prolific and revered craftsmen (and women) of the genre.  If you've never seen Don't Look Now, it's time.  Everyone else, why not give it another go?  It's a damn fine film, more than worthy of another look.

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HITCH ON 35MM: CINEMA 21 KICKS OFF AN ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE

While I was already patiently awaiting Universal Studios release of their massive Alfred Hitchcock blu-ray box set, an even better bit of Hitchcock related news hit my e-mail account last month.  Tom Ranieri and the top shelf crew at Portland's great Cinema 21 have done it again.  Following in the footsteps of their stellar noir series, they've cobbled together an amazing lineup of ol' Alf's finest films for what's being dubbed the first annual Hitchcock festival.  Best of all, the festival is entirely sourced from 35mm prints!

Now I've seen my fair share of classic films on the big screen , but what this festival has made me realize is that, 1) I've never seen my favorite Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps (or Vertigo, for that matter), projected on film before, and 2) with things progressing as they are, further and further towards an all-digital cinema future, this may be the last chance that most of us have to view these seminal, 20th century works on film.

Which is to say, you can expect to see me sitting in the balcony for as many of these films as I can possibly make it to during the series.  Sure, we'll always have the option to pop in the nice new digital transfers at home, but c'mon, these films deserve a little more respect.  Many props to Cinema 21 for giving 'em (and us) their proper due.  It's completely without hyperbole when I say that this is THE movie event in Portland this coming month.

BTW, if you're in the mood to get a lil' academic with your readings of these films, I can recommend no better text than the late, great film theorist Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films Revisited.  Magnificent stuff, I tell ya!

The Master of Suspense: The First Annual Hitchcock Festival begins at Cinema 21 on Friday, November 2nd.  More info available here.

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