RIP Nicholas Roeg

[DaveReading]

Don't Look Now is one of my favourite films ever.

 

[slowmotion]

I liked most of his stuff but I thought that The Man Who Fell To Earth was absolutely dire. Mick Jagger, as a gangster in Performance, was brilliant. Walkabout is wonderful too.
A really great director with a cameraman's eye.

RIP

 

[ColinJ]

I liked most of his stuff but I thought that The Man Who Fell To Earth was absolutely dire.
RIP

I went to watch a late night screening of it with a pal after a night out in Coventry in the late 1970s. We were a bit the worse for wear and found it really confusing, as did the rest of the audience. As the lights came back on in the cinema the manager walked in front of the screen and apologised to us - apparently they had shown the reels in the wrong sequence!

They let us all in free the next night to watch it again in the proper order. We STILL found it ridiculously confusing!

 

[bluenotebob]

Sad news. Agree with the above - both "Don't Look Now" and "Walkabout" were outstanding movies.

He also directed "Glastonbury Fayre" which was a very watchable account of the earliest of the Glastonbury music festivals (1972). I had this on VHS until it fell apart. It's worth looking for if you don't know of it.

 

[slowmotion]

I went to watch a late night screening of it with a pal after a night out in Coventry in the late 1970s. We were a bit the worse for wear and found it really confusing, as did the rest of the audience. As the lights came back on in the cinema the manager walked in front of the screen and apologised to us - apparently they had shown the reels in the wrong sequence!

They let us all in free the next night to watch it again in the proper order. We STILL found it ridiculously confusing!

The same thing happened to me in about 1974. A midnight start in The Arts Cinema for L'Aveu, a stupendiously tedious and earnest film by Costa-Gavras. By about 2:30am, the stoned-out student body realised that the cinema had got the reels in the wrong order, several times over. Some earnest peeps wanted to stage a sit-in in order to get the ticket price back in protest. Solidarity was not on show.
The proleteriat left with a massive desire to sate a bad case of The Munchies.

 

[Chris S]

View attachment 440223 Walkabout is wonderful too.
RIP

+1 You get to see Jenny Agutter nude

 

[slowmotion]

+1 You get to see Jenny Agutter nude

I could attempt to describe why I like the film, but the pretentious bollocks thread is thataway>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

[Yellow Fang]

I loved Walkabout and I liked The Man Who Fell To Earth. I don't think I could bring myself to watch the whole of Don't Look Now, it was that unpleasant.

 

[Blue Hills]

View attachment 440223 I liked most of his stuff but I thought that The Man Who Fell To Earth was absolutely dire. Mick Jagger, as a gangster in Performance, was brilliant. Walkabout is wonderful too.
A really great director with a cameraman's eye.

RIP

Man Who Fell to Earth is in my opinion very good, though admitedly rather off the wall. Originally saw it soon after it came out. Saw it more recently in a church in Streatham* and liked it more, though it is true that at the end someone complained about having wasted their time.

* Churches are great places to see films, and respect to the church that allowed its space to be used as there's some quite kinky sexual stuff in the film (or maybe, as someone suggested, they didn't quite realise what the film was)

 

[Blue Hills]

I went to watch a late night screening of it with a pal after a night out in Coventry in the late 1970s. We were a bit the worse for wear and found it really confusing, as did the rest of the audience. As the lights came back on in the cinema the manager walked in front of the screen and apologised to us - apparently they had shown the reels in the wrong sequence!

They let us all in free the next night to watch it again in the proper order. We STILL found it ridiculously confusing!

I used to project films for the university film soc - serious 35mm projection kit. I was for while even projection manager and we used to project films for other university societies. A guy who often projected stuff for the India Soc told me that he at least once showed reels of their bollywood films in the wrong order and that no one noticed let alone complained
oh - once showed a Bunuel film and managed to jam the film in the gate so that the image burned on screen. Afterwards some folk admitted that they had been pondering the significance of this until the enforced pause while I salvaged and stuck the reel back together again.

 

[AndyRM]

He also directed The Witches, which is one of my favourite Roald Dahl adaptations. I rewatched recently and I'd forgotten how dark it is.

 

[slowmotion]

Man Who Fell to Earth is in my opinion very good, though admitedly rather off the wall. Originally saw it soon after it came out. Saw it more recently in a church in Streatham* and liked it more, though it is true that at the end someone complained about having wasted their time.

* Churches are great places to see films, and respect to the church that allowed its space to be used as there's some quite kinky sexual stuff in the film (or maybe, as someone suggested, they didn't quite realise what the film was)

Visually it was great, but my fundamental problem with it was that Bowie simply couldn't act.

 

[Blue Hills]

You don't think that certain odd other worldliness fitted him playing an odd alien then?

I thought it fitted the character.

I understand that bowie was pretty strung out on stuff at the time but nevertheless had an impressive work ethic.

Anyone seen Bad Timing or have views on it?

I think I may have seen the press preview of it but that it passed me by at the time. As a fair few films did when younger which I now appreciate more.

 

[AndyRM]

You don't think that certain odd other worldliness fitted him playing an odd alien then?

I thought it fitted the character.

I understand that bowie was pretty strung out on stuff at the time but nevertheless had an impressive work ethic.

Anyone seen Bad Timing or have views on it?

I think I may have seen the press preview of it but that it passed me by at the time. As a fair few films did when younger which I now appreciate more.

Yeah, I've seen it. Needs more than one watch as it's non linear and tricky to follow at times, but it's a thing of beauty (as you'd expect) and well worth getting your head around. I reckon Christopher Nolan must love it.

 

[slowmotion]

I'd forgotten Bad Timing. I thought it was good.