RIP Nico­las Roeg: A career inter­view with the late British filmmaker

You haven’t answered a tele­phone until you’ve answered a tele­phone and the voice at the end of the line says, ​“Hel­lo, Nic Roeg here. Can you come to my house now?” This hap­pened to me in the autumn of 2010, when I was work­ing on the film desk for Time Out Lon­don mag­a­zine. We had con­duct­ed a poll to dis­cov­er the best British film of all time and Roeg’s frac­tured grief opus Don’t Look Now won by a minia­ture landslide.

We want­ed to talk to Roeg about his vic­to­ry, so I had sup­plied my con­tact details to his son, Luc, who had promised he’d pass them on. All I had at this point in my career was a deep love of Nic Roeg’s aggres­sive­ly idio­syn­crat­ic and impres­sion­is­tic film work, and the prospect of inter­view­ing this tow­er­ing mae­stro of the sev­enth art was daunt­ing to say the least.

To his brusque ques­tion, posed on the tele­phone, I nat­u­ral­ly answered in the affir­ma­tive, dust­ed off my dic­ta­phone and hopped on the Tube from Tot­ten­ham Court Road direct to Hol­land Park. En route to his house I bought him a bot­tle of Beefeater Gin, for which he seemed sur­pris­ing­ly grate­ful. He asked, on the spot, if I’d like a gin and ton­ic (I declined due to nerves, and I’m cer­tain he chuck­led in a way which inferred, ​‘Aww, bless’ rather than, ​‘Hmm, lightweight.’).

He invit­ed me up to his study, a mag­i­cal cove of alter­na­tive cinephile his­to­ry sit­u­at­ed at the front of his hand­some ter­race. Through trem­bling nerves, I man­aged to artic­u­late a few ques­tions, though I can def­i­nite­ly recall that, at the time, his answers were some­thing of a blur as my focus was divert­ed entire­ly to being ready with the next prompt. Yet it was an excit­ing encounter which, like his films, switched back and forth in chronol­o­gy and packed in thoughts and ideas.

It was deeply sad­den­ing to hear of his death at the age of 90, and even though he hadn’t made a film since 2007’s divi­sive Puff­ball, it feels that he’s nev­er been dis­con­nect­ed from the pub­lic con­scious­ness. So many of his films have now assumed clas­sic sta­tus, it’s hard to know if there are any left which now haven’t been ordained as such. With kind per­mis­sion from Time Out, below is the full tran­script of that inter­view, as we felt it is cer­tain­ly prefer­able for us to remem­ber this one-of-a-kind film artist through his own words, mus­ings, spec­u­la­tions and remem­brances than it is to lament his pass­ing through sub­jec­tive rec­ol­lec­tion. He was and very much still is one of the absolute best.

Do you recall the last time you watched Don’t Look Now?

Roeg: Gol­ly, it was some time ago. I’ve seen clips and things, and I’ve intro­duced it at fes­ti­vals. It’s quite inter­est­ing see­ing it in clips, as it gives you these lit­tle hints that remind you where you were going at that time. Fun­ni­ly enough, I don’t real­ly like watch­ing a movie I’ve fin­ished. I mean, I do, but it’s very dif­fi­cult because, I guess, this film became part of your life. Movies are very curi­ous: mak­ing them is not just a case of going in to work then going out again. For every­one on the crew, it becomes his or her life, espe­cial­ly when you’re on loca­tion. You’re there and you can’t stop it. It’s not nine to five: a film is there the whole time. The only thing revis­it­ing a film can do is make you see the things you think you could improve upon. It also makes you remem­ber where you were, per­son­al­ly speaking.

Don’t Look Now is an extreme­ly atmos­pher­ic movie. Would you encour­age peo­ple to see it on a big screen?

It’s very fun­ny that. I recent­ly saw The Div­ing Bell and the But­ter­fly on my own, very pri­vate­ly, on a char­ter plane. I had the whole cab­in to myself. Had a cou­ple of Mar­ti­nis. I thought it was an extra­or­di­nary piece of work, and I was deeply involved in it, and I couldn’t have got that deeply involved if I’d seen it on the big screen with oth­er peo­ple. I just thought, thank good­ness I’ve seen this film in this way.

Do you watch a film like The Div­ing Bell and the But­ter­fly and think that the direc­tor may have been influ­enced by you?

No. But I’m very flat­tered you think so. Maybe my films should have an audi­ence of one too!

Do you remem­ber the peri­od of mak­ing Don’t Look Now as being a pos­i­tive one?

Film is a curi­ous thing: you’re prepar­ing it, work­ing on it and think­ing about it for a long time before you get to shoot the thing. Sud­den­ly you give birth to this piece. Film­mak­ing is like being a jock­ey. After the race, inter­views with jock­eys are very inter­est­ing. One inter­view stuck in my mind – and I’m aware it sounds a lit­tle mad mak­ing the con­nec­tion between moviemak­ing and horse rac­ing – when they said to a jock­ey, ​‘you were lying third, did you know you were going to come through?’ and then, ​‘I was third, but I want­ed to hold him back until he want­ed to go. I just felt him: HE want­ed to go’. The horse is the one who’s direct­ing the jock­ey. It’s the same rela­tion­ship between a film and a direc­tor. Sounds a bit airy-fairy, but it’s true.

There’s a mar­vel­lous line in The Trea­sure of the Sier­ra Madre when the old man stops at the foot of the moun­tain, and the old man picks up a rock and says, ​‘Nahh, that’s fool’s gold!’. But sud­den­ly, in anoth­er scene he starts danc­ing. ​‘What’re you danc­ing for you old ass?!’ and he says, ​‘You don’t see the gold beneath your feet!’ In film­mak­ing, the gold is often locat­ed in the most unlike­ly places. The world is full of the­o­ries, but nine out of ten, if not ten out of ten begin to change. Our cre­ativ­i­ty is bound by our experience.

For a film like Don’t Look No, there are seg­ments at the begin­ning and end that are cut and edit­ed in mosa­ic pattern.

I find them in the edit. I like it to sur­prise me, and I shoot a lot. I like shoot­ing a lot because the urgency is essen­tial to the open­ing of the work. Some peo­ple like to take a long time to do scenes, but I like to get a lot of shots and get involved with, say, char­ac­ters sit­ting in a room. Mak­ing a shot of two peo­ple in a room inter­est­ing, you have to cre­ate dis­trac­tions and sug­ges­tions: the char­ac­ters are look­ing at one anoth­er and think­ing, ​‘I know you’re not just think­ing of me…’.

I’ve read the word ​“Hitch­cock­ian” when peo­ple were writ­ing about Don’t Look Now at the time of its release. Are you hap­py with that?

Yes, very flat­tered. He was a won­der­ful film­mak­er and had an amaz­ing atti­tude towards film. When peo­ple say that one direc­tor is influ­enced by anoth­er, I always just think that every­one is influ­enced by every­one and every­thing. How could we not be? If you’ve enjoyed some­thing, that’s prob­a­bly because that’s the way you think of it. It’s more about the per­son than the sub­ject. When some­one says, ​‘I find that dis­gust­ing!’, I just think, ​‘Oh you do, do you? How inter­est­ing.’ It works for atti­tudes, pol­i­tics, sex – everything.

You’ve had trou­ble with cen­sor­ship in the past, espe­cial­ly with films like Per­for­mance and Bad Tim­ing. Does that side of the busi­ness wor­ry you?

Cen­sor­ship is an ever-chang­ing thing. It’s all about tim­ing, as far as the artist is con­cerned. What would’ve nev­er been allowed or ter­ri­ble back then – polit­i­cal­ly, cer­tain­ly sex­u­al­ly – is okay now. The abil­i­ty of retain­ing the image: in Shake­speare­an terms. What’s in fash­ion is a case in point. It’s not more fash­ion­able to get in to a chic restau­rant with­out a tie than it is with a tie.

In a film like Bad Tim­ing, were you aware when you were mak­ing it that it was going to cause trouble?

No, I was excit­ed by it, because it is a sit­u­a­tion that had no par­tic­u­lar­ly social struc­ture to it. It didn’t mat­ter whether some­one was a pro­fes­sor, or else a milk­man. Going back to Don’t Look Now, it is movie was about peo­ple dis­cussing with one anoth­er, who they were and what they did. I real­ly like the fact that it was an Amer­i­can man – Don­ald Suther­land – with an British woman – Julie Christie. It was extra inter­est­ing because Suther­land is actu­al­ly Cana­di­an. It was pure, phys­i­cal and men­tal exchange, and not because of back­ground or nation­al­i­ty. They were still British.

For me, Don’t Look Now is about express­ing love in a dif­fer­ent way. I remem­ber that I want­ed to show some­thing at the end – I can tell you now because it’s been out for 30 years! – in a scene where Julie’s on the funer­al barge, and the two old­er sis­ters are with her. We arrived at the set and Julie had a lot of make-up on and a veil. She also had this lit­tle tube with an acidic sub­stance in it, and when you blow it, it makes you cry. Make-up want­ed to see a stained cheek. I saw this scene and just thought, they had a won­der­ful fam­i­ly life, and the sis­ters were weep­ing in the back­ground, and I thought, that’s fine from them. But I’d real­ly like to have some­thing step up, and fin­ish on a moment that was beyond the obvi­ous. You see some­thing that would be a secret in Julie Christie’s head. So I said, ​‘put the vale up, and when you’re stood on the bow of the boat. I want you to smile. Unde­feat­ed, like Queen Christi­na!’ I remem­ber Julie said, ​‘Oh God, Nic! Are you crazy?’ I think it’s fan­tas­tic. It’s a big fuck you to fate. It’s say­ing that the love they had couldn’t be topped. Fantastic.

In the Daphne du Mau­ri­er nov­el, isn’t Don­ald Sutherland’s final line after he’s been slashed by the dwarf, ​‘Oh what a bloody sil­ly way to die!’

Oh no, we couldn’t have used that! When you’re adapt­ing a book, it’s in a dif­fer­ent place. The premise of the whole piece becomes more impor­tant than the moment. I liked this book because it was a place you could see a hap­py family.

The infa­mous sex scene in the film: some peo­ple see it as this moment of pure bliss, oth­ers read it as an out­burst of anguish.

Sex, whether you like it or not, we all know that it’s the prime force of life. There is no oth­er rea­son to be here. It’s quite curi­ous in many films you only see the meet­ing, the flow­er­ing of sex. You hear all the intrigue about how, ​‘oh, she loved the oth­er guy at the par­ty’. It’s not about a hap­py mar­riage. The first stage of recov­ery – here, from the loss of a child, who was made by you-know-what – would only be a reminder, and that’s why it’s won­der­ful when Don­ald smiles at the end of it. It was an affir­ma­tion of their love. For me, sex is very rarely rude. It’s a fresh thing. I think that peo­ple secret­ly con­nect­ed to Don’t Look Now for that reason.

The cen­sors saw things that didn’t hap­pen in the sex scene. Did this hap­pen? Did that hap­pen? It’s not unusu­al. The won­der of film is that because we relate to moments and emo­tions so deeply, we often see things that aren’t there. That there was no pas­sion­ate strip­ping off before­hand – he just wan­ders in from the bath­room. It was a step towards get­ting back to nor­mal and get­ting rid of a ter­ri­ble sad­ness that can strike again. Maybe that’s a rea­son why, after all this time when it’s looked at, peo­ple see that more clear­ly. When it came out, audi­ences were prob­a­bly less used to it. Back then I imag­ine that scene would’ve been like some­one burst­ing out of a cup­board and shout­ing ​‘boo!’

I get the impres­sion from watch­ing your films that you like to have a say in all the cin­e­mat­ic ele­ments – sound, sets, per­for­mances, cos­tume, camerawork.

Yes, of course.

Do you see your­self as an auteur?

Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to get in to what I see myself as.

One of my favourite scenes of yours is from Insignif­i­cance where Mary­lyn Mon­roe is explain­ing the the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty to Albert Einstein.

I’m always sur­prised that that hasn’t been picked up on more. It’s a mar­vel­lous sit­u­a­tion. Both talked by strangers in a com­plete­ly oppo­site way to how they’re behav­ing. And what she says is all true! So it’s the best les­son you’ll get in cin­e­ma. And from Mary­lyn! In real life, they’re both inven­tions of oth­er peo­ple. They adorn that inven­tion. They put it on. I knew a man who was involved in film – I won’t say who it was or even hint at it because of pri­va­cy – I know part of his extra­or­di­nar­i­ness and extrav­a­gant behav­iour was born of tremen­dous shy­ness and ner­vous­ness. And he had this extra­or­di­nary eccen­tric man­ner, and peo­ple mis­read it. I got to know him quite well. He was quite a pub­lic fig­ure in cer­tain cir­cles. We all dress up exter­nal­ly and inter­nal­ly to match the situation.

Do you find that with your­self? Are you a dif­fer­ent per­son on set than to how you are now?

I like being that. I think that hap­pens with lots of work sit­u­a­tions. I know that I’ve had tus­sles with artists, actors and pro­duc­ers – every­one! – but to get some­one on to the same wave­length is real­ly not to do with the sub­ject or the work, it’s get­ting to know some­one bet­ter. You may even find that what they’re say­ing could help what you’re going to do more than just doing what you’re going to do in defi­ance. That hap­pens in pol­i­tics, doesn’t it.

This may be a lit­tle off the beat­en track…

Ah, you’ve seen a lot of my movies!

Read­ing some reviews of Performance…

Richard Schick­el called it ​‘The worst movie ever made’.

…can you talk about David Litvi­nov? I saw he’s cred­it­ed as tech­ni­cal advi­sor on the film.

I don’t talk about him so much, but David Litvi­nov was a strange char­ac­ter. He was high­ly intel­li­gent. Very, very… I guess he was also quite aca­d­e­m­ic in a curi­ous way. He was in revolt against it, and against him­self. A lot of atti­tudes of the gen­er­a­tion were under­stood by him. He was a very good per­son – as far as Don­ald Cam­mell and I were con­cerned – that we could talk to pri­vate­ly. But he was a unique per­son­al­i­ty. For­tu­nate­ly, he was excit­ed at the event of mak­ing a film and he want­ed to be around and first to it.’

Is he still alive?

No. He’s dead.

Aside from Per­for­mance, a lot of your films are shot in oth­er coun­tries and cities. What’s the appeal for you in mak­ing films in strange lands?

I like being a stranger in a strange land. We don’t go to all the sites in Lon­don, because they’re there and we can always go to them tomor­row. When you’ve got some­one stay­ing with you in Lon­don, it’s awful when you’re dri­ving them around and they say, ​‘what’s that build­ing over there?’. You’d just have to keep say­ing, ​‘I don’t know!’ You’d just end up lying and say­ing, ​‘Well, that build­ing was a spy net­work and it had a work­ing rifle range in it.’ It might be true! I like that fact that things stand out, and then mak­ing the deci­sion of whether to show the tour guide’s view of anoth­er city. Some times it’s very invit­ing not to show those place.

In Don’t Look Now, Don­ald Suther­land is a church restor­er and he’s work­ing there, so there’d be no rea­son that we’d need to see any tourist land­marks. Before that, it’s very dif­fi­cult for me to see Lon­don in the way that a stranger sees it. Sto­ries seem to stand out more when you’re shoot­ing them in a place you don’t know. Espe­cial­ly Venice. I don’t think I’ve been to a city where you can walk down a nar­row street and you can hear foot­steps get­ting loud­er and loud­er and loud­er. It as if someone’s always behind you. The maze of those lit­tle alley­ways was a fan­tas­tic thing for me, but Vene­tians just don’t notice it. Com­ing back from loca­tion at two in the morn­ing is very strange. It’s set there for a lot of those reasons.

In a film like Cast­away, did you spend a long time look­ing for that island?

Those islands are just out­side the Sey­chelles. It comes out of con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple. You talk to them about what you want and the avail­abil­i­ty: they’ve been tak­en there to be cast­away, they’re not wrecked. The wreck comes of them not being able to get off. They’re not unknown, they’re vis­it­ing. The crew of the film, a lot of peo­ple stand rather aloof from them, but they all make the film. Prop man, is very impor­tant. I had a won­der­ful prop man who would be inside the scene, know how to dress the desk of this per­son and he would be able to tell when it’s been dressed well by the art depart­ment. When there are shelves of books done cor­rect­ly. I don’t want it to just be a big block of books from the prop house. I like to think the char­ac­ter would read those books.

An edit­ed ver­sion of this inter­view appeared in Time Out Lon­don mag­a­zine. It has been reprint­ed here with kind permission.