Nicolas Roeg: An Auteur’s Visual Journey (TFR Article)

by Meseret Haddis

In examining Nicolas Roeg’s early films, it’s not surprising that the filmmaker officially broke into his career as a camera operator and cinematographer. There’s something extremely distinct in his films, especially the first two, Performance and Walkabout, wherein he functioned both as director and cinematographer. An arresting visual style, matched with simple performances and montage editing, helped to create a fevered, dream-like experience of images and sound.

Sound vs. Images

At many points in Roeg’s early films, there seems to be a conflicting motive between what we are seeing and what we are hearing. A great example of this type of juxtaposition is in Walkabout, where two children are stranded in the Australian Outback after their father kills himself, forced to find civilization under the guidance of an aborigine boy doing his walkabout (a journey of survival and an initiation into manhood). As the opening credits begin, we hear the scrambled noises that fall in between radio stations; the children later use the radio as a means of comfort. Treading along in this new environment and trying to survive in a desolate land, they cling to the one artifact that reminds them of their home.

After the credits end, a red brick wall fills the screen. The camera slowly tracks rightward as music from the aborigine instrument, the didgeridoo, is heard. Behind the brick wall, we see a cityscape of Sydney. As the shots of the city and people compile together, there are shorter, rightward tracking shots of the same brick wall, although the Australian Outback is now revealed in place of the city. The viewer transitions from one jungle to the next.

In the film Performance, Chaz – a thug on the getaway for disregarding his boss’ orders - hides in a retired musicians’ commune until he leave the country. Music is an important element in the film. In fact, here’s where the struggle between image and sound becomes clear: one must dominate the other. This relationship mirrors the conflict between the two main characters (Chaz and Turner), wherein one has to dominate the other. Mr. Turner’s struggle is an internal one, represented by the sound of the Moog synthesizer, while Chaz’s is a struggle of getting out of the country.

The Sun and the Lens Flare

While lens flare was once considered a clichéd indicator of amateur cinematography, Roeg uses it as an effective cinematic device. In Don’t Look Now, for instance - a story about a couple’s life after the death of their daughter – the wife, Laura, meets a blind psychic who views her daughter. At one point, the psychic warns Laura that her husband is in danger. Her husband, John, who is renovating a church, receives some mosaic pieces from the bishop and wants to compare them to the original. But as he steps onto the ladder, the camera is pointed directly at a floodlight. As he climbs past the camera, the lens flared, melded with an image of the psychic and giving an ominous premonition to John’s fate.

In Walkabout, the sun is constantly shown alongside the vast landscape of the Outback. It’s not odd that the sun’s appearance throughout the film mirrors the daunting feeling that the two children are experiencing while traveling in the wasteland. The constant barrage of heat also contributes to the mindset of these characters, becoming increasingly primal as the films progresses. After the children meet the aborigine boy, a montage of images of the sun leaves the viewer a little dry-mouthed and warm.

Blending and the Illusion of Continuity

Dissolves were a technique used during the early days of cinema that lead viewers from one image to another without losing the audience’s train of thought. The logic, thus, was to ease the viewers into scenes without startling them by a cut. However, if executed properly, viewers can certainly follow a story that is cut and mangled. On example is in Bad Timing, where a young woman and a doctor have a relationship that goes terribly wrong. The film opens with the young woman is in the hospital, and we watch as a doctor dances around the questions posed by the police. During this sequence, the doctor remembers aspects of his relationship with the young woman; a fight, a look, them having sex, etc. By the end of the film, we can piece together what happened to this young woman; although it feels disjointed and erratic, it’s actually quite logical. Roeg pointed out that the film is constructed according to the shape of human memory and, thus, doesn’t develop as one complete story but, rather, in pieces.

Order is something that Roeg likes to play with frequently, especially the flash-forward. In Performance, Mr. Turner is shown early in the film, long before he’s introduced. We don’t hear any dialogue, nor do we encounter any other significant information about him. But a connection is being created here between Turned and Chaz. Roeg uses the flash-forward in a way to temporarily disrupt continuity, or to give the illusion that things are out of sync when, in actuality, they aren’t.

There’s a particular scene in Don’t Look Now where John and Luara are having sex, but while they having sex the continuity is intercut with them dressing right after and it goes from them having sex to each of them dressing and back and forth until both acts are completed. Here, the illusion of time is suspended between the couple having sex and then re-dressing, but the cutting blends together the time of the couple having sex and of them dressing into one time frame, comparing the routine of their having sex with getting dressed.

There’s a definite arc to Roeg’s early films - from a visual director who captured counter-culture and beatniks in Performance, to a director who blended images and content to convey story and emotion in Walkabout, and to a complete dismantling of how continuity works in relation to what we are seeing. Roeg’s early work is a testament to a strong visual story and the progression of someone who wants to astound the audience by making them not want to look away from what they are seeing.