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The first scene of Peter Roeg’s Don’t Look Now is the best example of

montage in the entire film. In it some of the key symbols and imagery used
throughout the film are set up. This imagery includes: the colour red, broken
glass and the crescent moon. These all carry symbolic undertones. There are
also some very interesting editing techniques, such as, the use of discontinuity,
match-on-action and graphic match. The diegetic and non-diegetic sound in the
film are used meticulously to add depth to the action. All of these elements are
added together to make the opening scene a virtuoso exercise in montage
editing.

The colour red is first seen on the character Christine Baxter (Sharon
Williams) in the form of her raincoat. Next we see it in on the ball that she
plays with. She then tosses the ball into the water as to foreshadow her own
drowning which takes place shortly after. There is also a red-hooded figure in a
church on a slide that Christine’s father John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) is
examining. When John spills his drink on the slide with the red figure, a red
stain resembling blood streams out from the figures head and across the slide
into the form of a crescent moon. The blood-like liquid protruding from the
figure foreshadows that at the end of the film the hooded figure will slash
John’s throat and he will die form blood-loss. Throughout the rest of the film red
acts as a reminder of Christine’s death and a symbol of death and blood in
general. The image on the slide is furthermore interesting because the blood,
in the form of a crescent, is what triggers his supernatural premonition that
something terrible is happening.

The figure of the crescent moon reoccurs throughout the film as a


symbol of the supernatural. The first, but very subtle, reference to it is in Laura
Baxter’s (Julie Christies) answer to Christine’s question: “If the earth is round,
why are frozen ponds flat?” Laura discovers that, “Lake Ontario is curved by
three degrees on either side,” to which John replies, “Nothing is what it seems”.
This image of a curved line sets up the theme throughout the film of the
supernatural. But, ironically – judging from what John has said– he refuses to
accept the possibility of the supernatural. This notion of nothing being what it
seems is all the more important because it is what leads to John’s death. He
can’t help but think that the red-hooded figure might be his daughter, but just
when he gets close enough to find out, it turns out she is a creepy old dwarf
lady who then slashes his throat and kills him. The crescent moon is seen more
explicitly later as a broach on the blind telepathic woman - who foresees the
doom of John and can see Christine’s ghost. It also appears in a mosaic that
John is reconstructing high atop some scaffolding. This is just before he falls
from the scaffolding and nearly plummets to his death, which the telepathic
blind woman with the crescent broach said would happen. The crescent figure
is most obviously used in the scene where John pulls Christine’s lifeless body
out of the water and holds her in his arms causing her to resemble the form of
the crescent. This is further exemplified when the scene dissolves from this
image to a close-up of the blood red crescent shaped stain on the slide of the
red figure in the church.

Broken glass makes its first appearance when Johnny Baxter (Nicholas
Salter) on his bike runs over some glass, shatters it and then falls down. Just as
this happens, there is a quick cut to a close up of John looking up from his desk
as if he heard it. But this would have been impossible because he is inside the
house and the boy is on the other side of the yard. The reason he
acknowledges it is, of course, because of his psychic abilities. The broken glass
symbolizes the shattering of the lives and psyches of the whole family. Johnny
falling off his bike also acts as a foreshadowing element emphasizing the
downfall of the family. After Johnny runs over the glass, he picks the broken
bits out of the tire, but accidentally cuts himself; further foreshadowing that
there will be more blood and death to come. He then nervously twiddles the
broken glass and nurses his cut finger all the while he is watching his dad
vainly attempting to resuscitate Christine. The use of broken glass as a symbol
of shattered psyches and falling down as the downfall of the family are
furthered later on in the film. Most specifically when Julie collapses over a table
in Venice and all the glass falls in slow motion crashing to the floor along with
her, which symbolizes the parent’s downfall and shattered psyches.

There are some interesting editing techniques in the first scene. In order
to hint at Christine’s drowning there is a shot of her throwing her red ball
toward the pond. Just as this is happening there is a quick cut to John spilling a
glass, saying, “Oh, shit”, then another quick cut back to the ball actually
landing in the water. It is a kind-of match on action cut and it suggests, through
the image of the spilling of the drink, that something is going to happen that is
out of the parent’s hands. The suggestion of what is going to happen (i.e.
Christine’s drowning) is pointed to when her ball lands in the water. Seeing as
the ball is red, which acts as a reminder and representation of Christine
throughout the whole film, it can be said that the ball landing in the water is a
foreshadowing of her death. Another interesting edit is a very telling graphic
match. The first shot is a close up of the slide with the red hooded figure and
the crescent shaped stream of red. The next is a medium tracking shot of the
red-jacketed Christine’s reflection in the pond as she runs along the shore.
Since it is a reflection, Christine is now upside down and skewed, suggesting
that the main character’s lives will be flipped upside down. It also sets up the
theme of duality, which plays a major role throughout the film. For example
there are two blind sisters, two red-hooded figures and two parents, and none
of them are what they seem. The most blatant, but effective use of editing is in
the first scene when John pulls Christine’s body out of the water. To create
emotional depth and emphasis the sequence is played in slow motion and uses
discontinuous cuts to emphasize the arduousness of John’s realization that his
daughter has drowned. As he is pulling her out of the water, there are cuts just
fragments of seconds long back in time. This discontinuous editing along with
the slow motion lets the viewer feel the impact of the death more explicitly and
emotionally, which without the use of montage would not have had such a
substantial effect.

Diegetic and non-diegetic sound are used very effectively in the first
scene. The shots of Christine and Johnny playing in the yard are accompanied
with non-diegetic piano music. It is fairly simple music, and is a little out of time
making sound as though it might be a child playing at a piano practice. This
piano music is a representation of innocence. Inside the house, there is the
homey crackle of the fire and John’s humming, giving it a normal feel. But both
peaceful audial settings are disrupted by the piercing sound of glass. In the
yard, Johhny runs over a plate of glass and shatters it, and inside Johnn knocks
over a glass very loudly onto the slide he’s examining. From here, there is no
more innocent piano music. This is because Christine has drowned, thus
summoning the end of innocence for the family. From here the only non-
diagenic music in the sequence is the deep ominous melancholy cello music. It
is played when the red-crescent stain on the slide expands, and, when John
pulls Christine’s lifeless body out of the water. The cello music acts as the
flipside of the innocent piano music and signifies the grief and subsequent
doom of the family.

The first scene sets up the major themes and symbols of the entire film
very well. The filmmakers employ these devices through their effective use of
montage editing. By emphasizing the colour red in various places they set up a
symbol for death, blood and the cruel reminder of the dead Christine. They set
up the image of the crescent moon and give it a mysteries supernatural
undertone, even though it’s not made explicit as it is in the rest of the film, the
filmmakers do an intriguing job of hinting at this image and its undertones.
Broken glass is also set up in the first scene to be a symbol of shattered
psyches. The use of match-on-action cuts, graphic matches and discontinuity
are employed wonderfully to foreshadow happenings later on, to set up themes
and to emphasis emotional depth, all of which could not have been achieved
were the scene shot in continuous real-time. Diegetic and non-diegetic sound
are used very well to evoke feelings that would not have been as explicit if the
music and emphasis on sound were not there. This scene and the entire film
are the sum of a various multiplicity of editing techniques and symbols, which
are intertwined and blended together in a significant manner, thereby giving
more meaning and depth to the whole film.
Montage in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now

By Brayden Benham

Film Studies 1300


Prof: Glen Walton

Nov/05/08

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