745 Don't Look Now

[thekeystobarton]

Question for anyone who may know more: on my first viewings of the film I did not fully catch that in the opening sequence when we see the close-ups of the slide showing the red coat in the church, you can clearly see that there is no arm/hand coming out of the left sleeve of the coat (the right-sleeve is not visible). I rather like this effect. I interpret this as showing that the fate of Sutherland's character is not yet written in stone (so to speak). The reason this detail interests me is that you can see clearly that the arms/hands of the child-actress playing the daughter extend well out of her coat below the cuffs of her own mac, whereas the killer's arms are much shorter so that the hands of the killer do not even fully extend below the cuff of their own coat in all shots of the climax. Has there been anything in interviews by Roeg or others addressing this decision to stage the coat in the pew for the slide with no visible hand coming out of it (child's or otherwise)? I just finished watching all the supplements on the Criterion edition and I did not specifically see anything addressing whether this was an intentional decision or not.

[Roger Ryan]

Question for anyone who may know more: on my first viewings of the film I did not fully catch that in the opening sequence when we see the close-ups of the slide showing the red coat in the church, you can clearly see that there is no arm/hand coming out of the left sleeve of the coat (the right-sleeve is not visible). I rather like this effect. I interpret this as showing that the fate of Sutherland's character is not yet written in stone (so to speak). The reason this detail interests me is that you can see clearly that the arms/hands of the child-actress playing the daughter extend well out of her coat below the cuffs of her own mac, whereas the killer's arms are much shorter so that the hands of the killer do not even fully extend below the cuff of their own coat in all shots of the climax. Has there been anything in interviews by Roeg or others addressing this decision to stage the coat in the pew for the slide with no visible hand coming out of it (child's or otherwise)? I just finished watching all the supplements on the Criterion edition and I did not specifically see anything addressing whether this was an intentional decision or not.

I'm not aware of any additional comments on this issue from Roeg or anyone else, but I don't think there's any reason to believe that the figure seen in the slide is anyone but the killer. The slides are clearly meant to document one of John Baxter's restoration projects, and not family vacation snapshots, so it's unlikely that the daughter happened to wander into the frame of this particular slide with her hood pulled over her head. As it is, Baxter is surprised to see the figure in the slide just before the colors run through the transparency. Also, I don't believe Baxter makes the connection between the red-cloaked entity and his daughter until after he and his wife take the work trip to Venice. With such a supernatural premise as this film has, you're welcome to interpret all the associations as you'd like, but I think Baxter noticing the figure just moments before the drowning death of his daughter and how that association will determine his own fate is the chilling resonance this film is going for.

[MichaelB]

Looks absolutely fine at my end, although my source is the StudioCanal release.