Nicolas Roeg poll

Is there any director who has risen so high and fallen so low? His later credits include a documentary on Claudia Schiffer and a straight-to-video erotic movie entitled Full Body Massage.

I'll go for Walkabout but Performance and Don't Look Now aren't far behind.

From what I've seen, Don't Look Now.

I haven't seen any of his 80s run, but most of those look interesting.

Gotta rewatch a lot before I vote, but Bad Timing has been my favorite for a long time.

Everything before Castaway is so good that I can barely decide.

I managed 20 minutes of Track 29, absolute horrible crap. But the 3 of his that I've seen all the way through were terrific. (Voted Walkabout.)

still only seen 6

Don't Look Now over Bad Timing

walkabt is the only 1 i really like w/o reservations

havent seen bad timing, never made it all the way thru any of his other 80s stuff

notably also the DP on petulia

...and The Masque of the Red Death.

Theresa Russell's performance in Bad Timing should've won every award on the shelf.

Voted Performance - which still feels like one of those 'rupture' films that opens up a new seam in cinema - tho' it's obviously as much Cammell's film as Roeg's.

For a while in the 1980s, he seemed to be the NME's favourite director, the fact of which seems to sum up a vanished age of music paper cultural engagement.

Eurkea is a wayward film - there's a long trial sequence that annihilates the narrative momentum - but includes one unforgettable sequence that epitomises Roeg's incredible ability to play with time and space.

His recentish biography is interesting and expectedly eccentric.

Walkabout, from the four I've seen.

Eureka has fabulous scenes and yes the trial is overwrought in a toe-curling way, but it's been so long since I've watched it and Roeg's touch still feels so sure at that point in his career that I wonder whether there isn't a reason for this sudden tonal shift

I might vote Man Who Fell to Earth because nobody else has offered to yet and I think it far transcends the cult of Bowie tbh

Everything before Castaway is so good that I can barely decide.

yeah, this is tough!

i dunno if roeg gets enough credit for strong female leads - morbs otm about theresa russell but jenny agutter, candy clark, julie christie all put in remarkable performances

Theresa Russell in Eureka too, tho like I say there's some kind of Brechtian alienation shenanigans going on in that second half

I might vote Man Who Fell to Earth because nobody else has offered to yet and I think it far transcends the cult of Bowie tbh

i rescreened it again recently (and it looks phenomenal on blu-ray btw) and it is fantastic but it drags more in its last act than i remembered. candy clark is the real heart of the thing

think i'll probably vote for don't look now for the atmosphere of sheer raw aching grief that hangs over the film, which feels more tangible and real than virtually any other movies about loss

that's v true - it captures a sense of how intensely tragic moments spin a sense of doom forwards as well as backward. the visions of Sutherland's impending death and the death itself are really a metaphorical way of showing that feeling, a sense that the world has fractured which really only emanates from the tragedy at the beginning.

yeah, i'd agree with that

watching it again recently i was struck by the resonance of it being set in venice, which is edging ever-closer to disappearing beneath the waves - a film about death and loss set in a literally dying city is perfect

not that i'm voting -- polls are bad and you should all feel bad -- but just quickly to (semi)rep for castaway and the witches: both these films are perfectly ok journeyman movies by no one in particular if you encounter them on TV, the first a piece of pretty fluff, the second bringing a minor (and even more misogynist even than usual) roald dahl children's book to the screen

my theory for what it's worth is that after five films that played with time in his inimitable way roeg made a film -- insignificance -- whose actual topic was time, and there are no good films whose actual topic is time, and he broke his best tool

but performance to bad timing is an amazing run

Perhaps a bit of a challop? Not sure Insignificance's sole topic is time (isn't it also about fame), and also not sure there are no good films about time.

Bad Timing is my pick though.

Don't Look Now prob.

The Witches was absolutely traumatizing when I saw it as a tyke.

La Jetee.

What?

a good film about time, i'm guessing

and a good answer too

Yes, sorry.

Puffball was a lot better than I'd been led to believe.

insignificance is no la jetee

well, what is

No disagreement on the amazing run from Performance to Bad Timing, however.

Who has seen Glastonbury Fayre though?

it features gong!

also bostick swastika, whose work i am less familiar with

Also, interestingly, Trumpton and the Riots, some 16 years before Half Man Half Biscuit.

complete film is here: https://ok.ru/video/90324666987

gonna rewatch either this or Don't Look Now tonite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC-asNConRk

god the editing in Don't Look Now is so astounding. & maybe the coolest use of a lens flare i've ever seen

This has to be Walkabout for me.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

my list

BAD TIMING
DON'T LOOK NOW
EUREKA
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
WALKABOUT
PERFORMANCE
INSIGNIFICANCE

Bad Timing is so fucking brilliant, everything about it is thrilling, makes the hair on the back on my neck stand up. Probably the best editing I've ever seen throughout a 2 hour film. Art Garfunkel was born to play that guy. He didn't need to bother acting ever again after this movie. Theresa Russell is also fantastic, just perfect for the role. I can't say spew enough praise and hyperbole for this movie, it's just beyond words. Brilliant deployment of "Who Are You."

Don't Look Now makes sense as a consensus favorite - it's very, very good and very consistent. Again, remarkable editing throughout. Not as abrasive or specific as Bad Timing.

The highs of Eureka best Don't Look Now, but as others have noted, it's too long and really bogged down in certain places, especially that insane court scene. I think the opening 25 minutes is some of the best work Roeg ever did. A flawed masterpiece. Theresa Russell as an heiress... I just don't buy it. There's something about her affect & voice that's very similar to Kim Gordon, and it just feels weak here. Gene Hackman is fantastic as the old racist tycoon, as he always is. Dinner scene where Rutger Hauer says Hackman "raped the earth" is great.

The Man Who Fell to Earth is one I couldn't rewatch for this poll (blu-ray is OOP at the moment, and I lost my DVD copy years ago), but I really liked it when I saw it 8 or 9 years ago. I remember it felt a bit long & dragged, but the ending redeems it.

Walkabout... this one is so overrated imo, and while I'll admit it's great, it really overshadows the rest of Roeg's work to a degree that feels insane. I didn't get a chance to rewatch it for this poll, but i'm going to soon. maybe it's better than I remember. I don't dislike it, but the subject matter never interested me. Last time I saw it was at a university hall, a nice 35mm print... that was about 5 years ago. I should revisit it, but I don't think it'd move up my list much.

Performance is a great debut, but structurally it's kind of a mess, and there are just long stretches where nothing is going on and you have no idea where anyone stands. However, Roeg's expert editing is already at play here, and there are several really great sequences. I put this above Walkabout for a while, and while I haven't had the chance to rewatch that one, I know it's a much more assured and substantive work than Performance.

Insignificance sucks. This was such a slog, and I have no idea what Roeg was trying to do here. Theresa Russell is even more ill-suited for this role - she might look like Marilyn Monroe, but her voice is completely wrong. What was the point of Einstein explaining relativity to her? Or was she explaining it to him? Such a confusing mess of a movie. Way too much Gary Busey. I don't give a shit about Joe DiMaggio. Not eager to explore whatever Roeg did after this dog.

I really enjoyed watching and rewatching all these movies for this poll! He had a real run there. Roeg = CLASSIC, even if he only ever made Bad Timing.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/quietus_production/images/articles/6489/dont3_1309128096_crop_550x310.jpg

NYC has a mini-retro going

Agree w Flappy generally on all of those except that I remember really liking Insignificance (especially Buddy). Two interesting later works are the really over-the-top "Track 29" and new age-y "Cold Heaven"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"'They were down for each other.' If one wanted to pitch the concept of BAD TIMING in six words, this comment by its director, Nicolas Roeg, couldn’t be bettered." https://t.co/vz8q7uHPIK pic.twitter.com/36IKqRi4yi

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) August 15, 2018

RIP. One of the greatest filmmakers ever

thought Performance and Walkabout were both really great as his first films

both seemed to be about the mystery of communication, although it was more explicit with Walkabout

my theory for what it's worth is that after five films that played with time in his inimitable way roeg made a film -- insignificance -- whose actual topic was time, and there are no good films whose actual topic is time, and he broke his best tool

but performance to bad timing is an amazing run

― mark s, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:45 AM (two years ago)

agree with this

Track 29 was really misanthropic, I didn't think it was very good but enjoyed watching it

since the most recent post on this roeg thread is about T29 i'll revive this one. playing on tubi now so i gave it a go. hoo boy. find gary oldman's presence nearly unbearable in every frame he appears. and totally wonky performances from the folks, who i normally adore. i think the one good thing i can say is that it looked like absolutely a blast to build a crazy elaborate model train set and then get to film it getting blown to bits in slo-mo!

from the folks = from the REST of the folks

I've seen everything that got a vote here and nothing that didn't, and haven't enjoyed the former enough to delve into the latter. Walkabout is probably the best, otherwise his specialty seems to be queasiness.

I think I watched Walkabout on a television and need to see it again. Fortunately, I can check it out from the library. I think there was one other film by Roeg that I watched after seeing Walkabout but don't remember the title. Walkabout also had this silent anything can happen vibe at one point without speech that I can't characterize properly and hope I remember correctly to experience it again.

watching glastonbury fayre somewhat inattentively on netflix at the moment (still only part way thru) and a lot of the material in between the sets it is extremely roegish, like a kind of real-england folk-horror version of walkabout

the music helps frame this mood but then as music will (in 1971) goes on a bit too crassly and too long and dispels it again

doc makes quite a lot of the "spiritual awakening" that hippies supposedly embody -- and there's sun-worship and plenty of kit-off-in-the-mud stuff and prem rawat (guru maharaj ji) and of course the pyramid lol -- but it's also quite busily intercut with a surprising amount of open-air anglicanism, like an actual service that (some) bystanders join in with

anyway in conclusion traffic remain enormously boring to me but quintessence are worse