Nicolas Roeg

Nicolas Roeg, born Nicolas Jack Roeg on August 15, 1928 in London, is an internationally-known cinematographer and film director. Contributing to the visual look of Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, he would later become the guiding force behind such landmark films as Don't Look Now and Walkabout.

These and his other pictures are known for their use of the cut-up technique, through which a linear narrative is given a new and less conventional meaning. Often, Roeg will photograph his stories in disjunctive and semi-coherent ways that only make full sense in the film's final moments, when a crucial piece of information surfaces. These techniques, and Roeg's uniquely foreboding sense of atmosphere, have greatly influenced later filmmakers such as Ridley Scott and François Ozon. His later films, however, have received a colder reception by the viewing public.

Films as director

• Performance, with Donald Cammell (1970)
• Walkabout (1971)
• Don't Look Now 1973
• The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
• Bad Timing, A Sexual Obsession (1980)
• Eureka (1982)
• Insignificance (1985)
• Castaway (1986)
• Aria, with ten other directors (1987)
• Track 29 (1987)
• Sweet Bird of Youth (TV) (1989)
• The Witches (1989)
• Cold Heaven (1990)
• Two Deaths (1994)

Selected films as cinematographer

• The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
• Nothing But the Best (1964)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965) (uncredited) (some scenes)
• Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
• Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
• Petulia (1968)
• Performance (1970)
• Walkabout (1971)

External Link

• Sense of Cinema Great Directors

Further Reading

• Nicolas Roeg, Neil Feineman, Boston: Twayne, 1978
• The Films of Nicolas Roeg: Myth and Mind, John Izod, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1992
• Fragile Geometry: The Films, Philosophy and Misadventures of Nicolas Roeg, Joseph Lanza, New York: Paj Publications, 1989.
• The Films of Nicolas Roeg, Neil Sinyard, London: Letts, 1991