Don't Look Now and Other Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

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She and John seem to be comfortably middle-class because they have traveled overseas a number of times, own a car, and can afford to send their son to a boarding school. Many see her charmed and relatively easy life as one of the reasons why du Maurier’s writing is much more conventional than that of her contemporaries who were busy experimenting with avant-garde techniques such as stream-of-consciousness and who were writing on war and poverty. Donaggio conceded that the more low-key theme worked better in the sequence and ditched the high strings orchestral piece, reworking it for the funeral scene at the end of the film.

Daphne du Maurier was pleased with the adaptation of her story, and wrote to Nicolas Roeg to congratulate him for capturing the essence of John and Laura's relationship.Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe. It was released nationwide a few weeks later as the main feature of a double bill; [3] The Wicker Man was its accompanying B feature and—like Don't Look Now—went on to achieve great acclaim.

Jay Cocks regarded Don't Look Now to be Roeg's best work by far and that Roeg was one of "those rare talents that can effect a new way of seeing". Michael Deeley, who oversaw the film's UK distribution, claimed on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs that Warren Beatty had flown to London and demanded that the sex scene—featuring then girlfriend Julie Christie—be cut from the film. And when Laura tells him that the blind sister believes him to be psychic, he answers, “Fine, my psychic intuition tells me to get out of this restaurant now,” wanting to get as far away from the sisters as possible.Shirley Jackson’s 1949 collection, “The Lottery” and Other Stories, is an eerie group of stories set in a world where nothing is at it seems. In her article, Millar notes that du Maurier has been “a household word for more than thirty years,” but the reviewer is rather unenthusiastic about the title story. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, John reports Laura's seeming disappearance to the police. When the story opens, John and Laura look like any relatively happily married couple enjoying their vacation to romantic Venice. He had to play along with her, agree, soothe, do anything to bring back some sense of calm,” he narrates.