Another simple question

[Jan Klimkowski]

Separate post. Separate and entirely speculative thought.

The great movie director Nicholas Roeg was a former Director of Photography (ie cameraman), and his films all display outstanding technical craft and expertise. The jump cut/collage editing style that his movies are known for was developed in part with major occultist Donald Cammell.

Don't Look Now is an almost unbearable film about loss, about chasing a dream which is finally revealed as nightmare.

The clip below is the climax of the film - it does contain the ending, and that is precisely what I'm going to discuss. So, if you haven't seen the movie and may want to watch it in its entirety, don't read on.

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Roeg is meticulous, a visual perfectionist.

So, when the lost child revealed as vicious dwarf - the dream turned nightmare - slashes Donald Sutherland, why does the blood flowing out in Sutherland's death throes look like red paint?

Indeed, it clearly is vibrant red paint.

Roeg could easily have used more realistic blood. This is 1973. Indeed, as a visual obsessive, he could even have used real animal blood for the scene.

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Most magick, especially the banal sort, is designed to divert and obscure.


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EDIT: 22/1/10 for removal of old, no longer functioning, YouTube link and addition of new YouTube links:

See the eternal diabolic blood on the slide from around 25 seconds and again at 3 minutes here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYICwstBwnM

And the death blood here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-J9z5cJEGc

A dodgy prop?

Or a diabolic message?

Sayeth Brother Klimkowski:

"The very first reaction of the viewer, on first viewing of frame 313, is almost always to look away."

I cannot tell you how many times I've found myself alarmed and puzzled in the wake of having turned away -- without intent -- from a scene that would have disturbed me profoundly yet, on purely an intellectual level, I wish I had viewed intently.

I've come to accept that we pre-view -- or better yet, pre-experience -- phenomena before it is permitted to rise to the level of consciousness.

Magicians -- in the sense that Jan, I, and others use the term -- understand how to stimulate this ... what shall I call it ... aversion response.

In the trade, it's referred to as misdirection.

But it's so much more complicated than that. And ultimately more simple.

don't look now...

there are things it is better not to know....

not to see....

look away sweet child...

if you sneak a peek you'll never be the same again....

you'll be changed forever...

eyes wide shut...

better to sleep and dream sweet innocent dreams....

DON'T LOOK NOW!!!!