Les réalisateurs du Festival

Nicolas Roeg

Born in 1928, Nicolas Roeg became famous from the start as an offbeat director. His first movie,Performance, that he directed with Donald Cammel in 1970, depicts the world of music bands in the seventies, with scenes of violence and sex. The intention is emphasized on screen by Mick Jagger’s participation.

Before immersing his camera in the meanderings of debauchery, Roeg worked on sets as a cameraman (Casino Royal, Lawrence of Arabia) and as head-cameraman (The masque of the Red Death, Fahrenheit 451 and some scenes in Docteur Zhivago). He carried on with this task (which is very unusual) for his first three films. After the highly cult movie Performance, he made a film considered as an “hypnotic and symbolic masterpiece”. Don’t Look Now, in 1973, marks his incursion in fantasy films. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland portray a young English couple, who go back to Venice, where the husband works as an architect, after the drowning of their daughter. There they meet a strange clairvoyant, who reveals the presence of their deceased daughter. This adaptation of a novel by Daphné du Maurier did not remain a common ghost story, but became a classic of the genre throughout the years.

In 1976 and 1990, he directed two other fantasy films: The Man who Fell to Earth and The Witches.
In The Man who Fell to Earth, Roeg directed, after Jagger, another rock star. David Bowie plays an extraterrestrial who is sent to Earth in order to find a remedy to a water-shortage that is slowly decimating the inhabitants of his planet.
The meticulous aesthetics and the sexually ambiguous look of the pop singer made this film the emblematic work of Nicolas Roeg’s career. In The Witches, Angelica Huston plays a witch who turns a young boy into a mouse. Adapted from a Ronald Dahl’s novel by Jim Henson’s studios, the story enabled Roeg to mix both real actors with puppets.

In 1980, he directed Bad Timing, a thriller tinged with eroticism and interpreted by Art Garfunkel. This film is also his first collaboration with the woman who became his muse in his private life as well as on the screen: Theresa Russel. It will be followed, among others, by Eureka (with Gene Hackman), Insignificance and Track 29.

Roeg’s name can be found in the credits of the musical movie Aria, a must-see bringing together 10 directors illustrating 10 opera extracts. Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard also took part in the project.

During the 90’s, he was involved in TV production, signing big and noticeable productions such as Samson and Delilah or Heart of Darkness. The latter was released in 1994; it is adapted from Joseph Conrad’s work, which also inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Roeg’s version replaces the story in its original African context and enables two great actors to play opposite each other: Tim Roth ,and John Malkovich in the role of Kurtz.
After having devoted a short film to the German top model Claudia Schiffer (The sound of Claudia Schiffer), he is due to get back to his first loves in 2006 by directing a horror film. Neve Campbell, who starred in the Scream series, will be the main actress of the movie Adina. One can be assured that this filmmaker, who has been a master in depicting anguish, will have his say in a genre that is often praised by the British film industry.

Version française

Page valide XHTML 1 Strict, CSS2 et accessible AAA.
Ce site s'affiche mieux avec un navigateur conforme aux standards, voici pourquoi.
Accessibilité du site et aide à la navigation.