You know when you wake up at 3 a.m. and you can't figure out what's wrong but something is? Then you realize you just had another dream about that film you saw five years ago. Yes, Roeg has that effect on people. Even in person. Even in broad daylight.
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I sit in the driveway of Nic Roeg and Theresa Russell's house, biting my nails and checking my makeup for the third time. It's not that this interview has me nervous. No, it's more like an unspecific anxiety attack that borders on hysteria. What is it? Possibly just this: I think of myself as - pride myself on being - a realist. I know the world is f*cked and nothing is what it seems. But compared with Nic Roeg, I'm a giggling schoolgirl of a romantic. You'll see.
"You know, Nic," I say, kissing him on both cheeks when I eventually make my way into the house, "my boyfriend always knows when I've seen you. He can tell, he can sense it, because I call him afterwards and I'm in a complete panic about where our relationship is going. 'Oh,' he'll say, 'have you been around Nic Roeg again?' It's because you always leave me with this sense of dread."
"How awful," Roeg says with a maniacal grin. Marital difficulties are one of his favorite subjects, on and off screen. "I really don't mean it," he goes on. "Once I was doing this lecture, and the moderator told me that when he saw Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, he felt that he couldn't stand Milena. And when she came into Doctor Linden's life and just ruined it, well, he said that he was glad that could never happen to him. His wife took care of their business and he did all the creative work and he just knew that their relationship would never go that way. And I told him, 'Now you're ready. It could happen to you tonight.' Because just when you get smug, just when you know for sure that you have everything down pat, that's when you walk into a crowded room and see someone and everything changes forever. So, Martha, how is everything at home?"
You can see how crazy it gets, trying to have a conversation with this man. And if you let him get control (although I think he's always in control), it's like having the Mad Hatter direct traffic in Times Square at midday.
Madness is Roeg territory. Long before David Lynch started stirring the pot of sex and weirdness and violence, Roeg was offering up films that pretty much invented that pot. Don't Look Now, in which Donald Sutherland makes memorable love with Julie Christie, chases his dead daughter through the streets of Venice and ends up getting hacked by a dwarf maniac in a red raincoat, still stands as one of the all-time scariest things I've ever sat through. Bad Timing, a nightmare love story, was the first film I ever walked out on - I was totally horrified by the on-screen vaginal swab and the overtones of necrophilia. (I confessed this to Roeg the first time I met him, and that's really what cemented my friendship with him. He likes the idea that his movies can get to people.) But Roeg can be fun too. The only time I felt I understood the theory of relativity was when Marilyn Monroe [played by Theresa Russell] explained it to Albert Einstein [Michael Emil] in Insignificance.
So Roeg and I are sitting on the chintz couches in his living room getting ready to really start the interview. Actually, he is unwilling to let this simply be an interview. "Who the f*ck wants that?" he asks, lighting another in an endless stream of Gitanes. He suggests instead that we both turn this into a microscopic look at our personal foibles, starting with a recap of my relationship since I last saw him. Oh no.
Thinking I'll feed Nic a tidbit and keep him at bay, and then get on to business, I mention a small regret I have. That's all it takes. He's off and running. "You know, Martha, one of the worst expressions in life is, 'We could start again.' You can never start again. You can't put it back ever. You settle for something else maybe, but you don't start again. It's contradictory to nature. Nature repeats itself, but it never starts from the beginning. We can't get our youth back. Like they say, 'Golden boys and girls all must, like chimney sweepers, come to dust.' "
Okay okay. Now I insist we do an interview. And I do finally manage to turn things around to the reason for today's meeting: Roeg's new film, Cold Heaven, which stars Theresa Russell, Jimmy Russo, and Mark Harmon (Mark Harmon?). I haven't seen it, but I know it's the story of a woman who must decide between a lover and her husband, and then the decision gets made for her by some sort of an accident, and she has visions that bring her to the edge of lunacy. Sounds to me a little like Don't Look Now, and, in fact, Roeg worked with the same screenwriter as on that one, Allan Scott.
I tell Nic I've noticed that in his films people who ignore "unusual" experience tend to pay dearly for their tunnel vision. "Yes," says Roeg nonchalantly, "we all have prescient experiences, but we do choose to disregard them. On reflection, we can see that God or something was telling us to watch for certain things. But we think we can hide. Well, you cannot f*cking hide. It's that simple. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, the alien thinks he was alone when he landed. He tells the other man, 'No, no one saw me.' But the truth is, he was observed. You park your car on Fairfax to meet someone on Crescent Heights, and a week later, someone says, 'I saw your car the other day.' You can't hide in life. We are all being watched by some larger vision. And when we don't look at the signs, there's trouble later. That's the mood behind Cold Heaven, that and the feeling the woman has that just when she is about to make a decision, that decision is taken from her hands and although she should feel relieved, what she really feels is fear. She is about to tell Mark that she wants to leave him, but his accident comes in the way."
Okay, I say, let's talk about Mark Harmon. I know strange casting has been a hallmark of Roeg's films - rock stars Mick Jagger (Performance), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell to Earth), and Art Garfunkel (Bad Timing), for example - but I cannot imagine what could have possessed Roeg to use Harmon (wasn't the TV version of Sweet Bird of Youth that Roeg directed him in enough?) in Cold Heaven. "Oh, come on, Martha," Roeg says, cheerfully gearing up for a fight. "The boy is quite good. It's interesting to see the box people get put in. Even great stars find their business managers trying to convince them to do the same part over and over again. Mark is very independent in his choices, and very deliberate about how he makes those choices. You're going to take this all back someday, you'll see. You'll one day realize what a fine, fine actor he is."
I wonder. In fact, I wonder if anyone will even see Mark Harmon in Cold Heaven. It could easily become another classic Roeg cult film - fought over by the critics, endlessly discussed by the people who sit through it, and largely ignored by the public.
"You do a movie, and you think you're reaching out to the widest audience," says Roeg, when I mention the fact that the broad movie-going public seems to avoid his movies. "You think you've tapped into the f*cking source that moves people. And then you find that only a very few understood. But who the hell can account for taste? It's just fashion."
Roeg's first film, the avant garde (even by today's standards) Performance, was the very height of fashion when it arrived like a lightning bolt on the psychedelicized scene of the late '60s. It was a favorite film to see on acid back then, though the film itself was enough to trip you out. Gender ambiguity, hallucination, gangsters, violence.
"There is only one gunshot in Performance, [but] people talk about it as if it was a very violent film," says Roeg. "At the time, people said it was sick and it was horrible. Now, people get shot and they get up, they get the shit beat out of them, and they go back to work the next day. I was, in fact, very conscious of the huge responsibility involved in filming someone being shot. When I was the cinematographer on Petulia, I was shooting in a hospital in San Francisco, and the elevator opened and this guy, this handsome, strapping guy came in, all wasted. When he got out of the lift, I asked the doctor what happened to him, and he said, 'Oh, a gunshot wound in the liver, it's terminal.' When I made Performance, I wanted to show that horror, to let people see that it's more than just bang-bang-bang. We are born in violence, we are violent creatures and we have to understand that. But once we start to relish violence, then we are lost."
I switch to the subject of censorship. "Your movies have always been right on the edge sexually, Nic," I say. "And now there's a lot more sex on screen, but there's still something about your work that seems to push it even further than anyone else's. And that seems dangerous in these times."
Roeg paces in front of the couch. "Oh, I've been through all kinds of censorship. Lax censorship and strict censorship and then lax again. So, all this doesn't surprise me too much. One must realize that it's a sociological phenomenon. And in one form or another, it will be with us forever because censorship is just another form of control. It's rather about taste, isn't it? At some point, the whole country decides that they have the same taste, and you don't! When the '60s and the '70s created all that change, those people who are in control now must have felt terribly outside it all. Now, it's their turn. It's all wrapped up in guises of morality. Don't Look Now had terrible trouble with the censors then. It almost seems tame now, doesn't it?"
Actually, no. Don't Look Now is still one of the most disturbing films ever made. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland were so believable as the emotionally distraught and grieving parents that their languid scenes of lovemaking were all the more shocking.
"Well," says Roeg, warming to the subject, "you don't have to be a rocket scientist to shoot a f*ck. What's harder to capture is love. Sex is the foundation of every emotion. When a kid asks you, 'Why am I here?' I guess you have to say, 'To make another you, or to make the world better for another you.' Sex is such a basic act, but it's very difficult to get on film. It's a difficult choice to make, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. We all have sexual hang-ups, it's such an exposure of ourselves to another person. We're just never sure that the other person feels the same way. It's the hardest to act, and horribly difficult to direct."
I try to broach the next subject tactfully. You see, there are those in Hollywood who say that Theresa Russell's success as an actress has been severely limited because of her work with her husband. Others say outright that Roeg is ruining her career. She's made six films with Roeg, counting Cold Heaven, and none of them has made a dent at the box office. "Do you think Theresa would do better, or differently, if she worked with other directors..." I ask, easing into this discussion. But Nic gets right to the point: "Oh, that's such bullshit. That's just someone trying to lead someone else's life or work. Maybe they're disapproving of what that work has to offer. Essentially, it's like I'm running a repertory company. It's not that unusual in the theater. You select a play by what you think would be suitable for your actors. Think of Theresa as the most important actor in my rep company. I like women in film. I like women in general, but I especially like to show them on film. They are not ciphers. There just isn't that much latitude for them these days in movies. Theresa is an actress. These days she can play someone's wife or stand starry-eyed and look at her lover, or she can carry the f*cking movie, like she does in Cold Heaven. Which would you choose?"
Just at that moment, the door swings open. The kids and the nanny pile in and Theresa follows, steaming after a long run. "Well, you guys look like you're up to no good," she says, and I blush as if she's right. She brings in drinks (martini for Nic, seltzer for me) but refuses to engage the tape recorder. "No, this is about Nic," she demurs. "You two just continue gossiping." We move into the den, where pictures of Nic and Theresa and friends from movie sets and home in England line the wall. In one, a very young and sexy Donald Sutherland stares out with amusement.
"I always heard rumors," I say, "that Sutherland had serious misgivings about doing Don't Look Now. What was the real story?"
"Oh, this is great," Roeg says, rubbing his hands together and suppressing a giggle. "Donald was supposed to do another film and Julie Christie was working for the McGovern campaign so they couldn't do Don't Look Now. Then the movie got postponed, McGovern got trounced, and we thought we were all set. But Donald was very nervous and he wanted to keep having all these discussions with me about what the film meant. He said he didn't feel comfortable with the way ESP was portrayed in the film, and he wanted to know if we could talk about it and possibly change it. And I said, 'No, this is the way the film will be shot.' He finally said, 'Okay, I'll do it.' And we never had a problem with it after that. And, of course, he turned in one of the most marvelous, most memorable performances in the world. I always told him to let things happen, not to bother them to pieces."
Shortly after that, Nic realizes he and Theresa are running late for an appointment, so he walks me out to my car. And then, as I'm starting up the engine, he asks once more about my domestic situation. He just can't seem to help it. I assure him that everything's fine, but he offers some last minute advice. "Relationships are fragile," he says. "I guess that's why there are so many amateur shrinks out there and so many call-in radio shows. 'He takes me for granted,' or 'She doesn't understand me.' To have total satisfaction from your work or from your mate, that's just impossible. You hear people say, 'What are you thinking, darling?' Isn't that the loaded question of all lovers? And you say, 'Oh, I was thinking of you.' But what you don't say is, 'I was thinking of divorcing you, darling.' You have to keep all this in mind, Martha. You have to realize what's going on at all times. So, take care. Keep in touch."
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Martha Frankel wrote "Hollywood Cooties" for our October issue.
Photography by: Michael Tighe/Visages