ANOTHER SAD LOSS...

I suppose I became something of a film buff during my National Service days when, in order to supplement the pittance the army doled out every week I got a job as projectionist in the garrison cinema, the AKC Globe at Paderborn in what was then West Germany.  Ever since I have enjoyed countless films, mainly on television these days, and so I was very sorry to learn of the passing of Nicolas Roeg over the weekend.

I first became aware of his prodigious talent when he was Director of Photography on John Schlesinger`s epic adaptation of Hardy`s `Far from the Madding Crowd` starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates.   I remember being enthralled not only by the fair Julie, of course, but also by the way in which the landscape of my native Dorset had been captured in all its pastoral innocence by Nic Roeg`s cinematography.   And, me being me, it`s very often the music score which I remember and Richard Rodney Bennett`s  Prelude for that film is one of its haunting features, complementing the landscape and something of the forlorn nature of the leading characters.   Here it is.......

One of Nic Roeg`s early films as a director was `Walkabout` with Jenny Agutter and Roeg`s seven year old son Luc playing the hapless children abandoned in the Australian outback.  It was then that he began to use his role as director to experiment, to introduce new ways of editing, to use film as more of an art form than just commercial entertainment.   And again `Walkabout` gave composer John Barry an early commission to bring his own unique musicality to the screen.   He went on, of course, to compose the music for the James Bond  movies, as well as `Out of Africa,` Dances with Wolves` and so many others.

Again for me `Walkabout` would not have been quite so rich without John Barry`s score. Here`s what I mean.......

But genuine thanks and appreciation for the extraordinary body of work that Nic Roeg has bequeathed us.  The whole of the world of cinema is much the poorer for his passing.