The Concept of Photogenie and Optical Unconscious Explored in the Work of Nicolas Roegs Bad Timing - Movie Review Example

"Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. Its a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is its not the theatre, it's not done over again. Its done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can't get again."When the French poet, theorist-filmmaker, Jean Epstein, first delivered his concept of Photogenie to Parisian salons and academic circles at the Sorbonne in 1923 and 1924, film as an art form was in its infancy.

The whole idea of film as a medium worthy of a serious scholarship, along with the evolution of the auteur theory, was still decades off. Yet, the seeds were planted and if it wasn’t for his early, groundbreaking works, (or in Walter Benjamin’s case, “shocking” words), we wouldn’t have the concept of “independent film” or cinema as an art form unto itself, something we often take for granted today. The films of director Nicolas Roeg, taken as a whole, have been read as experimental, voyeuristic, brilliant and bombastic.

Roeg started out working in the British film industry in London and developed his craft working as a camera assistant. He ended up heading second units on two films for director David Lean, the epic masterpieces, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Roeg then went on to win high acclaim in his own right as the cinematographer of the classic films; Fahrenheit 451, Far From the Madding Crowd and Petulia, for the influential directors; Francois Truffaut, John Schlesinger, and Richard Lester.When Roeg decided it was time to direct his own films, he proceeded with an instinctual knowledge of what he wanted.

It is with this sensibility, a way of pursuing his craft by what appeals to the senses, that he approached the film Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, a work that many have argued is one of his best, alongside the classic Don’t Look Now.