Roeg, Nicolas (1928-2018), was a British motion-picture director. His films are known for their unconventional narrative techniques, with unorthodox characters and jumbled time sequences in the storyline. Roeg’s first film as director was Performance (1970), which he co-directed with the Scottish-born director Donald Cammell. The violent gangster film starred the British rock star Mick Jagger. Roeg’s first solo directorial effort, Walkabout (1971), based on the novel by James Vance Marshall, is the story of two British children lost in the Australian outback who are rescued by an Aboriginal boy. Don’t Look Now (1973) is a moody thriller based on a story by the British writer Daphne du Maurier. Roeg’s other films as director include The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), starring the British rock music performer David Bowie; Bad Timing (1980); Insignificance (1985); The Witches (1989), based on a story by the British children’s writer Roald Dahl; Puffball: The Devil’s Eyeball (2007); and The World is Ever Changing (2013), a memoir.
Nicolas Jack Roeg was born on Aug. 15, 1928, in London and worked his way through the technical side of the motion-picture industry, from clapper-boy to director of photography. In the 1960’s, he worked for directors such as England’s David Lean and supervised the camera work on such films as The Caretaker (1963) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He also brought his skills as director of photography to the French director François Truffaut’s 1966 version of the American writer Ray Bradbury’s science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451. After about 1990, Roeg concentrated on directing for television. He died on Nov. 23, 2018.
