Bad Timing

In Cold War Vienna, Milena Flaherty, a young American woman in her 20s, is rushed to the emergency room after apparently overdosing in a suicide attempt. With her is Alex Linden, an American psychoanalyst who lives in the city working as a university teacher. While doctors and nurses fight to save Milena's life, an investigator, Netusil, begins investigating the incident. Through fragmented flashbacks, the narrative depicts the story of Alex and Milena's romance. After meeting her at a party, Alex is enchanted by Milena, a sophisticated but free-spirited military brat. The two begin a whirlwind affair, but shortly into the relationship, Milena is revealed to suffer from severe depression and be married to a much older man, Stefan, whom she occasionally visits across the border in Bratislava. Though Alex initially enjoys Milena's free-spirited lifestyle, he soon becomes embittered by it, as it includes impulsive promiscuity and heavy drinking. Alex begins stalking Milena, and eventually confronts her about her marriage to Stefan. She insists that the marriage is simply platonic, and that she and Stefan are no longer in love. Despite this, Alex begins researching into Stefan's past, and inquires with local government agencies about how Milena can proceed with a divorce, which she refuses. Alex's jealousy of Milena only continues to grow, and he begins to resent her. After one argument, Milena forcefully impels Alex to have sex with her to sate him, and is disgusted with herself after. In one incident, when the couple vacation in Morocco, their vehicle breaks down, and they hitch a ride from two Moroccan men. Alex is left in the bed of the truck, while Milena sits between the two men, flirting with them during the drive, which Alex keenly observes. Upon arriving in Ouarzazate, Alex suggests that he and Milena return to the United States where he can take a teaching position in New York City, but she insists that they live "in the moment." Milena begins to question her and Alex's romance when she finds evidence that he has been treating her as a case study. Later, Alex confronts her about a photograph in her apartment that he has obsessed over, which shows her at a lake with another man. She tells him the photo is of her and her late brother, taken in California years prior, but Alex does not believe her. The following morning, Alex confronts a drunken Milena outside her apartment, telling her he cannot bear the thought of her with another man. When she defiantly renounces him, he slaps her. Later, Milena invites him back to her apartment, only to taunt him in kabuki makeup, mockingly presenting herself as the "new Milena." When he storms out, Milena screams at him from her balcony, hurling objects at him onto the street below. The following night, Milena leaves Alex a drunken voice message suggesting she wants to die. In the present, as doctors attempt to revive the dying Milena, Netusil pieces together the chain of events, culminating in an interview with Alex, who presents himself simply as Milena's friend. Uncovering timeline inconsistencies in Alex's story, Netusil determines what actually occurred: Alex, after finding Milena overdosing on poison in her apartment, looked on as she slowly collapsed, and subsequently raped her once she lost consciousness. Though Netusil has physical evidence suggesting Milena was raped, he is unable to elicit a confession from Alex. Stefan arrives, and reveals Milena has survived the overdose following a life-saving tracheotomy. Alex departs without repercussion, but, before he leaves, Stefan comments that he must love Milena more than his own dignity. Some time later, in New York, Alex sees Milena passing by in front of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel as he enters a taxi. He calls out to her, and she briefly turns toward him, revealing her tracheotomy scar, before impassively walking away. ==Cast==

Development The film was based on an Italian story by Constanzo Constantini called Ho Tentato Di Vivere. Roeg was shown it in the mid-1970s by producer Carlo Ponti. “It was given to me as a kind of longish idea, translated from Italian. It was very different, about two Italians, but it was the same basic idea, about that condition of man and woman." The story was adapted into a script by Yale Udoff, an American playwright. Udoff recalled: "It was about a wealthy Roman playboy and his girlfriend, and it was like an Alberto Moravia novel, but very bad Moravia, with a feel of the sixties. Although we changed almost everything, it did have a few elements we kept—it had an investigation into a murder. What interested Roeg was the idea of a couple in extremis, a man and a woman battling." Roeg recalled "Yale and I worked very hard on it and we knew what we were going to do in terms of who the people were. But you can’t write every shot... The script is only one part of a film. I shoot a lot of stuff. With Bad Timing, I got back from Vienna and found that the set had been dressed. I love set dressing because to me it is part of the person. So I went out and bought books and things, to be part of the life of Helena, and re-dressed the set." The film was one of the series of movies greenlit by Tony Williams at the Rank Organisation, who were increasing their production output. Rank made eight films over two years, being mostly conservative choices such as the 1978 film The Thirty-Nine Steps, the third adaptation of the 1915 novel. Bad Timing was the most unusual of the slate of films. Roeg said "I thought everybody would respond to" the film. "It was about obsessive love and physical obsession. I thought this must touch everyone, from university dons down." Casting Roeg originally wanted to cast Bruno Ganz and Sissy Spacek in the leads. He eventually cast musician Art Garfunkel (Roeg had successfully used pop stars in his films Performance and The Man Who Fell to Earth) and Theresa Russell, whom Roeg later married. Roeg had envisioned Russell in the part of Milena, having been impressed by her performance in The Last Tycoon (1976). The role of the inspector was rejected by Albert Finney and Malcolm McDowell was unavailable; Harvey Keitel was cast three days before filming. Roeg recalled that while he was making the film, "Art Garfunkel came up to me and said he realized he was really playing me. But I told him that he was only part of it. I challenged him to decipher when I was wearing the trousers and when I was wearing the dress." During filming, Garfunkel's girlfriend, Laurie Bird, committed suicide in New York. Roeg later said the film "fucked up more people in my crew than anything else I’ve done. I know five people whose lives were turned over by that movie, including the cameraman, producer and executive producer. I’m kind of glad it got a limited release." Near the end of the shoot, author Richard Bach sued the film's distributor, Rank Film Distributors, alleging that its title, Illusions, posed "unfair competition" against his recently released novel of the same name. Like with many of Roeg's films, it notably features cross-cutting to link two different timelines of events. Roeg elaborated that the film "had a curious effect on people—I sort of understood afterwards why it wasn't good for the company. Funnily enough, while it was being made, someone said to me: 'You know, they're not going to eat this Nic, because you're scratching surfaces that people probably don't want to have exposed.' It was only towards the end, when we were cutting it and we showed it to the musician, who looks at the rough cut. And he said: 'Three years ago, I wouldn't have been able to work on this movie because I kept seeing myself on screen there, I was in that trap, in that hole'." ==Music==

The film's score was composed by Richard Hartley. It also features a number of other songs as part of its soundtrack: • "Berceuse" by Vernon Midgley • "Dreaming My Dreams" by Billy Kinsley • "Time Out" by Zoot Money • "An Invitation to the Blues" by Tom Waits • "I'll Be Seeing You" by Billie Holiday • "The Koln Concert" by Keith Jarrett • "Who Are You" by The Who • "It's the Same Old Story" by Billie Holiday • "Delusion of the Fury" by Harry Partch ==Release==

Bad Timing was first shown at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 1980, and premiered in London on 10 April 1980. The film was later shown at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 1980. In the United States, the film was given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, which was appealed by Roeg. American film critics Charles Champlin and Judith Crist spoke on behalf of Roeg regarding the appeal, but it was unsuccessful; as a result, the film's producers chose to release the film in the United States without a rating. It screened at the British Film Festival in Manhattan on 21 September 1980 before being released citywide in New York City on 22 September 1980. A platform release expanded throughout the country in the fall of 1980, in major cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Boston. It was released in the United States under the slightly altered title Bad Timing/A Sensual Obsession. The film was marketed with the tagline: "A Terrifying Love Story". Home media On 27 September 2005, the film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection. This was the first time that it had received an official home video release in the United States. In the United Kingdom, Network released the film on Blu-ray on 26 January 2015. ==Reception==

Box office During its opening week at the Sutton Theater in New York City, the film earned $41,338. The film's British distributor, Rank, were appalled by what they saw; one executive called it "a sick film made by sick people for sick people". In response, they removed the Rank logo from all UK prints of the film. The Observers Philip French remarked the film's technical brilliance, calling it "a dazzling mosaic, a virtuoso exercise in editing that moves back and forth in time, producing an astonishing range of effects and associations." Among American critics, Janet Maslin of The New York Times was unimpressed by the film, writing that it is "so jumbled it lacks as steady rhythm, and the story offers few clear highs or lows," and citing this as a trademark feature of Roeg's work. Bob Hicks, writing for The Oregon Journal, conversely praised the film for its narrative style, declaring it "a stylistic triumph, a crackerjack detective story and a marvel of movie voyeurism." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times also discussed the film's unique narrative style, but felt the storytelling was "more earthbound", adding that Roeg's "command of his images and his majestic manipulation of time have produced an engrossing study of a relationship and of obsessive jealousy." Michael Blowen of The Boston Globe praised the performances of Russell and Garfunkel, and described the film as: "Challenging and terrifying... Like a nightmare over which you have no control, Bad Timing weaves timeless images that don't disappear when you leave the theater." Retrospective Bernard Rose later said the film contains moments "that are so daring – not daring because they’re explosive, but because they’re so raw and uncomfortable. It’s one of the great films about what we now call co-dependency. But Nic does it in the city of Freud, and in this wonderful style. It’s a pseudo-detective story, which really works because you’re analysing their relationship rather than watching it and getting involved with it." Kim Newman, reviewing the film for Empire in 2000, awarded it a five star out of five rating, deeming Russell's performance a "career-best" and adding: "This labyrinthine psychological drama is almost like a cut-up Columbo episode, savagely tackling the whodunit and continental romance genres." Critic Peter Bradshaw, writing in a 2018 retrospective on Roeg's career, declared the film a "toweringly transgressive and challenging masterpiece." Filmink called it "consistently interesting and thought provoking, if a little pervy (like a lot of Roeg movies)." Accolades ==Legacy==

Filmmakers including as Edgar Wright, Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle, and Steven Soderbergh have cited the film's jarring editing techniques as notable influences on their own work. The film's title was used by musician Jim O'Rourke for his album Bad Timing, the first in a trilogy of albums which O'Rourke named after films Nicolas Roeg had made during the nineteen-eighties – the other two being Eureka (O'Rourke's 1999 album, title taken from Eureka, Roeg's 1983 film) and Insignificance (O'Rourke's 2001 album, title taken from Insignificance, Roeg's 1985 film). The film Bad Timing was also a partial inspiration for The Glove's 1983 album Blue Sunshine, a side project of The Cure's Robert Smith and Siouxsie and the Banshees' Steven Severin. According to Smith, the song "Piggy in the Mirror" from The Cure's 1984 album The Top was also inspired by the film. The film is also mentioned in the lyrics of "Return", a song from The Cure's 1996 album Wild Mood Swings. Despite receiving a limited theatrical release in the United States, television rights were acquired by the Los Angeles-based pay cable network Z Channel who aired the film in heavy rotation, allowing it to obtain cult status in the 1980s. ==Notes==