Cold Heaven

Abstract

Los Angeles, and a man is staring out at the airport from the hotel room where he has spent the afternoon with his lover. A black shadow silhouetted against the bright light outside, he stands for a moment motionless as the dead. Then as a whining plane lifts off, a butterfly flaps at the window. He peers at the insect through net curtains and stirs into life, and we see the dark countenance of a man intent on, and used to gaining, his own ends. Indeed as they dress his first words to the woman are, ‘Can you go through with it?’

Nicolas Roeg generously lent me a videotape of the cutting copy before the film’s release to the circuits.