ROEG DOESN’T LOOK BACK

Movie directors learn fairly early on in their careers to ignore the bad reviews. But few seem able to forget the critical words of studio chiefs. Which is why, embedded in Nicolas Roeg’s memory like a harpoon, is the sneer from the then head of England’s Rank Organisation about Roeg’s movie “Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession”--”a sick film made by sick people for sick people. . . .”

He still finds it hard to believe that someone actually said that to him. And then refused to have the movie shown on the Rank circuit.

Roeg’s admirers will tell you that he is a director’s director and it is true that his name, when mentioned among his peers, immediately elicits interest. Among young moviegoers he has earned himself the reputation of being a cult director due to his penchant for casting rock stars in his movies--performers like Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Art Garfunkel. But among the general public he is really known for just one film--”Don’t Look Now,” starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.

That psychological thriller, set in Venice, and featuring one of the most talked about love scenes in movie history, is not a bad film to be known for.

But Roeg, one month away from 57, understandably hopes to better that record before he is through. After all, he has been in the business a long time, climbing up from clapper boy to lighting cameraman to director. As a cameraman, his credits are not to be sniffed at--”Petulia,” “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Fahrenheit 451.”

That his work as a director would be starred with frustration and problems was evident from the first. He co-directed (with Donald Cammell) “Performance,” a drama about the rock world in London starring Mick Jagger. Warner Bros., displeased with it, kept in on the shelf for a year before releasing it. Since that time Roeg has run into trouble again and again. He had a difficult time getting “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (starring David Bowie) off the ground in 1976. “Bad Timing” in which he starred for the first time his companion, actress Theresa Russell, with Art Garfunkel, proved a disaster and was hardly seen. The same thing happened with “Eureka” starring Gene Hackman.

The director responsible for these apparent calamities is a modest, quiet spoken man who physically resembles a younger version of the late actor Edmund Gwenn. He cordially dislikes talking about himself, so much so that during a British television program devoted to his films, after friends and colleagues had waxed lyrical about his achievements, he contented himself with shrugs and modest laughter when asked to describe his movies.

Roeg claims he only makes the movies he wants to make and never deliberately sets out to do anything obscure.

“Never,” he said the other day in Los Angeles. “That would be silly. All I’m ever trying to do is communicate and get some sort of reaction from the audience.” But he does agree that he sees no point in previewing his movies. “If you change the film for one audience then you have to change it back for the next. So what’s the point? That’s why I don’t like to watch my films with an audience.”

Roeg now has a new movie opening Friday, “Insignificance,” starring Gary Busey, Tony Curtis, Michael Emil and Theresa Russell. It was Britain’s sole entry at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The movie, produced by Roeg’s longtime collaborator Jeremy Thomas, is described as “a comedy with serious overtones about a meeting between four fictional characters who resemble Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Sen. McCarthy and Joe DiMaggio.”

Roeg is high on the movie and full of praise for Curtis’ work in it.

“Once I’d thought of him I couldn’t see anyone else in the role,” he said. “I’ve always thought him good--in the films like ‘Sweet Smell of Success’ and ‘The Boston Strangler’--so I hope this film is good for him. He was a joy to work with.”

Roeg says he likes actors to “come to parts.”

“I like to finish working on a script and then ask myself, ‘Who are these people? What do they look like?’ I don’t like to cast anyone in my mind when I’m working on a script and I even remove descriptions of the characters for that reason.

“And I don’t believe in trying to entice an actor into playing a role. You know the sort of thing: ‘I’ll give you $5 million and 20% of the gross. All right, then, $6 million.’ I want an actor to come to me because he genuinely wants to play the role.”

Roeg admits that he finds reading scripts “tortuous.”

“When I hear about producers taking a bunch of scripts off to Palm Springs to read them like books I’m stunned,” he said. “A script can’t be read like a book--at least not by me. It’s merely a blueprint of what you’re going to do. This was so obvious when I read the script of ‘Star Wars.’ I realized it could only have been sold on faith. There was no way anyone could have read that script and said: ‘It’s fascinating. We’ll do it.’ I mean, there’d be one line of dialogue and then a page of stuff describing some special effect. If that script had been submitted by an unknown it would not have stood a chance.”

Roeg says that, despite the frustrations of his career, “I have not one sour grape in my mind.”

“I don’t expect too much, really. And only once was I really surprised at the fate of one of my films--’Bad Timing.’ I really thought that would be good and could appeal to a cross section of the public. (The story had Art Garfunkel playing an American psychoanalyst in Vienna and Theresa Russell as a married woman with whom he has a tragic affair). Instead, it was a disaster and hardly anyone saw it. I doubt there are more than three prints of it in circulation. So, yes, that was a great disappointment.”

It has always been Roeg’s appetite for the extraordinary that has made him such a hero to students of the cinema as an art form. And earned him the reputation of being a cult director. Roeg isn’t too sure how to take this. In fact, the idea of being a cult director clearly dismays him. “That tends to mean your films are just seen by a few people. That’s never been my intention. I want my films to have a widest possible audience.”

One of the reasons he tends to clam up when asked to talk about his past films is that, once they’re made, he sees no point in dwelling on them.

There are no posters of his past films in his office. No photographs. And, unless asked, he will not discuss them.

“I don’t believe in looking back,” he says simply. “If you have too many recollections you won’t have a future. . . .”