The World is Ever Changing, by Nicolas Roeg – a review

‘Value and worth in any of the arts has always been about timing,’ writes British director Nicolas Roeg at the age of 84. Few directors understand this better — this matter of good and bad ‘timing’ — than the maker of Performance, Roeg’s debut film of 1970. Even starring Mick Jagger — then the centrefold of popularity — the film stunned critics by its experimental otherness: they hated it. By now, though, opinions have changed and Performance — once, out of its time — is upheld, along with Roeg’s other works, as among the greatest and boldest examples of British cinema. Roeg, however, has only ever been consistent in his commitment to pushing the boundaries of accepted practice in his medium. ‘There is nothing more dating,’ he says, ‘than “We always do it that way”.’

This is the Roeg of The World is Ever Changing, his first book: forward-looking, curious, and still animatedly debating the nature of time and its interplay with memory and imagination.