saw l'avventura the other night for the first time and was struck immediately by its beauty and strangeness, the astonishing precision of the choreography and editing to map complex, sometimes quite elusive, relationships between the characters. other times it smacks you over the head with something, but even then (as when monica vitti wanders outside in a sea of lecherous men) there's the possibility of something astonishing. this also has one of the most striking concluding shots i know. and that music will not get out of my head.
what 'm not sure i dig really is the politics of the film, if it can be said to have a politics. this film made an enormous splash when it came out--really one can count on one hand the number of films whose impact on critics, filmmakers, and audiences was so great (although: lasting? the film briefly appeared on the S&S top ten list, in number 2 just behind citizen kane!, in 1962, just two years after its release; it then vanished from the upper reaches of the poll completely, probably for good)--and it was largely interpreted as a comment on the distractions and emotional vacuity of the upper classes, if not a comment on the "modern way of life" (antonioni's own unbearably smug comments on his own films encouraged this sort of chatter). but what strikes me about the film is a fascination with the rich that (a) doesn't really seem to undersand them (as say visconti does), and simply swaps a fantasy of the ecstatically carefree rich for one of the hopelessly adrift rich; (b) exhibits a contempt for the poor or working-class. the roughneck men who ogle monica vitti are used like a grotesque manifestation of man's baser instincts, but the camera itself isn't above fondling ms vitti and the other woman rather doggedly--this film is among other things very much about the nape of her neck, the cracks in her lips, the streaks in her hair, and her spindly legs. there seems to be a hypocrisy here. also the prostitute toward the end of the film is handled rather...coarsely, as some kind of vampire, in fact she's shown only by her feet as i recall, or her legs. and the couple owning the grocery store is referred to by the male lead--quite ironically--as "charming," and we're supposed to laugh.
ok then there's what i guess was the most radical part of the film, which i think remains bold and effective: its narrative form. the mysterious disappearance (and the scene in which she disappears is orchestrated perfectly, sometimes poor dubbing not withstanding) and the search which is abandoned or forgotten in almost imperceptible stages, leading to a conclusion of striking ambiguity. this sort of open-endedness has become shorthand in some circles (mostly non-critical ones; just film buffs and other aesthetes who came of tastemaking age in the 60s) for "intelligent filmmaking," a situation that bugs me to no end. but it works here, and even if this basic narrative notion isn't so much profound as it is clever, antonioni works it with a facility (as noted above) few of his adherents can claim.
yeah so i've seen a few other of his films. i find that the psuedo-ideas, and the discomforting touristic and lecherous quality already to be found in l'avventura, really take over "blow up" and "zabriskie point" which i find MUCH less compelling stylistically as well. what i adore though are those early films i've had a chance to see, from les amiches to cronaca di un amore ("story of a love affair"), which are surprisingly concise and even straightforward late neorealistic films enhanced and rendered indelible by antonioni's choreographic style. i can see why they remained relatively below the radar, as their overall narrative design can't be said to be as obviously epoch-making as l'avventura's, but even so they have some interesting aspects there too.
yeah so i've also seen l'ecclisse which i found both less frustrating and (save for the ending and the lengthy seduction scene) a bit less fascinating than l'avventura, but more or less i had the same sort of reactions. what's funny is that the former should have prepared me for the latter given that fact, but i still was really blown away by l'avventura.
i'm rambling now sorry.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:33 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:38 (twenty years ago) link
i've only seen one early funny one, 'chronicle of a love' -- it's okay, but i need to see it agane. sam rohdie (ex screen editor) says the early ones are best.
best writing i've seen on antonioni is noel burch 'theory of film practice' (1967).
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:52 (twenty years ago) link
more later...
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 12:10 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 12:14 (twenty years ago) link
this does kind of tie in to antonioni but i have to check on a reel of film so i'll leave it to others...
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 12:50 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 12:55 (twenty years ago) link
I think this is probably a hypocrisy the film is very much aware of--everyone in the film is in some ways a victim of base sexuality. the film defines the women that way because antonioni believes they feel that way themselves. "eros is sick" is what antonioni says right? it's too tied to dying, decaying matter. all the sexy, kittenish behavior by the women in the film feels either hollow or evasive.
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:15 (twenty years ago) link
er, i can't quite get at what i'm feeling, but what's base?
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:24 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:36 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:38 (twenty years ago) link
― pulpo, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:43 (twenty years ago) link
-psycho and l'avventura = lead disappears early-the lady vanishes -- well! obviously-rear window = blow up-north by northwest = the passenger
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:46 (twenty years ago) link
perhaps the scene where vitti becomes surrounded by lecherous men is meant to make plain one theme of the film, and it does play that way to some extent, but it's still telling that he chose one of the view scenes fea. non-rich people to make the point, and the men are clearly working-class "types." also dont forget the scene where the singer is mobbed by fans screaming horrifically...this was my least favorite part of the film by far.... it felt like a didactic little sideline about decadent celebrity and the masses blah blah blah...the sort of tone-deaf "observational" material that makes up the bulk of "zabriskie pt" and "blow up". just notice the precise way the main characters are choreographed, the EROTIC way (even if the film distances itself from eros in different ways) compared to the unseemly sulking and surging of the riffraff...
tracer why did you know it was my thread?
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 16:58 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:01 (twenty years ago) link
I agree completely--L'avventura definetly works best as a mood piece.
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:04 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:05 (twenty years ago) link
at the time sight and sound said:
'film is about human relationships, not about spatial relationships' w/r/t antonioni. but of course the way cinema expresses human relationships is spatial -- and the themes of his films are very much of their times, you could call him an 'existentialist'. the blankness in his films corresponds to what he thinks are shallow characters.
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:07 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:07 (twenty years ago) link
the "spatial relationships" comment i believe came from lindsay anderson or one of the S&S crowd in reaction to a perceived formalism taking hold...it might have even been robin wood's work at the time that sparked that comment (wood has since psuedo-renounced his earliest film writing).
i tend to be sympathetic to the formalist tendency b/c i think art has its own imperatives sometimes, certain abstract patterns and formal designs that have an appeal in themself--but even more b/c i think the notion of what "human relationships" means is this context is impoverished and didactic.... things that would seem hopelessly abstract and unengaged to a self-proclaimed humanist seem the very stuff of life--or one part of it--to me. granted too many critics skip over the interesting part--the observation of how films are put together and how they achieve certain affects--right to the airy theorizing, which is perhaps what anderson et al were reacting against, but i think it was the wrong (and a much too defensive) reaction...
ok back to antonioni.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:17 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:19 (twenty years ago) link
i dont know exactly what it "does well" - that's partly why i am using such vague terms. what i like about antonioni, and other filmmakers with similarly sleepy styles, is the emphasis on time. there is a feel of waiting, lingering, or even a vigil. thats something im not sure is in other art forms.
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:26 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 17:29 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 18:11 (twenty years ago) link
and the thing about speed in film is that it is conveyed through editing, etc. but with long takes the time is literally there, and it's not suggested through artistic means.
i honestly don't really know what i am getting at here, just making some observations.
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 18:18 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 18:19 (twenty years ago) link
But the very heavy deliberate laboriousness with which it was constructed put me off from whatever immediate striking effect it was supposed to have. There's a sense of imbalance that's almost comical, putting such narrative and emotional weight on what is a fairly casual gesture, in addition to the obviousness of the wall/vista split-screen. This is a general aesthetic bugbear of mine, not specific to Antonioni, but watching L'Avventura definitely set it off.
― pantalaimon (synkro), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:33 (twenty years ago) link
Antonioni's conceptual sequel to Blow-Up is an Italian leftist's goofball cinematic view of late '60s American counterculture. It features a long sequence with nude couples making love in the desert, for which Antonioni wanted Fahey to do the music. When Fahey arrived in Rome, Antonioni showed him the segment in a screening room. "Antonioni says, 'What I want you to do is to compose some music that will go along with the porno scene.' I kept saying, 'Yes, sir.' Then he starts this, 'Now, John. This is young love. Young love.' I mean, that's young love? All these bodies? 'Young love. But John, it's in the desert, where's there's death. But it's young love.' He kept going, 'Young Love/Death' faster and faster. I was sure I was talking to a madman. I'm still sure I was.
"So I experimented. I had instrumentalists come in and told them just to play whatever they felt like. They had to pretend to understand what I was talking about, especially if Antonioni came in the room. That was fun. They were very cooperative. I came up with some sections of music that sounded more like death than young love. It was actually pretty ominous. I played it for Michaelangelo and he thought it was great. So he took me out to dinner at this really fancy restaurant and started telling me how horrible the United States was. We were drinking a lot of wine and I don't remember which one of us started cussing. It started real fast and ended in a fistfight. You have no idea how much that guy hates the United States. What a jerk. I did like 20-25 minutes, but they only used about two minutes. Somebody's driving along in the car and the announcer says, 'And now some John Fahey.' And that's it -- young love and death."
― hstencil, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:42 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:44 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:45 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:47 (twenty years ago) link
― pantalaimon (synkro), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:49 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:50 (twenty years ago) link
(I'll take Antonioni over Fahey anyday.)
― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 20:52 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 21:23 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 21:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 21:30 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 21:32 (twenty years ago) link
I've also had problems with Red Desert, though I'm told that it really needs multiple viewings to turn out. I don't know about that...I mean, it's been four months since I last saw it, and I was drinking some gin at a bar last night and thinking...I should see Red Desert again. It could comfort me, and I shouldn't have left it like I did - you see, it put me on the spot, and since then I've been just watching lots of other Italian New Wave directors, mostly one at a time, trying to prove to myself that I don't need Red Desert. Should I go back to it?
(I've definitely earned someone's undying hatred with this one.)
― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 19 November 2003 21:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 22:59 (twenty years ago) link
― jones (actual), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 23:13 (twenty years ago) link
I love La Notte too! And Girolamo, Red Desert is far from my favorite of his, but I think it does reward repeated viewings. Anyway, I think he's my favorite director, and L'Eclisse probably my favorite film. Or at least I considered them as such at one point, i'm finding it hard to think in terms of favorites these days. I've seen everything he's done, including the early shorts, save for his 4 hour China documentary and Identification of a Woman (I actually own the latter on VHS but I'm waiting to see it on the big screen; someplace near me, screen the damn thing already!)
I want to scribble more thoughts but I've been kinda busy today ... hopefully tonight I can add some more.
― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 23:51 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 20 November 2003 12:46 (twenty years ago) link
― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 20 November 2003 13:47 (twenty years ago) link
http://pleasurephoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/antonioni-e-monica-vitti-sul-set-di-deserto-rosso-1964.jpg
― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 21 January 2013 22:08 (eleven years ago) link
From Geoff Dyer's ZONA:
"Antonioni's RED DESERT (1964) would, as the title suggests, be unimaginable without the colour. The colour - Monica Vitti's green coat - is what makes it wonderful but for the thirty-four-year-old Tarkovsky, interviewed in 1966, the year he completed his second feature, ANDREI RUBLEV, it was 'the worst of his films after The Cry.' Because of the colour, because Antonioni got so seduced by 'Monica Vitti's red hair against the mists', because 'the colour has killed the feeling of truth.'"
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 21 January 2013 22:48 (eleven years ago) link
And Oshima banned Green from his movies...jeez guys its ok I know it signifies YES when you all should be about NEGATION but calm the fuck down its gonna be ok in the end.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 21 January 2013 22:52 (eleven years ago) link
maybe he just hated foliage, islam and panathanaikos
― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 21 January 2013 22:56 (eleven years ago) link
i like this pic of the maestro, too;
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0doinCwHo1qfziuio1_500.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 21 January 2013 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
what is that tshirt supposed to say
― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 21 January 2013 23:02 (eleven years ago) link
i expect it explains what he was burning
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 21 January 2013 23:08 (eleven years ago) link
'dull zizek' maybe?
― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 21 January 2013 23:11 (eleven years ago) link
new 35mm restoration of L'Avventura running in NY & LA
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 13 July 2013 11:50 (ten years ago) link
Might have to see it.
― Orpheus in Hull (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2013 18:34 (ten years ago) link
Want to go to this:http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/antonioni-show-cinematheque-francaise/?hpw&rref=t-magazine&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Friday, 10 April 2015 15:29 (nine years ago) link
http://shihlun.tumblr.com/post/123834842809/roland-barthes-michelangelo-antonioni-dear-antonioni
― drash, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 10:01 (eight years ago) link
just had my first viewing of a 35mm print of Zabriskie Point in maybe 20 years... who the hell could call this a "bad" film? It's brilliantly made, whatever its flaws or coy mysteries. And one of the best climaxes ever.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 December 2017 04:31 (six years ago) link
You gotta see the 1970 Dick Cavett Show episode with the two Zabriskie leads, if you haven't already. Mark Frechette's real life story is crazy.
― Josefa, Monday, 18 December 2017 05:18 (six years ago) link
I know most of it... Daria Halprin is a more expressive performer, but i though they were both fine.
I never remember to look for Harrison Ford in the prison cell. Nor did I recognize Philip Baker Hall.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 18 December 2017 19:14 (six years ago) link
Mark Flechette sure was yummy!
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 December 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
Freudian slip?
― Whiney Houston (Tom D.), Monday, 18 December 2017 19:33 (six years ago) link
wtf Zabriskie Point is amazing
― flappy bird, Thursday, 9 August 2018 03:42 (five years ago) link
everyone told me it was boring, avoid it, "see Blow-Up instead." Blow-Up sucks. this was incredible
good lord yes:
And one of the best climaxes ever.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Sunday, December 17, 2017 11:31 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― flappy bird, Thursday, 9 August 2018 03:43 (five years ago) link
just starting to watch Antonioni films again. loved Le Amiche, but L'Avventura was baffling to me, for a second time
― Dan S, Tuesday, 6 November 2018 02:28 (five years ago) link
L'Avventura meant enough to me at 20 that I wrote my own script updated for the modern era. La Notte is what I re-watch.
The Other Side of the Wind has a sexier version of Zabriskie Point as its film-within-a-film.
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 6 November 2018 02:38 (five years ago) link
sorry Orson, you didn't know arty sexploitation from Antonioni...
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 6 November 2018 02:46 (five years ago) link
you don't know from passive screen boys
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 6 November 2018 02:50 (five years ago) link
lol
planning to see La Notte and L'Eclisse next
haven't been able to watch Il Grido
― Dan S, Tuesday, 6 November 2018 03:00 (five years ago) link
interesting to see the progression from L'Avventura to La Notte to L'Elclisse. it seems that all his films about people talking about their feelings
― Dan S, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 04:08 (five years ago) link
*are* about
― Dan S, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 04:09 (five years ago) link
well you gotta either talk about em or not talk about em
― j., Tuesday, 4 December 2018 04:15 (five years ago) link
love Alain Delon and Monica Vitti
― Dan S, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 04:38 (five years ago) link
and Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau
― Dan S, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 04:45 (five years ago) link
Vitti and Delon are remarkably blank and emotionally absent in L’Eclisse, and the depiction of their alienation feels more and more oppressive as the film goes along
― Dan S, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 05:55 (five years ago) link
still not sure what its title refers to, was thinking maybe it had something to do with what Rosenbaum referred to as “Antonioni’s preoccupation with objects and spaces overtaking and supplanting people”
― Dan S, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 06:12 (five years ago) link
really liked Il Grido, Antonioni’s “working class bummer” (to use morbs’ words). it has the themes of alienation and ennui of later films but with a more conventional, albeit meandering, story. loved every minute of seeing Steve Cochran on screen
― Dan S, Wednesday, 12 December 2018 07:21 (five years ago) link
Red Desert is next on my list. I remember seeing it in college and thinking of it primarily as a visual experience, as something to love just for its aesthetic appeal. If that's the only level I relate to it on at a second viewing, that will again be enough I think
― Dan S, Wednesday, 12 December 2018 07:33 (five years ago) link
at the moment I think I love Red Desert more than any other Antonioni movie
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 02:32 (five years ago) link
Bradshaw compared it to Alphaville and Solaris in it’s sci-fi eeriness and suggested that it may have been an inspiration for Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman (which I *really* loved), but watching it again I’m wondering if Todd Haynes was influenced by it when he made Safe
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 02:33 (five years ago) link
the experience of alienation in modern society expressed as fear of environmental poisoning, filmed in a surreal manner and playing out as a horror movie
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 02:39 (five years ago) link
good call, I could see that. and the Solaris connection - particularly the fire juxtaposed against all the gray
― flappy bird, Friday, 4 January 2019 02:54 (five years ago) link
I loved the juxtaposition of painted color and gray in the film
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 03:23 (five years ago) link
Can't think of any movies with the color palette of Red Desert. it's really startling, particularly that first shot of flames shooting out of the factory
― flappy bird, Friday, 4 January 2019 03:45 (five years ago) link
re: Red Desert and Safe: it feels like there is something very deep about the spiritual malaise of the Monica Vitti and Julianne Moore characters in the two films
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 04:06 (five years ago) link
in my young adult life among my friends Blow Up was considered THE Antonioni film. I'm interested to see it and Zabriskie Point again. I loved both of them at the time
― Dan S, Friday, 4 January 2019 04:37 (five years ago) link
watching Blow Up again, I'm not sure I understand exactly what it’s about. I feel like I'm not giving enough of myself to it to really appreciate it
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 January 2019 02:34 (five years ago) link
the mystery seems incidental, I read somewhere it's a film about someone waking up from a numbing life and living fully for a moment, that makes sense to me
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 January 2019 02:44 (five years ago) link
liked the Ebert review of Zabriskie Point:
!https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/zabriskie-point-1970
"Michelangelo Antonioni is a fitfully brilliant director whose best, and basic, insight is that the fashionable cultivation of boredom can break down our ability to feel and love. In the 1950s, it seemed to him, people became so shy of spontaneity that they lost the knack. His characters were so alienated and spiritually exhausted they could hardly even get through breakfast together.
We loved it. "Eclipse" (1962) had us leaving the theater feeling deliciously betrayed and alone. "Blow-Up" (1966) was even better. It was set in swinging London and left us feeling betrayed, alone, and with-it. In between, Antonioni gave us "The Red Desert" (1964), possibly the most passive and empty serious movie of the decade."
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 January 2019 04:26 (five years ago) link
"possibly the most passive and empty serious movie of the decade" also one of the best
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 January 2019 04:29 (five years ago) link
saw The Passenger again. I had forgotten how amazing the ending was in the way it resolved the story, shot first through the bars of a window in a room at the Gloria Hotel looking outside, then moving through the bars to the courtyard, then looking back again through the bars into the room
― Dan S, Thursday, 31 January 2019 02:34 (five years ago) link
What helluva film L'Avventura remains. My seventh or eighth viewing, this time with a superb Gene Youngblood commentary track.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 18 January 2020 19:35 (four years ago) link
Michelangelo Antonioni on the set of Zabriskie Point in 1968, photographed by Bruce Davidson. pic.twitter.com/0K7mW9TYTE— 💜💜ค Ŧคภ๒๏ץ кภ๏ฬร ค ђคՇєг💜💜 (@NickPinkerton) April 23, 2020
― flappy bird, Thursday, 23 April 2020 17:39 (four years ago) link
That's so you don't catch him smiling.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 April 2020 17:40 (four years ago) link