A few thoughts about the passing of Michelangelo Antonioni. I remember being at a New York City screening of his 1975 film, THE PASSENGER. During the famous shot which slowly moves away from Jack Nicholson's body, through a hotel window, finally turning in a geometrical pattern to reframe the scene from an exterior viewpoint, an elderly man in the theater starting shouting, "It's too SLOW, the photography's good, the acting is good... but it's too damn SLOW!!!!" Antonioni's pacing had caused the Outcry. I was fascinated, the other patron was bored. All of Antonioni's films look great and some have provoked great controversy. His masterwork L'AVVENTURA was roundly booed at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
Edvard Munch's famous 1885 painting, IL GRIDO, could perhaps be considered as the structuring absence behind the Antonioni aesthetic. He also made a film with that title in 1957, which is perhaps his most underrated feature in a career that spanned six decades. All of his major works culminate in a kind of horrific, silent Outcry. It's no coincidence that this image can also be recognized as evoking the oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman, who also passed away yesterday. Like Munch, Antonioni was a painter. He used cameras instead of brushes and put his light and tints onto film.
Antonioni had a very tough time with many critics and still does with audiences unprepared for what the does with time and space. He gives us all the time in the world to consider Time and Space. For some that's probably Not Cool when they may be in a great hurry to get to where they want to go. But it's always been that way. Antonioni's camera seems to always want to crawl past his characters, or figures, toward.... let's just say something else. We don't want Steve Cochran to climb up that tower in the last scene of IL GRIDO. You want to shout, "Don't do it!" But he does. The preceding film has been a contemplation of a downward spiral leading to his final act. Suicide is a major taboo in our culture and not generally considered a viable option. Antonioni's film perhaps allows us to consider the act in a different light.
The image above is of Riccardo Freda (1909-1999) who, along with Antonioni, is my favorite Italian director. Freda hated the work of Antonioni, and Bergman, but especially Antonioni, whom he probably saw as representing everything which frustrated him about the post WWII Neo-Realist dominated Italian cinema: deliberation, intellectual pretension and Art Cinema over Genre Cinema. But in 1958 the two titans actually worked {as directors} on the same film, in one of Italy's most notorious genres, NEL SEGNO DI ROMA. Produced in 1958 by Italian, French and German companies, it was an Anita Ekberg-starring Peplum. Helmed by the ailing veteran Guido Brignone, who died the next year, Antonioni was called in to pick up some scenes, along with other directors, including Sergio Leone, who also worked on the script. Freda was second unit director for the action scenes, which are spectacular, possibly the best thing he ever did. NEL SEGNO... is set up as a series of Neo-classical paintings which burst into life from first to last shot. The fact that Antonioni and Freda were involved comes as no surprise, even though this is not a well-known collaboration, and considering that it is dramatically void and only intended to showcase Anita Ekberg's virtues, perhaps that's understandable. But it sure looks great. IL GRIDO (1957) Kino Video DVD
L'AVVENTURA (1960) THE CRITERION COLLECTION
Both of the above DVD's are highly recommended and good places to start in a survey of Antonioni's essential oeuvre.
(C) Robert Monell, 2007
