Antonioni's Heirs

This is exactly what I was thinking about -- why the contemporary art house cinema is chock-a-block with Antonioni's heirs while Bergman's are nowhere to be seen.

"Today, we are aswarm with Antonioni imitators, but no one seems to want to be the new Bergman," Michael Atkinson notes. That's partly because nobody can be the new Bergman. And not just for the obvious reason.

Unlike a lot of younger filmmakers today, Bergman was a highly, richly cultured individual. He knew the Bible backward and forward, Shakespeare too; fine art, music, and so on. All of his knowledge did more than inform his work—his work is suffused with it, it gains much of its texture and heft from it. Of course, Antonioni is similarly cultured, but his depth in this area doesn't play so much upon the surface of his work; it motivates the form, rather than thickens it. Today's young filmmakers aren't, for the most part, as polyglot. For a lot of them, all the culture they've got is film. And Antonioni's got a signature style that's accessible to them, and seems imitable: shoot some architecture and negative space, have characters disaffectedly utter banalities, and you think you've got it. To emulate Bergman, you've got to know what he knew, and knowing that...go on to be yourself.

That's one reason certainly but I think it is also because over the last couple of decades the focus has shifted from Europe, and as a result from the European high culture, to everywhere around the world. Europe no longer has a monopoly when it comes to serious cinema.

There is also the fact that the themes of urban alienation which Antonioni made his own are so readily applicable to rapidly developing Asian cities. One of the reasons why we have so many Antonioni imitators in Asia.

Tsai Ming-Liang is perhaps the most talented of the young Asian filmmakers whose style can also be compared to that of Antonioni. (Bela Tarr and Michael Haneke too.) I wanted to link again to my favourite crying scene in the movies ever but the youtube guys have deleted the video. If you haven't seen it you have to do with the description there. It is a typical Antonioni shot. Long unbroken tracking shot, a non-subjective moving camera following the girl as she walks in the park. Only after a while you will realize that it is not just the girl the camera is tracking but the park. The desolate park in fact is much more important. She doesn't have to speak anything. There is already a visual correlative to her inner life all over the screen. These types of shots are all over in Antonioni's films.

Some older posts about Antonioni with links here.

L'Avventura

How about spending the Diwali evening watching a 35mm print of L'Avventura, one of my favourite films ever, alone? And musing about the emptiness and desolation of the modern world? That's what I did yesterday!

In which I try to explain why I like Antonioni in pseudo-intellectual terms

My fanboyish ejaculations on Antonioni's films a couple of posts earlier drew startled responses from a couple of friends (Bhaya and Anurag, this is for you!). They felt that it deviated from the norms of pseudo-intellectual pretentions that this blog generally displays. And after all, being a pseudo-intellectual, how can you just "like" something without giving a proper theoretical justification or dropping a few names, preferably from the western tradition? Also, my saying that I like depressed and beautiful women was found to be shockingly childish. So this post is an exercise in damage control, an attempt to restore the reputation of being a pseudo-intellectual. In what follows I explain why I like Antonioni (specially those three films, L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse) in a very pseudo-intellectualish way of course:

First, depressed beautiful women. Let me put it this way. I love the portrayal of a profound sexual melancholy in Antonioni's films, in his female characters specially. Sexual melancholy, as in, when you are feeling completely isolated, disconnected and alienated from your surroundings and yet deeply long for a serious erotic union with the Other. Or, in less pretentious terms, you are feeling sad, alone and horny all at the same time. Antonioni connects sexual desire with a general anxiety and uncertainty that the characters feel about everything and which gradually eats away at their souls. No wonder that Monica Vitti after being depressed in all these three films finally reaches mental asylum in Red Desert, which is a continuation of the trilogy.

Second, getting away from the classical concerns of character or narrative. Antonioni took narrative cinema away from straight storytelling, towards a realm where he could explore ideas in a more direct manner. People looking for narrative closure and clean-cut explanations for character behavior will be disappointed with his films. What is important there, is the "mood", which Antonioni creates and sustains by employing very stylish camera work and scene compositions. And through this he explores the ideas in a purely visual manner. But what exactly are those ideas? Feelings of radical alienation and disconnection from the surroundings and from other human beings, that have become an inevitable part of modern urban life, find a potent expression in his films and specially in the face of Monica Vitti and Jeanne Moreau. His films are a critique of the idea of modernity and document the costs of material prosperity in terms of wasted human lives and potential for genuine happiness and fulfillment. The most common symbol he chooses to show this is that of modern architecture. All those empty buildings, which in their weird geometric shapes, just seem to be completely devoid of any human element whatsoever. As if the world itself is trying to reject humanity. The same is for the emptied streets on which Monica Vitti spends most of the time just walking aimlessly. It's the streets and roads which have deserted human beings, not the other way round.

Third, his concern with the mise-en-scene and scene composition. Antonioni was perhaps the most stylish filmmaker of his generation. What is most remarkable is how he composes his scenes specially how he chooses what to put in background and what in foreground. Normally, in a scene the protagonist will occupy the centre of the frame and the entire focus will be on him with the background there only to supply the context, or as in Hollywood films, to make the scene look "beautiful" (in the most cliched way of course). In Antonioni's films the background is a character in itself, sometimes even more important than the protagonists in front of them. For example, in that brilliant island sequence of L'Avventura, it is that landscape which occupies most of the frame, with the characters there only in corners, or else, shot in such long shots as to make their personality relatively unimportant as compared to those landscapes. It creates a weird disorienting effect in the viewer. Also remarkable is the scene where Claudia and Sandro make love in an open field. It is shot in such an unconventional style, that just by watching the sex scene, you get the idea that it is an empty sexual connection, one that is not going to last.

Fourth, cinema of absence. What troubles many people when watching these films is why do the characters just walk and walk on those empty streets? Why are the buildings always vacant? And in general, why is there so much of open space everywhere? I think it is a very radical idea, the idea that you can comment on something by NOT showing something where it was expected. It is in this context that the brilliant ending of L'Eclisse makes sense. The two lovers in the end promise to meet once again to continue their affair but looking at their faces and the way they utter those words, it becomes clear that it is an empty promise after all. What follows is a long (seven minutes) sequence of silent shots of the place and its neighbourhood where they were supposed to meet. It is by the emptiness in those spaces that we find out that the spark of love has indeed died and that it is truly THE END in every sense of the term. The final scene is that of a street lamp which resembles an eclipse, perhaps signifying an apocalypse or the end of the world itself.

Fifth, cinema of silence. There is a general tendency in people that when there is no sound coming from the screen they shut down their sensory perceptions. That's the reason why background score is so ubiquitous in Hollywood movies, or for that matter any cinema which relies solely on "action". In contrast, Antonioni's cinema is a cinema of thoughts, moods and ideas. What makes these films even more masterful is that Antonioni relies solely on visual style. Dialogues can never get you inside the head of the character, specially when the characters in question are feeling alienated, that's why there are so many silent scenes and even when someone speaks something it does nothing to propel the plot forward. So on the surface you get the feeling that "nothing is happening" but it is inside the head of those characters that things are happening which is like it is in the real world too.

Sixth, the impossibility of love in the modern world. These three films are some of the most eloquent essays on the phenomenon of the breakdown in human relationships, specially in the advanced and modern societies. What makes these films so disquieting and despairing is that Antonioni doesn't treat it as a problem which has anything to do with the individuals in question but rather treats it just as a symptom, a symbol signifying a far deeper malaise in the society. It is in this context that the final reconciliatory scene (or is it?) in L'Avventura makes sense.In modern societies we have done away with the moorings of tradition, family, religion or community but haven't replaced them with anything substantial. Eros in itself isn't powerful enough a force to keep people together, that's what Antonioni suggests. In a remarkable scene in L'Eclisse towards the end, sensing that her relationship with her stockbroker boyfriend is going to end Vittoria says, "I wished I didn't love you or I loved you much more". It is this uncertainty towards everything which has crept in our consciousness, because we have forsaken the certainties, false of course, of religion or tradition, that is creating havoc in our lives, ultimately leading to unhappiness, ennui and anxiety.

Finally Antonioni's influence. Antonioni was easily the most stylish and radically innovative filmmakers of his generation and it his style and thematic questions that concern most of the great filmmakers currently working, specially those exploring the phenomenon of alienation and urban isolation and dislocation like Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai, Tsai Ming-liang and others. They all trace their pedigree to Antonioni. He has been responsible for freeing narrative cinema from the pre-modern shackles of conventional storytelling and brought cinema back to the level of literature (well, almost) of its time.

Anyway if you are in New York, don't miss the Antonioni retrospective which is on at the BAM cinematheque all this week. Details here. I can only imagine what kind of experience it would be to watch L'avventura on the big screen for the first time. I had earlier linked to the articles about the retrospective in NYT and Village Voice.

I had earlier written a post on L'Eclisse. You can find it here.

Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni is one of my favourite film directors. His "trilogy" of L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse are three of my favourite European films. I can watch them over and over again and never get bored. Yes, I just love those beautiful and depressed women. Depression has never looked sexier after these films :)

The New York Times has a nice, short article on the occasion of a retrospective of his films currently being shown in new york. Here.

And this is a nice article on his movie The Passenger which has just been released on DVD.

Some Thoughts on Antonioni's The Passenger

The films of Michelangelo Antonioni are generally admired more than they are loved, which is quite understandable given how radical and out of the convention his style is. His films lack almost everything that we generally associate with conventional cinema -- plot, or even a story, fully fledged characters, narrative resolution, emotional catharsis etc. Nothing much happens in his films, except perhaps in the minds of his confused and lost characters.

His films are a just a collection of beautifully shot and composed images whose purpose is not to tell a story but to convey a vague sense of mood and feeling. The Passenger, the latest Antonioni film that I have seen is no different. Although at the surface it does have a plot. Jack Nicholson plays a burnt-out TV journalist who is making a documentary in Saharan African country ravaged by some civil war. Like most of Antonioni's characters he is stuck in life. In fact quite literally so, as we see in the beginning of the film his vehicle stuck in the desert sand. So when he finds out that there is a dead body in the next room in his hotel, he impusively decides to switch his identity with the dead man. But soon he finds that he is being pursued by a hostile bunch of people.

As I have summarized it, this sounds like some spy thriller of some kind. But if it is at all a spy thriller, then it is thriller told in extreme slow motion! And the ending is so baffling and irritating, irritating as in to those who expect the film to be some mystery. I also couldn't imagine that a character, played by no less than Jack Nicholson himself (who was at the peak of his career at that time, just after Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), could die like that. Yes, Jack Nicholson dies in the end, most probably is assassinated but we never see how. We don't even see his dead body or his face. It is as if he just disappears from the screen. Just like the last few minutes of L'Eclisse.

Of course, I knew what was coming, having seen some of Antonioni's films earlier (and loved them too) and greatly enjoyed the experience. Jack Nicholson is perfect in the role. He is smart, witty and understated and his acting appears totally effortless. Maria Schneider (the girl from the Last Tango in Paris) acts well too. But in case you are expecting some buttery delight, there are no sex scenes in the film, but there is always a feeling of a languorous sexuality whenever she is on screen which works very well with the overall mood. And of course, as is typical of Antonioni's films, the landscapes are captured beautifully throughout. In fact early on in the film, Jack Nicholson character remarks, surveying the lifeless desert landscape in front of him, that he "prefers men to landscapes". I could imagine Antonioni chuckling silently at this thought. He surely finds landscapes far more interesting than people, even when they have faces and personalities of Monica Vitti or Jack Nicholson.

One of the scenes in the film that I really liked and which is coming back to me again and again is when Maria Schneider asks Jack Nicholson what is he escaping from. And then he tells her to turn back in the car and see for herself. She then jumps up from the seat waving her hand but soon she gets very pensive when she sees what they are leaving behind. Its a totally empty, long stretch of road. Completely empty and lifeless. It is as if it is emptiness itself. It is beuatifully shot and very evocative.

We all perhaps want to escape, escape from our routine life, life of a comfortable job, life of easy pleasures, life of banalities and shallowness. Even though we don't know where to escape to. But as this film teaches, there is just no escaping from. At least it is incorrect to assume that someone else's life is better than ours. The feeling of emptiness is not something that is associated with a particular person or a mode of life, but rather it is far deeper. It is perhaps a characteristic of life itself, specially in these modern times. Antonioni understood this better than any other filmmaker, that's what makes him one of the greatest artists of modern times. Overall it is a must see for all Antonioni fans. It is not his best work but it is far better than an average European art film. And to those who don't know anything of Antonioni, I will just ask them to go with an open mind. In fact as widely open as possible :)

Jack Nicholson on Antonioni

It's a sign of Nicholson's affection for Antonioni that the actor, who couldn't be bothered with doing interviews when he was up for an Academy Award for "About Schmidt," spent 90 minutes recounting his friendship with the legendary filmmaker. "He's been like a father figure to me," he said. "I worked with him because I wanted to be a film director and I thought I could learn from a master. He's one of the few people I know that I ever really listened to."

Full story here

Antonioni's The Passenger

Michelangelo Antonioni's rarely seen masterpiece The Passenger starring Jack Nicholson, has just been revived in a new print with a director's cut. If everything goes well, I should be able to catch the screening next week when it opens at the music box theatre. For now here are some interesting articles I found on the film (yes, I have a bad habit of reading about the film before I go to see it).

An interesting article in Cinema-Scope has lots of details on the history of the film and its critical reception at the time of its release. What caught my eye however was this enlightening comment:

Antonioni'’s “thriller” is not merely dissimilar to Hitchcock: it can be read-—and this is reinforced with every viewing-—as the most elaborate critique of HitchcockÂ’s shallowness that any director has ever made.

Indeed. And why only Hitchcok thrillers, Antonioni's films are a critique of the shallowness of all films which rely on narrative resolution to drive their point across. The way he did away with narrative, psychological determinism (that moth-eaten concept inherited from the realist novel of the nineteenth century) was nothing but revolutionary. Antonioni in this respect is "modern" auteur in true sense of the word.

The Passenger, even though it had Jack Nicholson in the lead, has long been out of circulation. Quite paradoxically it was Nicholson himself who owned the rights of the film. Koehler in the same article explains this:

What caused this unexpected, delayed timing to meet up with current events? According to Nicholson's attorney Ken Kleinberg, the actor had long wanted to purchase the worldwide rights to a film he loved as an art collector might; if he wasn'’t able to hang it on a wall, he could at least protect the film from potential corporate skullduggery and exercise some control over its proper exhibition.

And as Manhola Dargis in The New York Times says, and I echo her feelings, "how delightful for Mr. Nicholson and how maddening for the rest of us who, for years, could watch "The Passenger" only on a crummy-looking home video." In my case I have not seen it even on video.

Here is Jim Hoberman from Village Voice and here is a review from New York Observer which succintly summarizes Antonioni's point, perhaps ironically (not an easy task by any means!):

The point of The Passenger (and Mr. Antonioni'’s psychic philosophy) is that life is not worth living. Trade in your own for a different model and you'’ll only discover that nobody else'’s life is worth living, either.

In case you are interested in something contrarian, Andrew O'Hehir of Salon thinks that Antonioni's philosophy is "sophomoric" and the only influence L'Avventura had, was on fashion photography. Arrrgh!

L'Eclisse

Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse (The Eclipse) is the last part of his informal trilogy of eros, estrangement and alienation, that he made in the early sixties, that golden era of European art cinema. L'Avventura (which I have seen and absolutely adore) and Le Notte (which I haven't seen yet) respectively form the first and the second installment. They are all different stories and are united only thematically and the central character (played with inscrutable, totally European sensuality (don't ask me what it is!), by Monica Vitti). All of these three films explore the difficulties of human relationhips in modern urban life. How people drift into each other, prodded as they are by the loneliness and existential ennui, and finally how they drift apart once they realize the difficulty of sustaining any deeper connection for even a short period of time.

In L'Avventura, after a girl mysteriously disappears from a yachting trip on a distant volcanic island, her friend and her lover start searching for her all over Sicily and then, in the process fall in love only to realise how illusory and transient that feeling of connectedness was. L'Eclisse is very similar in terms of narrative structure, only it is visually even more daring, with almost abstract looking long shots completely bereft of dialogues or even background music for most of the film.

The film begins with the breakup of the relationship between Vittoria, who is a translator by profession, with Riccardo who is perhaps somekind of a writer or publisher. As I said earlier there is hardly any dialogue or any extra-diegetic sound for most of the film. The break-up between the two is shown in a purely visual manner by accentuating the distance between them by using unusual camera angles and framing. After the break-up Vittoria starts drifting on the roads of Rome which she continues to do pretty much for the entire film. She meets up the young and energetic stockbroker played by Alain Delon and starts a tentative affair with him. In the entire film Monica Vitti wears the same expression of the same mysterious sadness, perhaps borne of some deep and radical detachment from everything around her. Even when she is playing erotic games with the hero, her mind seems to be somewhere else plagued by some inexlicable sadness. But what is she thinking? She never tells us and we never get to know. Finally this affair, which was always tentative from the beginning, also comes to an end, when they both acknowledge how shallow it is and fail to turn up where they had to agreed to meet earlier.

The final scene, which lasts more than five minutes, is nothing short of brilliant. It is completely soundless and the characters with whom we spent the first more than two hours are nowhere to be seen. Instead Antonioni like an avant-garde documentary filmamker surveys the urban landscape of the streets of Rome, showing a man getting off a bus holding a newspaper with headlines informing about the nuclear age, or other abstract images like water trickling down from a barrel onto the starched ground or birds perched on geometrically aligned rooftops. It is difficult to understand what Antonioni wants to say in this final reel. Does he hint at the disappearance of life itself by emphasising the utterly life-less urban landscape? I don't know. Whatever it is, the feeling that you have seen something out of ordinary, mysterious yet enlightening remains even long after the film is actually over. Very highly recommended.