Tag Archives: Antonioni

Hochzeitsgäste [1990)

Finding beauty in a crowd.

You will never find it again.

The ne plus ultra of “fleeting”.

Was it just a dream?

Her hair?

We can pin nothing down.

About this brilliant film.

Except for its brilliance.

And that it’s a Polish movie directed by a German.

Who has no arms.

And who changed his name.

I have run the names of all the actresses in the credits.

And none of them are an obvious match for the star of this film.

The star is not Christina Ormani.

It’s the other girl.

The one that gets cheated on.

The jilted lover.

She gets cheated on, so she cheats back.

And in cheating, she finds love.

True love.

This masterpiece short film (feature?) was credited to Niko Brücher.

It was his first film.

You may know him (but probably not) as Niko von Glasow.

It makes sense that this is a masterpiece.

Because Von Glasow trained with Fassbinder.

The actor-auteur of Kamikaze 1989.

I could be wrong, but I think Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a better actor than he was a director.

And let me be unequivocal:  he was a GREAT actor.

On par with Bogart.

Really.

Back to Von Glasow.

He studied film at NYU.

And in Poland.

From the latter is drawn the cast of this film.

They are, it seems, Polish student actors.

Some went on to stable careers.

Others didn’t.

The star.

Who is she?

What is her name?

Which one of these inscrutable Polish names represents her?

I can’t be a fanboy if I don’t have a name.

My suspicion is that this is just about the only film she made.

But I don’t even know what to call her.

These are OBSCURE actors in this film (with a couple of exceptions).

Von Glasow has no arms because of Thalidomide.

Born this way.

But none of this adulation for this mystery actress would matter had Von Glasow not made this masterpiece where there are no spoken words for the first nine minutes of the film.

Indeed, over the course of its 38 minutes, there is no FUNCTIONAL dialogue whatsoever.

There is some whispering.

Some chattering.

But there are no subtitles.

And there need not be.

For this is essentially a silent film with sound.

Not to be confused with a silent film with musical accompaniment.

There’s music here, alright.

A strange, mournful (and rather clownish) marimba scores much of this film.

Just little melodies.

No crazy four-part harmonies or anything.

Very minimal.

Marimba (!)

What a choice!!

It makes for an ODD amalgam.

To reiterate, this film is powered strictly by VISUAL SYMBOLISM.

The actors’ movements and the camera’s light-sucking registration make up the entirety of this visual poem.

I must give credit to the cinematographer.

Although she is credited with merely “Kamera”, it is Jolanta Dylewska.

Between Von Glasow and herself, this is one of the most beautifully-shot black and white films I have ever seen.

It is on par with the two early Godard masterpieces À Bout de souffle and Vivre sa vie in this regard.

As well as being reminiscent in tone and mood to Antonioni’s breathtaking L’Avventura.

And our mystery actress (Anna Dabrowska?) is the equivalent of Monica Vitti.

We are talking about the same level of beauty.

And we are talking about having that beauty captured on film in such a singular way.

This film is currently free to watch on Tubi.

Don’t miss it.

-PD

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The Conversation [1974)

By 1974, TITANPOINTE was complete.

Which brings us to Francis Ford Coppola for the first time.

spoo SPOOK!

Where AT&T is LITHIUM.

Briefly dominating Drudge Report.

And then gone.

“Up on the twenty-ninth floor
Up on the twenty-ninth floor”

Four locks.  And an alarm.  A bottle of wine.

No phone.  Happy 44th birthday.

Not happy about this.

Gene Hackman in this masterpiece.

From Antonioni we got Blowup eight years previous.

But this time it is all about getting a fat sound.

SIGINT.

Is it?

It is a love for one’s work.

Like Gregg Popovich.

Hoosiers.

Gene Hackman.

But scarier.  Like 33 Thomas Street.

SMPTE for the devil…seems.

Grasshopper.

Must have a mix.  Phasing.

Louder.  In phase.

Knock.  Out of phase.

Urgently.  For young Teri Garr.

It doesn’t work.

This work.

It bleeds you of life electricity.

Spooking yourself.

On the trolley.

Snapping synapse line.  Electrical cable overhead.

And power down.  Stuck.  To think.  In silhouette.

Producing hit intelligence.

But not really thinking too much about the consumers.

Until the cris de coeur.

Or crise cardiaque.

When you are the only one between groundbreaking intel and the world at large.

And you are hearing it (“getting” it) for the first time.

When your job becomes an obsession.

Because of a dedication to excellence.

His famous gray plastic raincoat.

We think Manfred Eicher.  And François Musy.

Long nights going through the takes.

Full take.

All tape.

Whispering “conscience”…in that Swiss French we know so well.

Gently coated with cigars.

Shirley Feeney is here.

Cindy Williams.

But no Laverne.

The opening take so slow.

New Orleans jazz in many reverbed permutations.

Slightly shifting like Debussy’s clouds.

Or the light on Monet’s haystacks.

Operationally triangulated.

In a sonic crosshairs.

Most satisfying is the breaking up.

The broken telegraph gibberish of the rhythmic signal skating on intelligibility.

As if he’s heading to 26 Federal Plaza.

But it’s more corporate espionage.

Risk management.

Counterintelligence.

A masterpiece of sound film.

Which emphasizes that which is usually an afterthought.

Sonic activity.

Signaling intelligence.

We wait to decode the universe on our doorstep.

 

-PD

 

 

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Každý den odvahu [1964)

I took a long time off.

Because the brain is delicate.

I have crammed so many facts into my noggin.

That a release valve was needed.

The escape of television.

Which is to say, I’m no better than anyone else.

In some ways, I’m no different.

And this film proves the point.

Courage for Every Day.

Goes nowhere.

Except to the sublime.

But you must work at it.

You just haven’t earned it yet, baby.

Maybe.

It’s not buddy holly.

But it bops along with capitalist incursion.

This isn’t Evald Schorm’s best work, but it showed his range.

For a first film, it’s damned good.

But it’s slow.

Not like slow cinema.

More like plodding.

Plotting clumsy Ulysses.

When all I ever want is Finnegans Wake.

Former makes too much sense.

For a first FICTION film.

Largely failure for first 50%.

And then the sublime emerges.

We’re not on TV anymore.

We’re in the realm of cinema.

And it’s a huge difference.

Time…to stretch out.

In which.

A bunch of boring communist functionaries.

Up against the magic of the feral masses.  Untamed.

Uneducated.  But free, almost.  Maybe.

Jana Brejchová just like Beth Behrs.

But there is heartbreak.

When she says, “Work it out for yourself.”

Something like that.

Human being lawnmower.

Morphs into Czech Breathless.  Existential vacuum of Antonioni.

He can’t be a normal person.

Because of the cause.

All causes are insane.

Including mine.

The cause…

Not to be confused with causal mechanism.

To be an idealist.  Circumspect.

There is no life outside commerce.  In the West.

We have lost.

But a sudden ray of hope…

Only defense against desperation.

Here I sit, over my Underwood.

Go talk to him…

He loves you.

Cook it and kill it!

Or vice versa.

At such a time that pulling rabbit from hat becomes the ultimate embarrassment.

Because ridicule has been wedged.

We are back to real films (if not standard criticism).

Can only be discussed in its own terms.

Every time.

Ekphrasis 24/7.  8 day s week.

Rachel Corrie is my inspiration.

As said Giles Corey:  “More weight!”

 

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Il Deserto rosso [1964)

My hair hurts.

She says.

Yes.

This is one of the miracles of cinema.

Every frame a painting with a caméra–stylo.

One critic will boil it down to “mental illness”.

And Monica Vitti does that very well.

Red hair.  Red desert.

But we should know Antonioni by now.

This is that existential nausea you used to hear of at coffee shops.

Except the coffee shops no longer exist.

And Manhattan is a ghost ship with no one on board.  Saying nothing.

No doubt Kubrick visited this for 2001.  And George Lucas for THX 1138.

But we are more interested in Godard.

Il Deserto rosso is a film for filmmakers.

Mulholland Dr. stands no chance.

But why?

Because, yes, we all feel like this.

Lost.

The floating world in Japanese mythology.

No doubt Kurosawa pinched the end bit for Dreams.

It’s ok.

That’s what makes Il Deserto rosso a watershed film.

In the shed.  Surrounded by water.

A proto-orgy.

Roman atavism at the group level.

No, no…

I’m not getting anywhere.

The critics will cry “overwrought”.

What we have here is really a sick sadness.

Feel too much.

Bowie’s Low title is above the artist in profile.

Low profile.

And that color.

Her hair.

What acting!

Is it?

Bow down to the master Michelangelo.

One of the true auteurs.

For the uninitiated it will seem unbearably pretentious.

Or just confusing.

It will seem that there is no plot.

And, indeed, in space there is no “up” or “down”.

There are simply bodies with sufficient mass to exert gravity.

Is that the way to say it?

Is that how it works?

Because we are all floating, right?

32 feet per second per second.

[sic]

Acceleration of falling bodies.

God bless her…

Always a sinking feeling.

Because her husband is a vapid jerk.

And the most sensitive guy can’t get close enough…cause she’s nuts.

Makes perfect sense.

Our own worst fears played out by the players on the screen.

Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore.

Precisely.

Pirandello.

Logic bombs and bombs of illogic.

The latter in Dadaism.

Hackers who terrorize simply to make their point.

To outsmart.

Legacy networks and newer nets introduced in phases…

Allowing for GDP, profit margin, and public sector infrastructure.

Which is to say, DARPA.

And where does the film critic fit in?

Merely as a voice…reminding…don’t forget your Sun Tzu.

Everything else will be diverted to slag heaps and holding tanks.

Opaque tanks…glowing green like antifreeze.

Does this sound like a fun adventure?

Then Il Deserto rosso is for you.

And for me.

Because I identify with Monica Vitti’s character so much.

Afraid of everything.

My hair hurts.

 

-PD

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L’Avventura [1960)

Was Monica Vitti the most beautiful woman ever?

Probably.

Is Monica Vitti the most beautiful woman ever?

Yes.

That sounds better.

This.

This is the most disorienting film I have ever seen.

Mulholland Dr. is child’s play in this regard.

A sort of sweet, pleasant nausea.

A feeling I didn’t know existed.

Maybe.

Maybe John Hughes was right in this regard.

[Vingt regards]

uno

hair, always hair…blowing in the wind…like tall grass

good lord…

due

the birds are men…flocking on the jungle gym bars…as she silently tries to sneak from the schoolhouse

Noto…UNESCO World Heritage Site…Samba de Uma Nota Só

tre

a purring in my headphones…a Foley artist diabolico-subliminal…and yes she curls up like a cat…

Quattro

she seems to be bathing in money…but it’s just the floor pattern…sometimes…the floor looks best in red…

and there is always a woman…or a man…and you hate to admit it

cinque

dreadful…dreary…making love above the cemetery…a gazelle with blond hair…thank you Google…5’7″…an essential function for the, functioning of humanity

sei

Uh!  They’re all nudes.  No nudity here.  A goddess is clothed.  Not an alabaster ornament by the fountain.

sette

I wanted to like it.  Or I wanted to not like it.  Camus.  I said that.

otto

no man is an island…and no island a man…and no man a nomad…

nove

it all hinges (henges) on a funny face in the mirror…the genius…we create together…Vitti…Antonioni…Ferzetti

a bad habit I never caught…

dieci

andiamo…lots of andiamo…remarkable for a film with so little movement in such a big slab of its meat…

like formidable in French…Anna Karina…everything formidable…but that’s because she was Danish…speaking French…and her cute little accent…but before there was Godard Breathless there was Antonioni Adventure…like the second Television album…but moreover on Karina…before Vivre sa vie (I know…) there was L’Avventura…a little scene with a wig…and before that Louise Brooks…

undici

you think they will turn around nude

dodici

Nono, Luigi…it is the most intoxicating kiss…out of nowhere…WTF in excelsis…mamma mia!

tredici

David, del…frolicking…who says summer is over?!?  bangs…Fiat…leaping off the pavement (!)

quattordici

they told me to learn…sotto voce…or sotto nightgown…les cloches…loaves…and fishes…twenty, or vingt-et-un…Van Johnson…I really blew it…the architecture…and a dog with lunar metabolism…

quindici

you fuck…and then get fucked…that is, the circle of life…like a lion…and an impala…gazelle…przygoda…

sedici

he collects dolls…a man…faints [Truffaut]

diciassette

the first girl…is not Vitti…wait a while…count the seconds

diciotto

oops…now comes the swimming in money…my house in Rome…and the other in Milan

diciannove

Michelangelo…Sandro…I threw it all away…and no one is listening

venti

another day, another dollar…pardon me ma’am, but do you have natural nails?  I use a lighter.  Better still, until they go wrong.

it’s too packed full of dolphins

too many Bibles and Catholic eeriness

spring breakers…island hoppers

if it had ended

no

just give me macaroons and sports cars

il mio amore

-PD

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Letter to Jane [1972)

Fucking goddamned brilliant.

It is not surprise.  An exclamation without an exclamation point.

It is a reaffirmation.

That Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, in 1972, could dismantle the entire system imposing ill upon the world.

If their critique was not inclusive enough to include the shortcomings of communism, we must forgive them somewhat.

It really doesn’t matter that this film operates in a Chris Marker manner.

It was the right form to address a picture.  In fact, the spirit is much more akin to Antonioni’s Blow-Up.

The ontology of the image.

André Bazin.

This is the world from which Godard and Gorin emerge.

But the key touchstone may indeed be, as the filmmakers say, Uncle Bertolt.

Brecht.

Truth simple.  Telling the truth difficult.

Dziga Vertov.

Lenin.

It is a revelation to hear Godard speaking English.

Yes, there are no subtitles here (unless, perhaps, you are French and don’t understand English).

That makes this an especially important film for the English-speaking world.  Like British Sounds.

But most importantly this film encourages intellectual scrutiny of mass media.

Scrutiny of photographs.  Scrutiny of captions.  Scrutiny of context.

I think, therefore I am.

This is the acting default which we are told emerged (with sound) in the 1930s of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Beware of pity (advises Stefan Zweig).

A town without pity.  Gene Pitney.  Pithy.

No filmmaker has been more bold, in every way, than Jean-Luc Godard.

But his collaborators deserve their due for standing by him.

Gorin.  Anne-Marie Miéville.

So many ways to be bold…

To show the futility of 3-D.  Actually, to show how mundane superheroes are.

Just one aspect in the latest installment of brilliance (Adieu au langage).

His latest, Letter to Jane, Histoire(s) du cinema…

They all smash to bits flailing failures like San Andreas.

It’s as if the master is saying, “Just think for a minute.”

But the master, JLG, dove into thought and grabbed handfuls of paradoxes.

That is the true artist.

That is the eternal man.

It makes me a bit emotional.

What dedication!

From Roxy the dog all the way back to Michel Poiccard.

It is hard to focus on just one episode in this immense body of work.

That said, the true message of Godard is elusive because his fame (and infamy) overshadow the meaning conveyed.

But his work says…carry on.

-PD

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