The Little Birdies Know By Now
Red Desert (1964)
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
On one hand, Red Desert can't be a movie about alienation because every frame is a love letter to Monica Vitti. But Vitti, one of the most beautiful women in cinema, is also a great actor. She and Antonioni aren't playing at the neuroses of the rich, but fighting through a loneliness every bit as sympathetic as a bad day in the life of someone you care about. Their collaborations are in a different league from Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point, much closer to John Cassavetes' work with Gena Rowlands but so gorgeously composed that a secret life - gentle, watchful - is always there onscreen.
Antonioni is a humanist but also a lover of movies. He wanted to make a film about Ravenna, a town he knew as a child, because he was interested in the ways the town had changed. People speak of desolation in Red Desert, but it is clear that Antonioni does not see the Port of Corsini that way. In an interview, he says that it is silly to be against progress, since progress is inevitable. Given the choice between an image of trees and a factory, he is in favor of the factory because there are people inside.
Red Desert is Antonioni's first color film, but is so full of fog and the Adriatic Sea that the green of Vitti's coat, or her chestnut hair, spread like ink stains. That Criterion cover is terrible because it gives no indication of Vitti herself, who moves in a way - an everyday, normal sort of way - that makes paintings and photography obsolete. She says to Richard Harris, "If Ugo had looked at me the way you have these last few days, he'd have understood lots of things." About her illness, she means, though Harris isn't there to save her. She is alone, for good and bad, just as the factory is there, or those incredible ships just outside her window, or the ocean.
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
On one hand, Red Desert can't be a movie about alienation because every frame is a love letter to Monica Vitti. But Vitti, one of the most beautiful women in cinema, is also a great actor. She and Antonioni aren't playing at the neuroses of the rich, but fighting through a loneliness every bit as sympathetic as a bad day in the life of someone you care about. Their collaborations are in a different league from Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point, much closer to John Cassavetes' work with Gena Rowlands but so gorgeously composed that a secret life - gentle, watchful - is always there onscreen.
Antonioni is a humanist but also a lover of movies. He wanted to make a film about Ravenna, a town he knew as a child, because he was interested in the ways the town had changed. People speak of desolation in Red Desert, but it is clear that Antonioni does not see the Port of Corsini that way. In an interview, he says that it is silly to be against progress, since progress is inevitable. Given the choice between an image of trees and a factory, he is in favor of the factory because there are people inside.
Red Desert is Antonioni's first color film, but is so full of fog and the Adriatic Sea that the green of Vitti's coat, or her chestnut hair, spread like ink stains. That Criterion cover is terrible because it gives no indication of Vitti herself, who moves in a way - an everyday, normal sort of way - that makes paintings and photography obsolete. She says to Richard Harris, "If Ugo had looked at me the way you have these last few days, he'd have understood lots of things." About her illness, she means, though Harris isn't there to save her. She is alone, for good and bad, just as the factory is there, or those incredible ships just outside her window, or the ocean.
posted by NPK at 5:43 AM
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