Antonioni’s first color film and his best film overall
Antonioni- like Fellini, Kurosawa, Ozu and the other early masters who started in b/w uses color like a weapon- expressive– he actually painted part of the landscape here (red of course), goes for very bold primary, a blue shack, yellow smoke from the factory
Richard Harris- this isn’t a bad performance but I wouldn’t call it a major accomplishment for him like it is for Vitti—apparently Harris punched Antonioni during shooting and left early (they used a stand-in). Harris asked why Antonioni wanted him to walk “diagonally” and Antonioni told him to just do it- haha
Work of Carlo di Palma as DP- their first collaboration
Antonioni’s sense of mise-en-scene and frame design has rarely been matched in cinema history—and how that and the architecture influence his characters is pure genius
Seems just that every frame be a distressing picturesque masterstroke
Antonioni auteuristic trademarks in theme—alienation, anxiety in the modern life and modern relationships (influenced by surroundings) industrialized landscapes
Meticulously composed frames—bleak
When we aren’t hit with the rich primary colors we’re swimming in rustic industrial gray color palatte and fog—a vendor on the street is selling something and Antonioni paints every item gray
Atomic energy, dark and depressing—tubes and pipes, poison gas and an apocalyptic like orange flame (Blade Runner) jumping up out of the stacks—debris, trash
I adore the soft focus opening and credits—industrial landscapes with that experimental score- it sets up the entire film so well formally and visually
Very creepy industrialized robot child toy
Antonioni literally painted the pipes at the factory
Shot of Harris outside Vitti’s store—stunner- my god
Post-traumatic shock from accident- she’s suicidal—this would make a great companion piece with Lynn Ramsay’s post-shock oeuvre which I adore—here the start is a car accident (Cronenberg’s Crash another)—a machine that did this to Vitti
The pink flowers—then the house with the wallpaper with pink flowers- visually arresting
Pond is yellow—the big boat that’s within arm’s length in the canal—unreal set pieces- they’re literally paired with Vitti in frame and going by their window
Fog all over the place- he’d bring this up often in his auteur as a not-so-subtle metaphor
A highlight shot (amongst a seemingly endless series of them in this film) is the camera from behind Vitti’s head showing her POV and everything is in soft focus like the opening credits.
Later she looks back and sees 4 characters in soft focus washed away by the fog
The blue painted shack they break, burn and deconstruct
Quarantine
Breaking up characters with red window frames
The red oil refinery
Harris goes soft focus as he’s conning men away for a job
Shot of Vitti off to the right with the moving ship through the window on the left
Vitti is really special here in the performance- what a great period of work for her
My one drawback on the otherwise flawless film is the long Sardinia island escape short story- it breaks up the form
Both actors red hair
Odd elliptical editing during their love making then cuts to an entirely pink room- so avant-garde- I love it
She deteriorates—at 110 minutes in she’s getting overtaken by the oppressive mise-en-scene like Von Sternberg’s mise-en-scene work or Welles The Trial
End on the factory pouring smoke with the industrial experimental score- perfection
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