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| Monica Vitti in 'Red Desert' |
This time, I would like to talk about Michelangelo
Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’. Though it was a film more than 50 years ago, it is
still a recommendable film for today’s audience. While I first became
fascinated in Antonioni’s work after working ‘Blow Up’ many years ago, it has
turned out that ‘Red Desert’ would become my favorite Antonioni film of all. I
am impressed by the thoughtfulness and philosophical outlook of the film, and I
think the central theme of the film is relevant for people from any era – what
sort of attitude and action should one take in an ever-changing world? Just
merely try to fit in and get every gadgets that are just on the web 5 seconds
ago? Or to retreat and celebrate the good old times and a simpler life? As we
will see, Antonioni recommended a more positive plan of action for the audience.
The visual style of ‘Red Desert’ has influenced many
subsequent films. Alfred Hitchcock, who admired Antonioni, has been impressed
by the color use in ‘Red Desert’ and ‘Blow Up’. He tried to adapt a similar
visual style in his unrealized film ‘Kaleidoscope’, and what a shame this film
could never be made. On the other hand, John Boorman has also cited his
influence from Antonioni and other European filmmakers when he made the Lee
Marvin classic ‘Point Blank’ in 1967, which was also about the question of
subjectivity and alienation.
The story concerned the experience of Giuliana, the mother
of a single child, in a modernizing and industrial town. She struggled to come
to terms in the technological progress around her, and a subtle suggestion
stated that she might be suffering from some form of neurosis – and certainly
existential crisis. Through her interaction with the people, and also landscape
and environment around, would she be able to find her own place, and also have
the wisdom to figure out a meaning of her life?
Once in an interview, Antonioni has expressed a lot about
his view on ‘Red Desert’. He noted that this film represented a shift of focus
for his filmography, because for his 3 films before that – the trilogy that
started with ‘L’ – they were more concerned with relationships between people.
In ‘Red Desert’, a more cosmological and outward perspective was taken – he
wanted to explore more about how individuals interacted with their surroundings
– the ‘human in universe’ theme, which I have mentioned quite a lot before in
other films. While this approach would likely require an impartial perspective,
Antonioni’s style turned out to be far more imaginative than that.
The style could be considered artificial or even abstract at
points, very much like a high-end modernist artwork. While color may at the
surface seem to enhance the realism of the scenes – human beings see in color,
right? – Antonioni’s evocative use of color seemed to lead to the very opposite
paradoxically. His use of color led to a ‘formalist abstraction’, which served
his anti-realist motivation. Thus, the color was seen as very ‘heightened’ for
the audience, and to be honest, it has a weird sort of pleasure when one looks
at it. Antonioni has also explained that the artificiality of his color would
enhance the expressivity of his images, I guess much like the edginess seen in
German Expressionism. It is notable that Antonioni used a telephoto lens when
he shot ‘Red Desert’, because in order to achieve an anti-realist effect, he
was committed to reduce the depth of field often evident in Bazinian Realism,
and his use of the lens led to a flattening effect of his images, where the
distance between foreground and background was reduced.
As noted by many critics, the motif of landscape is very
important for Antonioni's films. Antonioni has succinctly stated that all his
works were born of a landscape, and his desire to explore the landscape. Thus,
one can start by saying that Antonioni has provided an impersonal view of
humanity, as there is a delicate balance between the emphasis of humans and
environment.
Antonioni employed some nice editing strategies to
illustrate an abrupt shift of focus and to illustrate to the audience how his
characters were trapped by their surroundings. He deliberately did sudden cut
from a conversation between 2 characters to a background shot, to state that
the characters were locked in a larger surrounding they might or might not be
appreciating. Interestingly, this strategy has been used by a lot of great
directors, where they attempted to show an alienation and entrapment of the
characters. Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ‘Sleuth’, Martin
Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ contained nice examples of this great approach. The
placement of the characters were also quite unusual in many cases, as if
Antonioni was attempted to undermine them, suggesting a loss of agency of these
characters towards their environment or the context they found themselves in.
The poiesis from Antonioni meant that he was not only
determined to confront his audience visually, but also aurally. He portrayed
the irony that, in some senses, the industrial noises were even louder than the
character’s dialogue – which would NOT be the case for the traditional approach
of Western cinema – symbolizing that these characters were entrapped and
alienated, and could not deliver clearly their thoughts and feelings to each
other.
(1/2)
by Ed Law
24/2/2018
Film Analysis
