(stills from Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point; stars Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin)
Thought I'd mention some things I'm excited about around the city this August.
Of course, the Antonioni retrospective at the Cinematheque is a pretty important event -- note that the dates for screenings of The Passenger and Blow Up have changed from what was in their printed calendar. Of the films of Antonioni I'd seen, I'd recommend L'Avventura as his best early film, looking at alienation, ennui and the troubles of the rich through a somewhat cold eye; L'Eclisse is worth a look, too. Both are formally adventurous and visually powerful, though you tend not to like the characters too much, which is part of the point. The last time I saw Blow Up, it seemed like a somewhat shallow put down of the pop scene in Britain. It has various likable bits -- David Hemming's figuring out the "murder" is a brilliant and very influential bit of filmmaking, played off of most notably in Brian de Palma's Blow Out -- but I didn't really get the sense Antonioni understood very well what the youth culture of England was about, and the Yardbirds sequence seems one of the most ridiculous misunderstandings of rock music (and its audience) committed to film. Much richer and more engaging, I find, is Zabriskie Point; thought I blush not at all to admit that it's a favourite film of mine, it was universally hated at the time, accused of triteness, oversimplification, and heart-on-its-sleeve sentiment. It shows both student rebellion and "free love" in America in the 1960's, set to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Roscoe Holcomb, and John Fahey (tho' he got in a fight with Antonioni over the film's anti-Americanism and doesn't contribute as much as he might have - scroll down to 1969 on the linked page for the story). There's also a very beautiful Jerry Garcia-scored acid trip of sorts in it (watch for the scene where Daria and Mark drop; it's difficult to spot but it's near her musings about the "SoAnyway River"); the imagery, of dozens of hippies making love in the desert, is the sort of thing that would have made Wilhelm Reich weep for joy, if he'd seen it, and sentimental and idealizing as it may be, I can't but love Antonioni for having filmed this. I'd recommend reading this fascinating piece on Mark Frechette, the star, for some very interesting/unusual background; note that he said at his trial that he could think of no more honest act than pointing a gun at a bank teller. The story plays a bizarre but fascinating role in the French-Canadian novel, The First Person, by Pierre Turgeon. By the way, if you're not sure who Mel Lyman was, and are interested in the 1960's, "cults," gurus, and so forth, I'd explore the articles at that last link -- especially this one, from the rare book Mindfuckers: A Source Book on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America.
Coming back to Antonioni... I'm also fond of The Passenger and I think Red Desert is quite interesting for its industrial landscapes and early electronic score, though again, its characters are so lost and alienated that I find it hard to establish an emotional connection with them -- early Antonioni seems to be like that, leading you gliding over the surfaces of life, estranged, anxious, lost... I tend to get much more involved in his post-Blow Up films, so I'm really looking forward to the later films the Cinematheque will be playing, most of which I've never seen, and his controversial documentary on China...
What else should I strive to call your attention to? Hm. August 4th, Bruce Sweeney's Dirty -- the best film ever made about being alienated in
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