Confession Time: I didn’t see this film — or any of Antonioni’s other films — until after I watched Martin Scorsese’s MY VOYAGE TO ITALY on TCM, when it aired at the head of a month dedicated to classic Italian cinema. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I realized Scorsese had essentially “spoiled” the endings of L’AVVENTURA, LA NOTTE, and L’ECLISSE. Then again, knowing the endings in advance probably helped my appreciation of the journeys.
Between this, Psycho, and Breathless, as well as less-influential but equally worthy classics like Le Trou and the Apartment, is it safe to call 1960 the most important year for cinema since the invention of sound film?
How do you interpret that brief shot of a boat floating away just before they realize Anna has disappeared? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong - and, of course, knowing that it doesn't really matter - but it gave me a chill.
Also, when thinking about who Antonioni influenced, it feels like Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock has a relationship with L'Avventura. The girls disappear mysteriously and the case remains largely unsolved. (There are hints of supernatural forces.) Antonioni's sense of landscape also seems to have influenced the Australian New Wave.
I feel like I say on half these Sight & Sound posts that I'm a middle-to-low-brow movie fan and that I've never heard of half the movies on the 2022 list, and this is one of them (I do know BLOW-UP). It's fascinating to me that a movie I've never heard of was held, in 1962, to be the second-greatest ever made. That seems like...something I should have heard of? Like, even if I hadn't seen it, like something I should have heard *of*? I will seek it out.
Scott and Keith, your primary intention in running this series might be for the enjoyment and edification of the kinds of people who've "heard of famous movies" or whatever, but you're also doing an invaluable service for people like me whose idea of a movie is HOWARD THE DUCK. I thank you for that.
I'm sort of loving, but feel compelled to point out, the auto-correct/typo fun of the director of My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki, appearing here as "Hiyao Mizoguchi." It suggests a sort of hybrid person, part Miyazaki, part Mizoguchi, that Miyazaki would create....
" I was in high school then and I didn’t know what to make of it, but I was left a bit cold years later when I watched it in grad school and should have been better equipped to understand what it was doing. "
well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't immediately grasp Antonioni! I saw Blow Up after having seen and loved The Conversation and Blow Out, and I was expecting it to be much more in the same wheelhouse than it is. Oh, he has another movie where the mystery plot is abandoned partway through? I'm not surprised.
It definitely took a big shift of thinking about how the mystery is NOT central to the movie to try and make more sense of it.
Same here. I think Blow Up would seem much more important to people who hadn’t yet had any access to De Palma in particular. When I saw it, I had also already seen The Conversation and Blow Out (not to mention Body Double), and Blow Up just didn’t seem that necessary. So much solid work has been done by the people that it inspired or influenced.
Then I watched Zabriskie Point and hated it so much that I wouldn’t go anywhere near Antonioni for years.
Availability having an effect on rankings and appreciation for films is mentioned here, and I have thought of this before in context of considering The Passenger. If it hadn’t been so hard to see that movie for so long, I think it might have popped up on some of these lists over the years. I’ve now seen most of Antonioni’s work, and The Passenger is my favorite. Feels like a culmination for him.
I pray to whoever can help me with this (does Nicholson still own the rights?): please, pretty please, with sugar on top get me a 4K remaster of The Passenger. The film is full of shots that look amazing even in the current condition on Tubi for Pete’s sake. Some TLC in remastering could really help people see how great this movie is.
yeah, to rephrase a bit of my comment, it's easy to imagine someone saw Blow Up, realized the photo developing scene was the most exciting part of the film, and decided to do the same for audio. enter, The Conversation.
so if you go into Blow Up expecting that..... it will be disappointing. because that's not Antonioni's focus.
Out of curiosity do you guys ever admit to not liking a movie that’s in the canon?
this is at least the 2nd, maybe the 3rd, in this series to feature a Keith “I used to be a sinner but now I see the light” about a Great movie or director. But surely there’s one on this list that you’ll admit to thinking is wildly overrated? (Apologies if I missed one where this already happened)
Speaking as just a subscriber who sometimes watches movies. I'm noticing the "I see the light" situation with Keith and this movie involves a trajectory of seeing originally when they're really young, see it again maybe during college or their early-mid 20's, and then encountering it again, maybe in their 30's or maybe even 40's. There's the whole, "the movie didn't change, we did," conversation that often pops up, but I'll also venture forth another one: the more times you watch a movie, the more opportunities pop up to possibly be on the same wavelength of the film, possibly tilt your head and try to see what you've heard other people say they've seen in the movie. This seems more likely for a lot of these films where a more tepid response might be, "this film is well regarded, so it's probably doing something, but I'm not entirely sure, what?" I believe that was Scott's response to "A Brighter, Summer Day." (which would probably be the closest thing I can think of to your query).
I think that often leaves older, experienced critic to be less initially dismissive that if they see a movie and don't jive with it, to be more hesitant to jump to the assessment of "didn't like," since there'll at least be a, "well, people voted for this, so they're clearly seeing *something* great about (not just good, given how the ballots work)." So, I guess it's possible they'll encounter one that is just a flat out, "don't like," but it should be noted that "don't like" and "overrated" are two very different claims (that people often lazily use the latter in place of the former, so that's a different can of worms to open).
You're coming at this discussion, seemingly, that these movies ARE great and you just need to keep watching it until you get it. But I don't think that makes sense at all. The S&S poll is like any other poll - it's compiled from people's opinions. With all the pros and cons that come along with that. It also skews heavily towards elite opinions of cinema. These are not necessarily MORE RIGHT than than the IMDB Top 250 - each group comes with its own set of blindspots and biases.
So come on, man. It's much more interesting to admit that Stalker bores the shit out of you and probably almost everyone who watches it, or Rear Window is good but you think it's only the 5th best Hitchcock, or 8 1/2 is pretentious and overlong, or Tokyo Story is a poor remake of the superior Make Way for Tomorrow, or Beau Travail sure could use a plot, or whatever.
Basically, it's not axiomatic that because S&S pollees voted for this film that makes the film great.
I guess I'm saying the experience of coming around on a movie enough times, combined with a certain deference to the general quality of the list, can make one very hesitant to say a movie on the list is *bad*. You also misspelled "North by Northwest" as "Rear Window", a slip of the fingers, I am sure.
Oh I would take North by Northwest any day of the week over Rear Window though I will freely admit there's nothing deep about NbN if that's your issue.
Don't forget though that you can also "come around" to movies the other way. I saw Magnolia at 22 and thought it was a masterpiece. I watched it again 10 years later and found a movie with great parts, but not a great movie. So it's not like the long arc of the universe always points towards greater appreciation of a film
I'm surprised Altman's films and style (or "style"?) didn't come up in this conversation. One one hand, yes, he and Antonioni are worlds apart in terms of plots/subjects, but Altman is in a line of descent from the Italian in fragmenting realism/naturalism. I'm thinking of the way Altman deconstructs genres (MASH for the war film and McCabe and Mrs. Miller for the Western, etc.). Of the way he splits narratives across the characters, giving us tantalizing glimpses into their interior lives while also withholding enough that we are endlessly going back and rewatching (Nashville, for ex.).
Also this is my favorite Antonioni film, based almost entirely on vibes. Just a gorgeous movie. Here's a cool music video some enterprising YouTuber made years ago that I think captures the movie's feel nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDhshy1yWHc
Confession Time: I didn’t see this film — or any of Antonioni’s other films — until after I watched Martin Scorsese’s MY VOYAGE TO ITALY on TCM, when it aired at the head of a month dedicated to classic Italian cinema. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I realized Scorsese had essentially “spoiled” the endings of L’AVVENTURA, LA NOTTE, and L’ECLISSE. Then again, knowing the endings in advance probably helped my appreciation of the journeys.
Between this, Psycho, and Breathless, as well as less-influential but equally worthy classics like Le Trou and the Apartment, is it safe to call 1960 the most important year for cinema since the invention of sound film?
Safe? No. But possible
How do you interpret that brief shot of a boat floating away just before they realize Anna has disappeared? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong - and, of course, knowing that it doesn't really matter - but it gave me a chill.
Also, when thinking about who Antonioni influenced, it feels like Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock has a relationship with L'Avventura. The girls disappear mysteriously and the case remains largely unsolved. (There are hints of supernatural forces.) Antonioni's sense of landscape also seems to have influenced the Australian New Wave.
I feel like I say on half these Sight & Sound posts that I'm a middle-to-low-brow movie fan and that I've never heard of half the movies on the 2022 list, and this is one of them (I do know BLOW-UP). It's fascinating to me that a movie I've never heard of was held, in 1962, to be the second-greatest ever made. That seems like...something I should have heard of? Like, even if I hadn't seen it, like something I should have heard *of*? I will seek it out.
Scott and Keith, your primary intention in running this series might be for the enjoyment and edification of the kinds of people who've "heard of famous movies" or whatever, but you're also doing an invaluable service for people like me whose idea of a movie is HOWARD THE DUCK. I thank you for that.
I'm sort of loving, but feel compelled to point out, the auto-correct/typo fun of the director of My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki, appearing here as "Hiyao Mizoguchi." It suggests a sort of hybrid person, part Miyazaki, part Mizoguchi, that Miyazaki would create....
Ugh. We have clearly still transitioning from doing SANSHO THE BAILIFF.
" I was in high school then and I didn’t know what to make of it, but I was left a bit cold years later when I watched it in grad school and should have been better equipped to understand what it was doing. "
well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't immediately grasp Antonioni! I saw Blow Up after having seen and loved The Conversation and Blow Out, and I was expecting it to be much more in the same wheelhouse than it is. Oh, he has another movie where the mystery plot is abandoned partway through? I'm not surprised.
It definitely took a big shift of thinking about how the mystery is NOT central to the movie to try and make more sense of it.
Same here. I think Blow Up would seem much more important to people who hadn’t yet had any access to De Palma in particular. When I saw it, I had also already seen The Conversation and Blow Out (not to mention Body Double), and Blow Up just didn’t seem that necessary. So much solid work has been done by the people that it inspired or influenced.
Then I watched Zabriskie Point and hated it so much that I wouldn’t go anywhere near Antonioni for years.
Availability having an effect on rankings and appreciation for films is mentioned here, and I have thought of this before in context of considering The Passenger. If it hadn’t been so hard to see that movie for so long, I think it might have popped up on some of these lists over the years. I’ve now seen most of Antonioni’s work, and The Passenger is my favorite. Feels like a culmination for him.
I pray to whoever can help me with this (does Nicholson still own the rights?): please, pretty please, with sugar on top get me a 4K remaster of The Passenger. The film is full of shots that look amazing even in the current condition on Tubi for Pete’s sake. Some TLC in remastering could really help people see how great this movie is.
yeah, to rephrase a bit of my comment, it's easy to imagine someone saw Blow Up, realized the photo developing scene was the most exciting part of the film, and decided to do the same for audio. enter, The Conversation.
so if you go into Blow Up expecting that..... it will be disappointing. because that's not Antonioni's focus.
Out of curiosity do you guys ever admit to not liking a movie that’s in the canon?
this is at least the 2nd, maybe the 3rd, in this series to feature a Keith “I used to be a sinner but now I see the light” about a Great movie or director. But surely there’s one on this list that you’ll admit to thinking is wildly overrated? (Apologies if I missed one where this already happened)
Speaking as just a subscriber who sometimes watches movies. I'm noticing the "I see the light" situation with Keith and this movie involves a trajectory of seeing originally when they're really young, see it again maybe during college or their early-mid 20's, and then encountering it again, maybe in their 30's or maybe even 40's. There's the whole, "the movie didn't change, we did," conversation that often pops up, but I'll also venture forth another one: the more times you watch a movie, the more opportunities pop up to possibly be on the same wavelength of the film, possibly tilt your head and try to see what you've heard other people say they've seen in the movie. This seems more likely for a lot of these films where a more tepid response might be, "this film is well regarded, so it's probably doing something, but I'm not entirely sure, what?" I believe that was Scott's response to "A Brighter, Summer Day." (which would probably be the closest thing I can think of to your query).
I think that often leaves older, experienced critic to be less initially dismissive that if they see a movie and don't jive with it, to be more hesitant to jump to the assessment of "didn't like," since there'll at least be a, "well, people voted for this, so they're clearly seeing *something* great about (not just good, given how the ballots work)." So, I guess it's possible they'll encounter one that is just a flat out, "don't like," but it should be noted that "don't like" and "overrated" are two very different claims (that people often lazily use the latter in place of the former, so that's a different can of worms to open).
Just my 2 cents.
You're coming at this discussion, seemingly, that these movies ARE great and you just need to keep watching it until you get it. But I don't think that makes sense at all. The S&S poll is like any other poll - it's compiled from people's opinions. With all the pros and cons that come along with that. It also skews heavily towards elite opinions of cinema. These are not necessarily MORE RIGHT than than the IMDB Top 250 - each group comes with its own set of blindspots and biases.
So come on, man. It's much more interesting to admit that Stalker bores the shit out of you and probably almost everyone who watches it, or Rear Window is good but you think it's only the 5th best Hitchcock, or 8 1/2 is pretentious and overlong, or Tokyo Story is a poor remake of the superior Make Way for Tomorrow, or Beau Travail sure could use a plot, or whatever.
Basically, it's not axiomatic that because S&S pollees voted for this film that makes the film great.
I guess I'm saying the experience of coming around on a movie enough times, combined with a certain deference to the general quality of the list, can make one very hesitant to say a movie on the list is *bad*. You also misspelled "North by Northwest" as "Rear Window", a slip of the fingers, I am sure.
And fwiw, there are movies on the list (some high up on the list), that I'm not a big fan of.
Oh I would take North by Northwest any day of the week over Rear Window though I will freely admit there's nothing deep about NbN if that's your issue.
Don't forget though that you can also "come around" to movies the other way. I saw Magnolia at 22 and thought it was a masterpiece. I watched it again 10 years later and found a movie with great parts, but not a great movie. So it's not like the long arc of the universe always points towards greater appreciation of a film
“What is important is that Anna was carrying two books before she disappeared — the Bible and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night.”
Makes me wonder if Lynch was familiar with Tender Is The Night (which I haven’t read).
I'm surprised Altman's films and style (or "style"?) didn't come up in this conversation. One one hand, yes, he and Antonioni are worlds apart in terms of plots/subjects, but Altman is in a line of descent from the Italian in fragmenting realism/naturalism. I'm thinking of the way Altman deconstructs genres (MASH for the war film and McCabe and Mrs. Miller for the Western, etc.). Of the way he splits narratives across the characters, giving us tantalizing glimpses into their interior lives while also withholding enough that we are endlessly going back and rewatching (Nashville, for ex.).
A little surprised nobody's mentioned the direct L'Avventura homage in S2 of The White Lotus. It's pretty neat! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exZYYH2xzDw
Also this is my favorite Antonioni film, based almost entirely on vibes. Just a gorgeous movie. Here's a cool music video some enterprising YouTuber made years ago that I think captures the movie's feel nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDhshy1yWHc