Scorsese on Antonioni
Since Martin Scorsese is one of my heroes, I was more than pleased to see that he has written a memorial in honor of Michelangelo Antonioni, another of my heroes.
Scorsese begins by recalling his reaction to Antonioni's L'Avventura when he saw it in 1961 (the year after its release):
Where did I see it? Was it at the Art Theater on Eighth Street? Or was it the Beekman? I don’t remember, but I do remember the charge that ran through me the first time I heard that opening musical theme — ominous, staccato, plucked out on strings, so simple, so stark, like the horns that announce the next tercio during a bullfight. And then, the movie. A Mediterranean cruise, bright sunshine, in black and white widescreen images unlike anything I’d ever seen — so precisely composed, accentuating and expressing ... what? A very strange type of discomfort. The characters were rich, beautiful in one way but, you might say, spiritually ugly. Who were they to me? Who would I be to them?
Throughout his memorial, Scorsese emphasizes Antonioni's aesthetic decision to leave his films' stories "unresolved in any conventional sense." You can read the rest of the piece here (New York Times, August 12, 2007).
posted by Karen Nelson @ 11:49 PM
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