Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue. Murray Pomerance

      Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Eric Papenfuse and Catherine Lawrence Endowment Fund in Film and Media Studies of the University of California Press Foundation.

      Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue

       Eight Reflections on Cinema

      Murray Pomerance

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

       Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

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      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2011 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Pomerance, Murray, 1946–.

      Michelangelo red Antonioni blue : eight reflections on cinema/Murray Pomerance.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-25870-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

      ISBN 978-0-520-26686-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. Antonioni, Michelangelo—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.

      PN1998.3.A58P66 2011

      791.4302'33092—dc22 2010038908

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100 percent postconsumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.

       To Bill Rothman, true line of sight

      We need always to be returning to the fact of how mysterious these objects called movies are, unlike anything else on earth.

      —Stanley Cavell, Themes Out of School

      The new library building, which in both its entire layout and its near-ludicrous internal regulation seeks to exclude the reader as a potential enemy, might be described, so Lemoine thought, said Austerlitz, as the official manifestation of the increasingly importunate urge to break with everything which still has some living connection to the past.

      —W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz

      For in spite of tricks which we shall presently describe and which created the image which we shall always have of him, he knew very well that his famous look was identical with the thing at which he was looking, that he would never attain true possession of himself, but simply that listless sampling of himself which is characteristic of reflective knowledge.

      —Jean-Paul Sartre, Baudelaire

      Contents

       List of Plates

       Acknowledgments

       Note on Images

       Introduction

       Beyond the Clouds

       Identification of a Woman

       The Red Desert

       The Dangerous Thread of Things

       The Mystery of Oberwald

       Zabriskie Point

       The Passenger

       Blow-Up

       Works Cited and Consulted

       Index

       Plates follow page

      Plates

       Following page 110

      1. Beyond the Clouds: Carmen and Silvano

      2. Beyond the Clouds: A Director in Portofino

      3. Beyond the Clouds: Carlo, Patrizia, Her Husband, and His Lover

      4. Beyond the Clouds: Niccolo in Aix

      5. Identification of a Woman

      6. The Red Desert

      7. The Dangerous Thread of Things

      8. The Mystery of Oberwald

      9. Zabriskie Point

      10. The Passenger

      11. Blow-Up

      Acknowledgments

      Any writer of passages such as these gets by with a little help from his friends, but in this case I have received generous support, encouragement, and aid over more than two decades from a number of people who began by loving Antonioni as much as I do and came eventually to smile upon me far more than I deserved. While the flaws and faults herein are entirely my own, I do wish to express my sincerest gratitude to those who have illuminated my path: Patricia Albanese (Toronto), Enrica Antonioni (Italy), Stephen P. Arkle (Technicolor, Los Angeles), Michal Bardecki (Toronto), Nikesh Bhagat (Toronto), Judy Boals (New York), Joseph John Cooke Esq. M.B.E. (Lincoln, England), Terry and Bob Dale (Los Angeles), Brett Davidson (Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills), David Desser (Collegeville, Pa.), Rufus Dickinson (Toronto), Eugene Di Sante (Toronto), Michael Doleschell (Toronto), the late Slobodan Drakulic (Toronto), Julie Duxbury (Lincoln, England), David Edgar (BFI, London), Kris Erickson (Toronto), Megan Follows (Toronto), Lester Friedman (Bethesda, Md.), Linda Gerth (The New Republic, Washington), Terry Gillin (Toronto), Fernando Gómez Hervis (Toronto), Assheton Gorton (Montgomery, Wales), Chris Graeber