Results 1 to 15 of 45

Thread: Unresolved Stories and Open-Ended Narratives

Threaded View

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    16,168
    Well, but I would say that L'AVENTURA's not being "a complete action" is one thing, and the meandering, uneventful sequence of scenes, which confuse one's sense of time, is another, and is the distinctive and original element. Of course it's philistine, to react so negatively. However, it's only natural, and something we sometimes miss today, people being harder to shock, for there to be an adverse reaction to something stylistically revolutionary, though booing continues for one reason or another at Cannes. Penelope Houston's description of the L'AVVENTURA Cannes screening, if this GUARDIAN obituary is what you refer to, isn't very detailed. Or does she expound further on it elsewhere?

    Apparently jeering audiences at debuts of film classics at the French festival has led to BAM-cinematek just this month staging a series, "Booed at Cannes". It may be fun to contemplate, but if it's so common, it also becomes less significant or interesting. Surely the reaction you're interested in for L'AVVENTURA is that it induces puzzlement rather than outrage, that it's stimulating rather than a turn-off. Mike D'Angelo just recently commented during his 2013 Cannes tweets that booing when the director is present at a Cannes debut screening, which happened twice this year when he was present, is particularly rude and offensive (and insensitive) behavior. An account says that Antonioni and Vitti both "fled" the notorious screening, Vitti "in tears." It must have been awful for them; being present at a first screening always difficult for filmmakers and stars, like a play's "opening night."

    Houston's account is that L'AVVENTURA rose very high very fast in the ranks of most admired films of all times, but then dropped, and now is so far below as to be "out of the money" (a crass way of putting it, by the way). This I don't quite understand. I still like the film. A marvelous film by a marvelous director, one of the greatest of all time, one of the most original and most truly "modern".

    Whatever the particular audience reaction at that Cannes screening, the Festival awarded it the Jury Prize of course, for its "remarquable contribution à la recherche d'un nouveau langage cinématographique," "remarkable contribution to the search for a new cinematic language." A phrase that's as vague and puzzling in its way as the film, and therefore perhaps wonderfully appropriate.

    Going by the BAM series, apparently L'ECLISSE, another marvelous Antoinioni film, was also booed at Cannes, along with THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, THE SOFT SKIN, L'ARGENT, TAXI DRIVER -- honorable company.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-28-2013 at 08:56 PM.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •