Unresolved Stories and Open-Ended Narratives

[oscar jubis]

Thanks. One of the challenges involved is saying something new about filmmakers like Antonioni and Resnais because they have generated so much scholarship. All angles seem to have been exhausted. As I write in my office, I am banking on my interdisciplinary approach, a mix of analytic film criticism, narratology, philosophy, phenomenology, and history, giving me a fresh perspective.

It's less of a challenge to write about Robbe-Grillet and Duras because most of the criticism available in English is strictly from the perspective of literary theory.

I am re-watching all of Antonioni's movies. Currently I am trying to understand precisely why L'avventura was so hated (Monica Vitti cried "come una bambina" after all the sneering and catcalls at the Cannes premiere) and loved (voted 2nd best film ever in the 1962 Sight & Sound poll) when it came out. This is the film that most eloquently expressed the art and entertainment divide that goes back to the 1910s.