31 julho 2007

Homage to Antonioni, Homage to Bergman

(July, 31, from a Guardian blog)

Ingmar Bergman left in the early hours of yesterday morning. Within a few hours, Michelangelo Antonioni had followed him through the exit door. It remains to be seen whether this signals the onset of some art-house apocalypse - some Biblical purge of revered European auteurs - but the omens are hardly encouraging. How are Godard, Resnais and Rohmer bearing up? Can we urge them to stay indoors, wrap up warm, and maybe put on some old DVDs. Anything to keep them out of circulation until the curse has run its course.


From the Comments :-D

They always come in threes..?

Though relatively unknown in the West, the Japanese master Kon Ichikawa is over 90 now. Even more venerable -- 100 next year, possibly -- is Manouel de Oliveira (don't think I've spelt him right).


CagedHorse, although the common spelling is "Manuel", the name is "Manoel de Oliveira" and he'll be 100 next year, having just premiered one film, finished shooting another one and started the production of the next film.


And:

Zabriskie Point's soundtrack is unforgettable

"To say I was good or bad or not in an Antonioni film is like saying I like the colour yellow in a Van Gogh," wrote David Hemmings of his starring role in Blowup, and such a pithy description of the Italian director's methodology speaks volumes. For Antonioni, film wasn't about such minor considerations as plot, dialogue or character development; instead, it was about the big picture, allowing the viewer to glory in the surrealistic beauty of his chosen landscape. The perfect films to soundtrack, then.

And film soundtracks don't get any better than 1970's Zabriskie Point. Set in the sit-in centric world of late 60s California, Zabriskie Point aims for a complete disorientation of the senses. If the casting of photogenic unknowns Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin as the leads proved Antonioni's fondness for risk-taking, there would be no such gambles with the music. Having commissioned Pink Floyd to provide the soundtrack in late 1969, an unimpressed Antonioni included only three of their songs in the film - to give some idea of the quality of the rejected tunes, a re-titled Us And Them ended up on Dark Side Of The Moon.

The Floyd weren't alone in falling short of the irascible auteur's expectations. Despite visiting The Doors in the studio while recording LA Woman, the band failed to make the final edit, while John Fahey's Dance of Death, which was scheduled to accompany the orgy scene in the desert, was scrapped from the movie following an artistic dispute. The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia then stepped in with some hasty acoustic improvisations.

Yet from such inauspicious beginnings, the soundtrack to Zabriskie Point - reissued in 1997 to include the additional recordings by both the Floyd and Garcia - captures the dystopic mood of late 60s California in the same way as Performance reflects the murk of London.

"It was hell, sheer hell," recalled Pink Floyd's Roger Waters of the sessions. Maybe, but anyone who's seen the use of Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up in the final climactic scene in Death Valley will know that as rock soundtracks go, Zabriskie Point is unforgettable.

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