MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI and TONINO GUERRA’s “BLOW-UP” “You’ve got it!”

 

by James Clark

The four first films driven by poet-film-writer, Tonino Guerra, were creatures of Italy. Each of the protagonists knew well that mankind and its normality is a shaky proposition.

The fifth film by our navigator here was about Britain, the land of make-do, the land of Charles Dickens, and also, the land of Alice in Wonderland (another make-do). No doubt the nominal driver (Antonioni) would be ready for a place like Britain, a place to prate in peace about alienation. Here the basis in spades of his patrician upbringing—clever, well-educated, sophisticated, to a point, a master of many languages, a go-getter—he was well connected to be a man of the world. Unfortunately, that was all he could do by his own skills. To reach farther, the go-getter attained an ally, an ally almost the complete opposite of a patrician. Though either of these men would have preferred never to meet the other, each could understand that the remarkable assets of the other must be tolerated. For Antonioni, there was freedom from his lack of mature sensibility, even if it were only the forces of someone else, happy (as a go-getter) to enjoy fame and fortune. For Guerra, there was the opportunity to deliver astounding world-wide heights of sensibility, even though few could understand. And then, beyond that, his long tour of other cinemas, other poetry.

Who knows the long and turning invitation to come, were Antonioni not restive, on the basis of weak distemper, weak sentimental melodrama, back where he began. At any rate, the trip to London becomes a somewhat heavier action, a portent that those thrilling days are under pressure. (Guerra, of course, had a career of poetry and film writing, before the advent of Antonioni; and would shine for many decades. But the work of this flow was remarkable, even unique, for its visual timbre and its great wit.)

  

Here, at the darkening, I’ll bring to bear a short sketch of what Guerra finds irresistible but has never wanted to deliver per se. The statement of note involves a force, instantly becoming two presences, one static, the other dynamic. They constantly share that initiative, but the latter, the site of motion has, at least on our planet, undergone a diminution, a diminution tracing to the earliest, the darkest days. One of the first to question that injustice (that being, a distant relative of Guerra), was a poet, named Heraclitus (living about the time of 500 DC, and living in what now is called Turkey). One of his remaining poems was, “Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.” Heraclitus was one of the early victims and one of the early attackers of this moment. Again: “The many do not take heed of such things as those they meet with, nor do they mark them when they are taught, though they think they do. The dramas of Guerra, Bergman and Tarkovsky (and the virtually buried, Theo Angelopoulos) flit to us as loving warriors. The visions of their playful hands and fingers, their shadows, turn a rout into a triumph.

On a lighter note, the infrastructure of the genius of Albert Einstein had the enterprise of following Heraclitus as to bending an otherwise pedestrian Switzerland. Antonioni, on this vacation, also, brings the problematic, British playwright, Edward Bond, he of the so-called, “Rational Theatre,” with his panacea of Marxism. Perhaps the patrician had rounded up the Marxist, first, for English language support; and secondly, to display the hated sidekick, “being such a second-rate writer.” Let’s get one more gem, from the man who did so much, and, with a decent audience, could have been appreciated. “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.”

    Guerra, and his difficulty, will be pretty much ignored by all the fancy-pants here, in the realm of  “Swinging London,” and the “Sizzling Sixties.” In a coup, by no one else but, the Warner Brothers’ property, prior to the credits, have been generously allowing their vast studios to buckle as if a stiff drug.  But the strong measures in Guerra’s eyes are only for the likes of Heraclitus.

The film begins by showing a seemingly massive gulf. First, we see noisy college kids, pilled on a jeep, dressed in whiteface, with a pretext of doing good, bringing forth money for the poor. As we look closely, the canvasing is almost bogus. The whitefaces denote death, their death, into a dubious context. They hop off the jeep and proceed to pell-mell scream in the faces of the meek, the normal. Though no one but Guerra would notice the madcap chaos to be a form of twisting, in the sense of rocker, Chubby Checker, and his hit, “The Twist” (1960), we find it an auspicious moment. (This phenomenon had taken flight at the beginning of Guerra’s film, L’Eclisse [1962].)

The supposed big contrast involves one Thomas, a renowned photographer, specializing in the form of women’s apparel. As we encounter him, though, he is intent upon completing a night of shooting desperate men in their disarray. Disarray, however, is as well known to Thomas as those who need the service. As we come to see, there is no doubt that our protagonist is not only technically strong, but ambitious to find the needed unique. What Thomas lacks is a tolerance for consistency. Quick shots with cool cameras and quick dashes along the streets of London in his Rolls Royce do not prepare him for reflective work. Call it busy. But the truth is cowardliness. Antonioni might find Thomas a study of evil. Guerra, dragged into a disaster, would find the beauties and ironies beyond politics.

    First of all, there were the absorbing millions of bricks of London, each one a continent. They afforded billions of initiatives, their forms, their colors, their juxtaposition, and their patterns to be pondered in various light and weather. Coming to more demanding possibilities, there were the crude streets where he chose to work and live. Particularly, by comparison with the commercial street in, Ravenna, in the Guerra film, Red Desert (1964), where the surface of every shop has been treated by a magical emulsion, a Master of Visual tonality. Entering a London tunnel at night in his convertible –convertible to the hilt—his shadow plunges beside him on the pavement. Lots of time to change. Or is this kind of convertible a dead-end? He has a frontage with two parts, a big 39 and a small 39. (Sounds like the story in Alice in Wonderland.) Neither is what he needs, to make him a human, a mortal and happy to be one.

(This exaggeration has been a little shock by way of explaining that the forces of emotion have not been given the balance they require. The melodramatic saga here will serve in only a sketchy way, while we emphasize the uncanniness being cheated its due, and thereby, delivering a planet appallingly weak. I’ll dedicate this essay to Brazilian choreographer, Deborah Colker, for her recent work, by streaming, Dogs Without Feathers.)

Where to find the real powers. They are definitely not in the vicinity of Thomas. His tolerance, in his Beatles locks, is what he’s been since a child. Snapping photos by the hundreds to catch a wow is his business—a very questionable business. For several years, now, his chipper meandering has struck the edgy, irreverent Metropolitan. The perfect scamp to brighten a long, stiff gloom. The scamp, as we come to see in action, finds him very ready to variously manhandle the women models he has hired in a sort of kismet. The kismet this day bites the biter. By way of always needing the right props, Thomas makes two junkets: an antique shop with some hope; and, close-by, a park about to drive him far crazier than ever before. A couple is embracing. Their body-language is awkward, strange. And the photographer begins to record the kismet. The woman is far from pleased by this. She bites Thomas on the shooting hand. She wants the proofs, but she doesn’t get them. Guerra’s dilemma is to cull what fresh sensibility can be engaged by way of another Alfred Hitchcock thriller on top of a shot of alienation screed and a drifting soundtrack. He vaguely knows of something far more thrilling. Let’s see him give it a go.

On the drive to the antique shop, the Rolls Royce is swarmed. It’s swarmed in the sense that a long red road of low rises, on both sides, seeming to proceed for many, many blocks. The mundane becoming royal. Limits getting beautifully crazy, because the sprawling enterprise (strangely dispersed) is none-other than the “Pride and Clarke” store. Pride, giving a world of change. The possibilities being enormous. (But there is a dark side.) Even as one could thrill to the ecstasies, there would be the mountainous challenge to link one’s like, after all the billions lost. Is there the fast lane on our home? In a park, he rouses a flock of pigeons to shoot with his camera. Semi-poetry, for a few seconds. He had something there. Why did it disappear? Also there, a couple pulling in the opposite direction. Standstills. Stands. Forces in action. If only… The woman recovers her possibilities. Much care in the heights. Thomas is hoping for drama. Tonality and slack tonality. There for the asking. The flow of the strait lines en route to Pride. A dance of leaves in the garden. No one pays heed to that miracle. During the argument in the park, Thomas puts himself in the same league as a bullfighter. How does that figure? Does danger have a funny bone? He adds, “It’s not my fault if there’s no peace.” No peace is bogus. Thomas, back at the antique shop, where there’s a singularity being a young girl turning out to be the boss, not the old fart; and listening to a song, via vinyl. She’s ready to find another treasure. “I’m fed up with antiques…” Words colliding. She rifles through other lives, for instance, Nepal… He tells her, “Nepal is tourists…” (What would he now about the new?)  He has a whim to buy a large, wooden propeller, there. His short attention span has a few seconds of appreciation that the object is, with its nuances of dark ruby and its lovingly formatted, a deep treasure; but in the protagonist’s eyes it will make of it  a dusty nothing. Why? Thomas, the blowup star (en route to better phones), would be never  abreast of what is needed.

    Those dusty nothings would involve a root system, a root system driven by not only mortals but another factor of force while attending to survival, at one point (well-known); and that second necessity—far less known—the necessity to know who you are, where you matter in everything. Although that latter player seems to be missing in action, he is far more intent than most realize, or want to realize. Revisiting the project about the poor, that night, there was Thomas and his manager, putting to gather a package to garner a coffee table sensation. The proofs were surprisingly effective. Where they emotionally effective? One photo had something different, allowing moments to burst forward toward lucidity. There was a perspective  of one showing shadow at one side of the face the face and light at the other. (Another aspect of that cosmic geography.) As the protagonist pulls all the technological stunts in his books to find the corpse in its hidden bed of grass, the light-play has the last word of it, a fine accounting of itself. But as we know, the lighting has been crowded by the melodrama. The rush to make a splash. But, out of the blue, we receive a gift, a great surprise. He puts on a disc for the distracted murderer-to-be later exposed, by a jazz musician, namely, Herbie Hancock; and things happen. The manufacturers disc is called “Verve.” After all the distemper, both of them appreciate the change, the wit, the energy. Along with the easy-going jazz (far from a revolution, far from “The Twist”), the host suggests, “You could smoke if you like…” She’s alright with that; but her tension is far from what he was hoping for. “Slowly!” he tells her. “Let yourself be carried by the mystery of rhythm…being lifted, being part of a host… That’s it!” And she has learned something beyond the murder of another. Vibes and guitar. She smiles in holding a strange gift. Friendship after ugliness. Emotions. She holds her heart, as if close to a heart attack. (Along with the appreciation of jazz, here, Thomas had put into play the same study concerning the appreciation of smoking. A Guerra little masterpiece.) “I can’t stand it!” She flops down on the sofa. (A little bit phony coming to bear…) The uncanny—they’ve gone to transcend brutal instincts, to a horizon uncharted. And it dissipates in a moment. Can it be that forgettable? That the corrupt anonymous was far more intent about the photos than his remarkable (but tottering) wisdom is one thing (caught by him as she attempted to make a dash with the camera holding the kill). But, here, only the moments affording a breakaway, matter. (Therefore, the fun things of virtually pointless British rock and pointless British shrewdness may be ignored, with our compass in Guerra, the man with a grip, the man getting the hell out of this Antonioni business. Similarly, the sensational murder becomes another bogus “excitement,” another coup of being “fabulous.”  This mob has no serious idea of creativity. And yet, in the earthy, troubled, rock gig, one can discern the measures of music itself, the volumes of intensity reaching to the elements. Also, the patrician’s party, with its precious drugs, knew something; but lacked a capacity to real challenge.)

     Thomas’ courtyard, where a painter and his wife rent for the protagonist and find a cracked inspiration, brings a twisted saga. The artist, glaring in the form of Van Gogh, begins with, “That must be five or six years old… It never means anything when I do it.” Thomas has a look, nonplussed… The painter continues, “After, I find out… It’s like a detective story…” The painter shows another work. It might, surprisingly, speak to us. He adds, “After a while I find something to hold.” Something in the matter of touch, tone. From out of winsome roughness of lines and tones, to skid with. He crashes, though, in excitement that, “I like that leg!” A true Brit! Never the Whole! (Or never effectively audacity.) In a rare moment of modesty, the leg man tells us, “Don’t ask me about this one” (the latest “revelation”). Thomas, the splurge, wants to buy it. The painter says, “No.” At a later date, in the middle of the night, the protagonist wanders into the zone of the questionable artist. (As to another zone, the deadly park sports a Cubist neon sign, to that effect, erected upon a building along the perimeter. Only Guerra.) There, he comes upon the family in the throes of coitus. The perspective affords clear sailing to the woman, while the artist remains in the dark. (As a tiny, but rich gift, the old bricks of the walls become a tremendous form of finesse, a world to love.) The wife maintains éclat. Her sense of irony appears to be more than that. Later in the night, she visits Thomas’ place. She ironically rallies him with the chaos of the bedroom, “Are you looking for someone, Sir?” The invader replies, “No, I don’t think so…” Then, as our melancholy and incoherent protagonist allows a sharp disclosure, we get it right in the face how hopelessly a breakaway to coherence is, for cowards. The man in the grips of so-called “justice,” tells her, “I saw a man killed this morning.” (This recalls, Vittoria, in the   Guerra film, L’Eclisse, using overkill to seem being on the cusp of tremendous involvement. That being, of course, only exposing the cheapness of the protagonist. The tonalities of creative braveness are not for sissies.) The neighbor, skeptically asks “Are you sure?”/ Thomas, with the sensational photo of the blowup in his studio [not for long], revels in telling her, “He’s still there!” She asks, “How did it happen?” / “I don’t know. I didn’t see it.” / “You didn’t see it?”/ “No…” From there, the lady discloses why she has dropped by. “I don’t know what to do.” Thomas, as you might have expected, ignores the matter entirely. (This being an extreme bankruptcy. But as Guerra has maintained—in the shadows, as it were—even the sharpest sensibility on planet Earth is humbled in face of what is called here, Zonae, the Zone, a long crisis of violence and cowardice. Within this outrage by selfish Thomas, we wonder of the wit of the woman in the courtyard and her poise in face of elements which can never well embrace.)

    As our pilot begins leaving this bizarre and violent disclosure of sensibility, his subtle invitations—in face of Antonioni’s finding paydirt in crazy media—our concerns need to discover other ventures by Guerra and his like. (The cliché of the invisible tennis match at the end, did not help at all. Antonioni must have done it.)

 

 

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