quail eggs anyone?

a troubled monica vitti with british actor richard harris who walked out on antonioni after asking antonioni “why am i walking across the field?” to which antonioni replied “you’re an actor, you don’t question me, you do what i tell you to do”

entire streets, grass fields and buildings were painted to achieve the color

talking about deserts…. this is what you can call a great film, i saw it again tonight for the 4th, or 5th time, and it was as if i was seeing things for the first time. granted i’m rather forgetful, but that’s another story.  the color and composition in this film are rather extraordinary, antonioni is the painter rather than the director in this film. so much pain was taken at the time in 1964 to create the color palette that antonioni was after on this technicolor film, including painting entire stone streets brown, buildings black, trees white, leaves brown, trash gray, earth red not to mention the “gray” fruit… it’s truly a beautiful film, and worth seeing it with no sound just purely as a visual feast, a rothko painting of sorts.

the criterion collection which is only $31.96 (on sale now) includes;

audio commentary by italian film scholar david forgacs (this is quite nice), archival video interviews with michelangelo antonioni and monica vitti and a booklet featuring an essay by film historian mark le fanu, an interview with antonioni by jean-luc godard, and a reprinted essay by antonioni on his use of color plus the usual other crap on such discs. with many thanx to cdc. by dd