Modernity and the Will of Director
1. Plastic arts (explanation of terms): art that occupies a certain space, constitutes a beautiful image, and allows people to appreciate through vision, including painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.
2. Go to drama, abandon traditional narrative rules, and reject the subjective and immersive experience of empathy. In the opening chapter of "Modern Love Trilogy", "Adventure", Antonioni uses plastic art to introduce a new language for the film, namely space-image, The formal outerwear of the trilogy uses architecture and environment to mutually transform into space, in which characters are added to form a situation to complete narrative advancement and intention expression.
When it comes to "Red Desert", the overall is still extremely traceable to follow the trilogy methodology, but artificially smearing colors on the environment and architecture is equivalent to indirectly depicting the objective state (such as factories, ruins, ships, docks, etc.). It is not the same as before, only indulging in the subjective world, it can be described as a turning point for Antonioni. In "Red Desert", the extreme life environment description and the protagonist's unknown behavior bring the original tension of the narrative, but it is related to the truth of the behavior. Logic forms a not-so-small contradiction, and it is also contradictory to form. It is obsessed with portraying all factors imposing on the heroine played by Monica Witty , but it does not respond to the relative reaction, making form transcend expression and transcendence. The complementary and delicate balance prevents "Red Desert" from becoming Antonioni's best work.
3. The neurotic "why" question that is constantly applied in the plot, condenses the focus of the narrative. In particular, Antonioni added a different from the trilogy, "Just Answer No Questions", and the text was designed by Witty’s husband , A very small incision thrown at a discordant angle:
A car accident that almost happened!
Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine the feeling of fear that arises when the safe and comfortable modern mobility car almost becomes a tool for destroying lives. This is a real and understandable logical cause. From this small fulcrum, you can actually get a glimpse of Antonioni’s work. Modernity.
4. At that time, Italy had already completed its reconstruction after the Second World War. The ruined walls and the run-down environment of piles of rubble no longer existed during the period of neo-realism. This is the objective condition of society and the "beautiful status quo" that Antonioni has to face. The modernity of neo-realism is undoubtedly an enlightenment and true pursuit of subjectivity. For example, the bridge section in "The Bicycle Thief" does not bear the narrative meaning, the index source of the scattered narrative in "Death of the Dragon", "Germany Zero" The street pauses silently in Nian. The key is not how many real events are quoted, but that it gives each character a subjective initiative, breaks the traditional three-in-one standardization law, and uses different releases of motivations by different characters to make use of more realism that does not center on drama narratives. Logic allows the combination of events, behaviors and emotions to break through the fixed structure and develop in parallel, thus getting closer to our abstract perception of real life, and getting closer to the real world. Just like people in life, their behavior motives are different, and it is impossible to form a ring-shaped closed structure. At the same time, as an important aesthetic feature of neorealism, it captures and creates the emotional and emotional details of wars, which are all human-level scars, and implements them into the psychology of the characters, allowing the audience to have a profound empathy experience. The subjective experience projection of the sad environment is its The most important pursuit of modernity.
Immediately following to rebuild the prosperity of the revival, you can vaguely feel that Antonioni’s questioning has always been the alienation of people, emotions, and relationships in modern material civilization. This raises another question, which is what Bazin calls psychological realism. To what extent is it truly realistic?
5. This problem returns to the movie and the scene scheduling. Antonioni gave the actors a lot of free activities and frequently formed various depressive compositions. The flat space and the blurring of the surrounding objects caused by the long focal length lens aggravated the feeling of helplessness and loneliness. , Strange like the soundtrack of outer space strengthens the heterogeneous, unknown and unknown space outside the picture, and it is all about making the relationship between the protagonist and the environment form a deep pure audiovisual situation (time-image) to achieve the purpose of psychological externalization. Of particular note is the long shot. In Deleuze's "Motion-Images", he said: "In the pseudo-contradiction between creativity (editing) and integrity (reality), the role of editing is to bring perception Into things, put perception in matter, so that any point in space can perceive all the points that it affects or affect it, so that these activities and reactions can spread as far as possible. This is the definition of objectivity." Antonioni is not obsessed with long shots himself, but his long shots are very different. For example, Antonioni unusually waved the camera along the pipe and built an internal montage in the long lens to complete the editing. During the movement of the long lens, because the framing of the lens and the camera are integrated, a unified abstract time is given internally. On the outside, the position of the viewer is reserved for the potential perspective of the camera, and the viewer will automatically generate this when watching. Observers to complete the presentation of objectivity.
Space-image goes a step further here, because if we really want to portray the uniqueness of the modern industrial world after the war, we should look for the common ground of ruined reality like neo-realism, while modern material civilization should find the industrial society for everyone or To be precise, the special point that produces a unique feeling for each director is the true standpoint of the psychological realism-based perspective. It is not difficult to find that the theory here has returned to the characteristics of neo-realism and modernity. All the expressions of psychological realism can constitute the characteristics of neo-realism. In the complex and true dialectical relationship, the true logic in the film is whether it is Being close is in line with our perceptions and feelings, rational or irrational. Those within the scope of knowability are always expressions of self-sense and implicit narratives based on conclusions. Therefore, the best neo-realism only expresses complexity and does not give conclusions. Psychological realism only gives feelings. No explanation is given either. From this level, Antonioni at least fully agrees with his rationality and perception, and he is also very honest.
Complementing the content is the structure. In the second half of the narrative, a montage of the self-narrative story of a desert island is inserted. The expression is quite obvious. Monica Witty hopes to return to nature directly and arbitrarily, avoiding the almost non-existent love. The modern industrial society represented by her husband and her unable to take care of her children, but she also had to return to the real world at the end of the story. This paragraph of narrative actually constitutes a deconstruction of the previous ideology in structure, that is, postmodernity. In the subsequent plot, a plot that the protagonist hopes to escape but cannot be arranged is arranged to sublimate the plot aroused by the director (Affect) with a complete irony. , But there is no universal reality of implementation. Antonioni personally created the fact that modern humans desire to escape but cannot escape, so it can be said to a large extent that mental realism is the real reality.
Looking back from "Records of a Certain Love" to "The Scream", which are still in the category of neorealism, turn to being not satisfied with only reproducing the appearance of objective reality, but focusing on how people who have walked out of war and ruins can fall into more Deeply confused "Adventures", "Night", "Eclipse", "Red Desert", and later "Zoom", "Zabrisski Point", "Passenger" people's own exploration and ideological upgrading, and finally Self-reflection on "A Proof of Identity with a Woman" and "Days on the Clouds", Antonioni, a leftist film master, has influenced generations of future directors by virtue of his aesthetics and modernity as Hong Zhongda Lu, and he has always used experience The dual characteristics of the subject and the transcendental subject are the essence of cinematic thinking to explore-whether modern material civilization brings human beings closer to the exit of Plato's cave or a step further.
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