Carlo Di Palma and Woody AllenThe only thing more consistent than the quality of Carlo Di Palma’s cinematography is the routine variance of his work. Though his most prominent titles were primarily those done in collaboration with two key directors—Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen—what he demonstrated over the course of his career, in these films and dozens more, revealed a remarkable exhibition of visual range. His decades-spanning career produced a gallery of fluctuating colors, lighting techniques, temperatures, movements, and tones. And more often than not, what he refined in this richly varying field proved to be a directly corresponding realization of profound psychological consequence.Born April 17, 1925 in Rome, the son of a camera repair man, Di Palma’s cinematic commencement went from focus operator on Neo-Realist essentials like Rome, Open City (1945) and Bicycle Thieves (1948) to serving various capacities on largely subpar Italian fare. A turning point came...
- 7/28/2017
- MUBI
Dr Seuss' The Lorax (U)
(Chris Renauld, Kyle Balda, 2012, Us) Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Ed Helms, Danny DeVito. 86 mins.
Dr Seuss's most environmentally minded story was a natural choice for movie treatment, but as with so many others (How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears A Who!), the temptation to "expand" on the original runs out of control. Seuss's elegant tale of a land where they paved paradise and cut down all the Truffula trees has been injected with all the compulsory gags, subplots, musical numbers and painfully bright landscapes that family animation is now deemed to require, making for an eco-tale that's packed with artificial additives.
Searching For Sugar Man (12A)
(Malik Bendjelloul, 2012, Swe/UK) 86 mins.
An inspiring documentary that successfully rehabilitates the reputation (and perhaps more) of Sixto Rodriguez, a 1970s Detroit troubadour who never found fame at home but unwittingly became huge in South Africa – where his...
(Chris Renauld, Kyle Balda, 2012, Us) Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Ed Helms, Danny DeVito. 86 mins.
Dr Seuss's most environmentally minded story was a natural choice for movie treatment, but as with so many others (How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears A Who!), the temptation to "expand" on the original runs out of control. Seuss's elegant tale of a land where they paved paradise and cut down all the Truffula trees has been injected with all the compulsory gags, subplots, musical numbers and painfully bright landscapes that family animation is now deemed to require, making for an eco-tale that's packed with artificial additives.
Searching For Sugar Man (12A)
(Malik Bendjelloul, 2012, Swe/UK) 86 mins.
An inspiring documentary that successfully rehabilitates the reputation (and perhaps more) of Sixto Rodriguez, a 1970s Detroit troubadour who never found fame at home but unwittingly became huge in South Africa – where his...
- 7/27/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Antonioni spiritually enters the 60s with this fascinating experimental movie about the malaise of industrial society
Michelangelo Antonioni's sensational break with a more conventional past famously came with L'Avventura in 1960, but here in 1964, with his first colour movie (now re-released for the director's centenary) was where the Antonioni 60s really began. It's not swinging exactly, but has a distinctively experimental, exploratory and even improvisatory feel. Red Desert is a disturbing ambient drama about post-natal anxiety and the malaise of industrial society: a deeply depressed young mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti), whose husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) runs a factory, finds herself drawn to Ugo's handsome associate Corrado (Richard Harris). who arrived to recruit a workforce for a mining adventure in south America. The landscape is a grim, sludgy mass of churned soil and dark satanic mills, belching out smoke and flame: Antonioni boldly counters the picturesque view of sunny, happy Italy.
Michelangelo Antonioni's sensational break with a more conventional past famously came with L'Avventura in 1960, but here in 1964, with his first colour movie (now re-released for the director's centenary) was where the Antonioni 60s really began. It's not swinging exactly, but has a distinctively experimental, exploratory and even improvisatory feel. Red Desert is a disturbing ambient drama about post-natal anxiety and the malaise of industrial society: a deeply depressed young mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti), whose husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) runs a factory, finds herself drawn to Ugo's handsome associate Corrado (Richard Harris). who arrived to recruit a workforce for a mining adventure in south America. The landscape is a grim, sludgy mass of churned soil and dark satanic mills, belching out smoke and flame: Antonioni boldly counters the picturesque view of sunny, happy Italy.
- 7/26/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
“You ask what you should watch. I ask how I should live. It’s the same thing.“
Sometimes the best duos in film are lovers. It worked so well with Jean-Luc Godard and his muse Anna Karina. And roughly at the same time in Italy, we had Michelangelo Antonioni and his lover Monica Vitti, a breathtaking woman who shined so bright in his films, and for good reason. And in 1964 she made the film Red Desert, a stunning look at the industrialization that was occurring in Italy at the time and is Antonioni’s first color film, which he takes glorious advantage of.
Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is a young mother and wife who is recovering from a monthlong hospital stay due to an attempted suicide, which she somehow concealed from her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), who is a hotshot engineer at the power plant. He doesn’t really care for...
Sometimes the best duos in film are lovers. It worked so well with Jean-Luc Godard and his muse Anna Karina. And roughly at the same time in Italy, we had Michelangelo Antonioni and his lover Monica Vitti, a breathtaking woman who shined so bright in his films, and for good reason. And in 1964 she made the film Red Desert, a stunning look at the industrialization that was occurring in Italy at the time and is Antonioni’s first color film, which he takes glorious advantage of.
Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is a young mother and wife who is recovering from a monthlong hospital stay due to an attempted suicide, which she somehow concealed from her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), who is a hotshot engineer at the power plant. He doesn’t really care for...
- 9/5/2010
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
Red Desert Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni Written by: Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra Starring: Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti Normally the idea of technique overshadowing character and story might be a bad thing, but Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert is probably better described as an 'environment piece' rather than 'character piece'. The characters are directly influenced and defined by their surroundings. Antonioni makes great use of colour -- this was his first step away from black and white -- and composition to create drab yet breathtaking landscapes in which to set his colourful characters against. The opening titles of Red Desert promises a pretty unique experience. Beautiful shots of factories are underscored by a strange electronic soundtrack, immediately establishing a thematic ambiguity. Is the film criticizing industry? If so, why present these factories in such an aesthetically pleasing nature? Normally it'd be safe to assume that a film with...
- 7/19/2010
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Chicago – The Criterion Collection recently inducted the great Michelangelo Antonioni’s first color film into their esteemed catalog with a Blu-ray transfer that stands next to the best HD pictures of the year to date. This striking visual composition has never looked better and the film remains as mesmerizing as it was almost a half-century ago, arguably more so.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Antonioni made several films about the influence of environment and “Red Desert” is easily one of his strongest examinations of the changing world and how we must live within it or suffer. Many have read the film as a condemnation of technology but Antonioni himself argued that the viewer should see beauty in his industrial landscapes and I think it’s easy to see the film as a commentary on the need to adapt in a changing world instead merely fighting it. The world may be more and more...
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Antonioni made several films about the influence of environment and “Red Desert” is easily one of his strongest examinations of the changing world and how we must live within it or suffer. Many have read the film as a condemnation of technology but Antonioni himself argued that the viewer should see beauty in his industrial landscapes and I think it’s easy to see the film as a commentary on the need to adapt in a changing world instead merely fighting it. The world may be more and more...
- 6/28/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Michelangelo Antonioni's 1964 film Red Desert is a bleak exploration of mental illness, alienation and environmental decay. The film is abstract, challenging and is arguably one of the most beautifully composed and photographed cinematic works of the past 5 decades. Honestly.
The film's tone is established immediately. The title sequence unfolds with panning out-of-focus shots of an industrial shipyard. The sequence abruptly cuts to an image of a refinery pipe shooting giant orange flames into the ash grey sky. In the next shot, the camera pulls back to reveal that the sky is gray due to smoke billowing from a nuclear cooling tower. The central characters are then introduced. Giuliana Salviatii (Monica Vitti) and her son Valerio arrive at the factory where her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is the manager. Ms. Salviatti was recently in a car accident, which has left her mentally unstable. Upon finding her husband, she meets Corrado...
The film's tone is established immediately. The title sequence unfolds with panning out-of-focus shots of an industrial shipyard. The sequence abruptly cuts to an image of a refinery pipe shooting giant orange flames into the ash grey sky. In the next shot, the camera pulls back to reveal that the sky is gray due to smoke billowing from a nuclear cooling tower. The central characters are then introduced. Giuliana Salviatii (Monica Vitti) and her son Valerio arrive at the factory where her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is the manager. Ms. Salviatti was recently in a car accident, which has left her mentally unstable. Upon finding her husband, she meets Corrado...
- 6/20/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Michelangelo Antonioni's 1964 film Red Desert is a bleak exploration of mental illness, alienation and environmental decay. The film is abstract, challenging and is arguably one of the most beautifully composed and photographed cinematic works of the past 5 decades. Honestly.
The film's tone is established immediately. The title sequence unfolds with panning out-of-focus shots of an industrial shipyard. The sequence abruptly cuts to an image of a refinery pipe shooting giant orange flames into the ash grey sky. In the next shot, the camera pulls back to reveal that the sky is gray due to smoke billowing from a nuclear cooling tower. The central characters are then introduced. Giuliana Salviatii (Monica Vitti) and her son Valerio arrive at the factory where her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is the manager. Ms. Salviatti was recently in a car accident, which has left her mentally unstable. Upon finding her husband, she meets Corrado...
The film's tone is established immediately. The title sequence unfolds with panning out-of-focus shots of an industrial shipyard. The sequence abruptly cuts to an image of a refinery pipe shooting giant orange flames into the ash grey sky. In the next shot, the camera pulls back to reveal that the sky is gray due to smoke billowing from a nuclear cooling tower. The central characters are then introduced. Giuliana Salviatii (Monica Vitti) and her son Valerio arrive at the factory where her husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) is the manager. Ms. Salviatti was recently in a car accident, which has left her mentally unstable. Upon finding her husband, she meets Corrado...
- 6/19/2010
- Screen Anarchy
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