522 Red Desert

[Drucker]

Congratulations, Sloper! Looking forward to reading, I already subscribed.

[Altair]

Over the last few years, I’ve written a scene-by-scene analysis of Red Desert (totalling around 150k words), and I’ve now started a Substack on which I’ll be posting this in 52 parts throughout 2025. I realise it’s a slightly odd (read: insane) thing to do, but at least it harms no one other than myself… And subscription is free.

So this is your excuse for not posting as much! Reading your first entry, it's quite wonderful, and I would encourage everyone here to take a look.

[domino harvey]

Great start Sloper, looking forward to more

[Mr Sausage]

Over the last few years, I’ve written a scene-by-scene analysis of Red Desert (totalling around 150k words), and I’ve now started a Substack on which I’ll be posting this in 52 parts throughout 2025. I realise it’s a slightly odd (read: insane) thing to do, but at least it harms no one other than myself… And subscription is free.

Not insane at all. One substack I subscribe to is going through King Lear bit by bit and providing commentary on each part. You’re in good company.

[Sloper]

Thank you for the kind words! And for the Substack recommendation Mr S, that is very reassuring.

[MichaelB]

Having just signed off on another commentary, I'm feeling no small amount of jealousy at the way that you don't have to adhere rigidly to the film's own pace!

(Commentary planning – at least for me – is mostly "OK, I have one minute and twelve seconds to get these points across; how many words is that?")

[denti alligator]

Really excellent so far, sloper!

[bottlesofsmoke]

This is great, Sloper. Red Desert is one of my favorite films and one I think about quite often, looks like I’ll be thinking about it even more now!

[ellipsis7]

Having just signed off on another commentary, I'm feeling no small amount of jealousy at the way that you don't have to adhere rigidly to the film's own pace!

(Commentary planning – at least for me – is mostly "OK, I have one minute and twelve seconds to get these points across; how many words is that?")

It's a bit like subtitling, I guess... There's only so many words & so much space & the ongoing pace of the film that restricts the phrases that fit and must also flow... A skill in itself, the result of which, in each case, becomes
a copyrighted entity of its' own accord...

This also seems the right place to give a heads up to the wonderful new SPAZIO ANTONIONI in Ferrara, the customised building & permanent expedition dedicated to MA & his work, drawn from the rich resources of the Archivio Antonioni in the same city... It opened at the end of May last year & is well worth a visit... Featured is the ten minute reel of 'provini', Monica Vitti's screen tests that MA made for DESERTO ROSSO, in various costume and hair colours... BTW Antonioni said the film was originally titled CELESTE VERDE, but abandoned that because it did not seem 'virile enough' and lacked subtlety (as he told Jean Luc Godard)...

Keep up the good work Sloper!...

[Sloper]

(Commentary planning – at least for me – is mostly "OK, I have one minute and twelve seconds to get these points across; how many words is that?")

There's a really interesting David Forgacs article (called 'Preparing and Recording Audio Commentaries') in which he describes how he and Lesley Caldwell had a rude awakening when they a) were asked to submit a script a week in advance of recording their Ossessione track, and b) realised in the recording process that this script needed to be much more carefully timed to avoid over-running in some scenes and under-running (i.e. leaving 30 seconds or more of silence) in others. It's still a very good commentary I think, but the ones he did later (including Red Desert) are noticeably better in terms of their alignment with the films. I'm sure that if I had to record a commentary I would panic and break down in tears within the first five minutes, so I appreciate the effort you and others put into these things!

Ellipsis, the Spazio Antonioni sounds incredible, I hope I can go there some day. The Celeste e verde thing is fascinating and I have a whole post dedicated to it later on. Giuliana says she wants these as the colours for the walls and ceiling (respectively) of her shop on the Via Pietro Alighieri, like a green sky over blue hills - it's a nice coincidence that the Ferrara tourist office that runs the exhibition is called 'Terra e Acqua', and that its logo portrays a spectrum of colours from red, through green, to blue...

[ellipsis7]

Very interesting, Sloper, many thanks indeed... That David Forgacs RED DESERT Commentary transcript & timings for those who will find it useful... Rolando Caputo also does good commentary on the Australian DVD of the same...

[MichaelB]

Thanks for flagging up that article, of which I wasn't previously aware - and as I'm a huge Forgacs fan (he's one of my commentary role models, in fact), I shall read it with forensic attention once I get hold of the whole thing - happily, I have plenty of academics in my family who should have the necessary access.

But on the basis of the publicly-accessible first page, I agree with every word. I've never had to submit a script in advance (the closest I came to that was the list of Sony-mandated dos and don'ts for Arrow's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; otherwise I've had carte blanche), but I have personally witnessed someone attempting to extemporise a critical commentary without a script or any notes, only to find himself noticeably running out of material well within the first twenty minutes - we did manage to salvage something from the wreckage, but it wasn't one of my most fondly-remembered sessions. You don't necessarily need a fully written-out script, but as a minimum you need a selection of bullet points covering blocks of typically two or three minutes apiece, just so you know for certain what you're going to be talking about.

Where I suspect I differ from Forgacs is that I've always edited my own stuff (the only exception being the BFI's Hidden City, where I was Stephen Poliakoff's moderator), so I don't have to rehearse thoroughly in advance - I can record it chunk by chunk, not necessarily in consecutive order. (For instance, I usually record the last ten minutes at a fairly early stage, just to ensure that I don't run out of material.) And this editorial control makes it much easier to time things where it's more important for me to end on a particular image than to start on one.

For instance, when I was talking about the visible bullet impact in Andrzej Wajda's A Generation, I aimed to finish talking about the film's pioneering use of a squib on the actual shot - in fact, if I remember rightly, I deliberately stop talking a beat before the bullet hits and bring up the soundtrack at that point. And because that timing could be locked down (in Final Cut Pro, I could visually ensure that that block was timed so that it ended at precisely that point), I could record that particular story at any length I wanted, as it didn't matter when it started.

[therewillbeblus]

Sloper, this is so fascinating and just a pleasure to read. I look forward to watching the movie multiple times this year to take in all you're giving

[denti alligator]

Yes, loving this, though I haven’t seen the film in over a decade and don’t even have the Criterion Blu-ray. When’s the next 50% off sale?

[domino harvey]

There will be one direct from Criterion in February or March

[therewillbeblus]

I know the color scheme between releases (Criterion and BFI?) has been contentious here. I'm curious, Sloper, which release you're using for your analysis? Especially since so far there's been a strong focus on color.

[Sloper]

Good question, TWBB – I’ve been using the BFI blu-ray so far, although for the title sequence I also took screenshots of the Criterion (which I only have on DVD) and agonised over which ones to use. I did in fact use a couple of shots from the Criterion at the start of Part 2, because the yellow haze seemed a little more visible on that one. I’ve added a couple of brief footnotes about this now, in case anyone else wonders about it. I didn’t do this before because I told myself no one would care, but in the back of my mind there was a hoarse whisper saying, ‘someone from the forum will care…’.

I think the only part where I explicitly discuss the different editions is when I talk about the purple trees in the swamp, which are noticeably more purple on (IIRC) the Criterion and especially the Madman releases. Otherwise I don’t think I make any observations that would depend on a specific edition, but I genuinely welcome any comments about this. Besides the three I’ve mentioned I don’t own any other editions (though I did see the more recent restoration that was playing on Mubi a while ago), and I tend not to have strong opinions about these things or a hugely sensitive eye for these differences – it’s definitely an important issue, though.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't have any strong opinion either, but I know it's been a significant topic of conversation in the past here (if I recall correctly, even amongst forum members who typically don't involve themselves in color timing debates!) so it felt worth asking - thanks for the reply!

[MichaelB]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if 35mm prints looked different on either side of the Atlantic back in 1964 as well, but we didn't have any reliable means of making comparisons back then.

[Altair]

So what's the consensus of the 4K restoration's colour scheme in comparison to the BFI and Criterion (and is this Italian BD release of the 4K restoration)? Not to open the old can of worms, but sloper's blog has inspired me to revisit.

[jsteffe]

So what's the consensus of the 4K restoration's colour scheme in comparison to the BFI and Criterion (and is this Italian BD release of the 4K restoration)? Not to open the old can of worms, but sloper's blog has inspired me to revisit.

The French Carlotta Blu-ray has the new restoration. I can't comment on the Italian Blu-ray. Personally, I like the color and tonality in the new 4K restoration the best of what I've seen so far. It's closer to what I've seen in various prints over the years. (However, both the Criterion and BFI Blu-rays used vintage prints as references, so take that with a grain of salt.) In places the new resto has odd purplish highlights, at least on the Blu-ray version, but it still worked the best for me overall. The subjective experience I had was that whereas the older Criterion version had stylized color, in the new 4K restoration the use of color has more of a visceral, emotional impact. I think that's what Antonioni was going for.

So the new 4K restoration is a first choice for me, but your mileage may vary.

I'd really like to see it as a 4K disc, either as a straight UHD with an HDR grade. I think the film would have a major impact in that format as would L'AVVENTURA, LA NOTTE, and L'ECLISSE. We'd have a better sense of Antonioni's real directorial accomplishment from the enhanced visual detail and dimensionality that 4K offers.

[Altair]

Yes, I was rereading the thread and seeing the debate between the BFI and Criterion and boiling down to using different reference prints and the fact that it's probably impossible, at this point, to truly divine Antonioni's preferred colour schema. I'll have to pick up the Carlotta disc.

[Walter Kurtz]

Sloper - I'm looking forward to that smokestack belching FIRE. Onw of the greatest shots in history.

[malachi_lui]

For what it's worth, I took notes when I saw a Janus 35mm print of Red Desert back in December at Metrograph in NYC. Despite being a Janus print, it looked closer to the BFI screenshots posted here (ie, a bit greener) than the Criterion disc. The print I saw falls somewhere between the above screenshots of the BFI disc and the newer 4K restoration - except the BFI is maybe a bit too green and the 4K resto a bit too blue, though the latter is more closely saturated to what I remember of the print. The Criterion is too neutralized/gray.

I'd love to see this and Blow-up upgraded to 4K discs. I don't think the trilogy needs an upgrade, there's only so much that can be extracted from those surviving materials, but the color films would be great in 4K.

[Drucker]

This was my recollection of seeing Red Desert in early 2020, also in 35mm also at Metrograph, so presumably the same print.