Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 11

Two Weeks In Another Town

From the Chicago Reader (May 1, 1990). — J.R.

Though crippled by studio recutting that tried to adjust this neurotic 1962 melodrama for the family market, Vincente Minnelli’s adaptation of Irwin Shaw’s novel is one of his last great pictures, reversing the Henry James model of innocent Americans encountering corruption abroad — it’s the Americans who [...]

Auteur or Idiot?

From Time Out (London), June 4-10, 1976. I’ve always had very mixed feelings about this commissioned cover-story piece, especially about its stupid and offensive title (not mine) as well as what I now regard as a certain conformist pandering to what I regarded as mainstream taste. As I recall, the whole piece was written very [...]

Eclipse

From the Chicago Reader (February 1, 1989). — J.R.


The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni’s loose trilogy (preceded by L’Avventura and La Notte), this 1961 film is conceivably the best in Antonioni’s career, but significantly it has the least consequential plot. A sometime translator (Monica Vitti) recovering from an unhappy love affair briefly links up with a [...]

Everyone’s a Critic

From Felix (published by the European Film Academy) no. 5, 25 November 1994, where it appeared both in English and in German translation, as part of a special section called “The Vanishing Critic”. That title seems prescient in some respects; in many other ways, however, this whole piece seems very dated now. –- J.R.




One factor [...]

A Cinema of Uncertainty

From the Chicago Reader, April 9, 1993. —J.R

FILMS BY MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
Jean-Luc Godard: The drama is no longer psychological, but plastic . . .
Michelangelo Antonioni: It’s the same thing.
–from a 1964 interview
Just for my own edification, I’ve put together a list of the 12 greatest living narrative filmmakers — not so much personal favorites as individuals [...]

Rainer’s Persistence of Memory

From the Santa Barbara News & Review, October 24, 1985. –- J.R.





The Man Who Envied Women, introduced by filmmaker Yvonne Rainer, will be shown at 8 pm Monday, Oct. 28, Isla Vista Theatre II, Embarcadero Del Norte. Free admission.




It doesn’t really do justice to Yvonne Rainer’s exhilarating The Man Who Envied Women to call it [...]

L’avventura

From the Chicago Reader (May 14, 2003). — J.R.

The controversial, highly charged 1960 masterpiece that put Michelangelo Antonioni’s name on the international map. It’s a work that requires some patience — a 145-minute mystery that strategically elides any conventional denouement — but more than amply repays the effort. The ambiguous title adventure begins on a [...]

Tracking the Wild Movie: A Manhattan Guide for the Adventurous Filmgoer (with Carrie Rickey)

From American Film (May 1979) –- a collaborative venture with Carrie Rickey, written during the year when we were flat mates living on Soho’s Sullivan Street. I assume that its main interest now is as a sort of time capsule, and I apologize if some of the photos are anachronistic, which seems likely. -– J.R.
[...]

Red Desert

From the Chicago Reader (October 5, 1990). — J.R.


Michelangelo Antonioni’s first feature in color (1964) remains a watermark for using colors creatively, expressionistically, and beautifully; to get the precise hues he wanted, Antonioni had entire fields painted. A newly struck and restored print of the film makes clear why audiences were so excited a quarter [...]

The Two Faces of Commerce

From The Soho News (July 8, 1981). -– J.R.


Disney Animation and Animators
Whitney Museum of American Art.
through September 6

S.O.B.
Written and directed by Blake Edwards


Postmodernism is a jive-ass, commercially-minded, art-related movement which seems to be guided by three central tenets or market strategies” (1) if it works, it’s art; (2) if it fails, it’s politics; (3) [...]