Il Deserto Rosso and the Adjuster
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Practices of Mediation and Phenomena of Contamination in the Films of M. Antonioni and A. Egoyan Submitted by Giulia Baso to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian, September 2014. 1 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: Giulia Baso 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for financing this doctoral project and for generously awarding me a Research Training Support Grant to visit the TIFF Film Reference Library in Toronto. I am also grateful to the University of Exeter, which provided further financial support and gave me the opportunity to work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant of Italian language. This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. I wish to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Danielle Hipkins and Dr. Fiona Handyside, who believed in this project from the start. Their guidance, insights, and patience enabled me to shape and clarify my ideas. Thanks for letting me concentrate on the topics that stimulated my interest and curiosity, whilst offering continuous encouragement and constructive criticism. I am also very grateful to Dr. Sally Faulkner, who gave me precious feedback and advice throughout all the stages of this project. Thanks to the staff of the TIFF Film Reference Library in Toronto for providing access to the Special Collections and the Atom Egoyan Archive. They were extremely helpful during my visits. My archival research benefited particularly from the assistance of Julie Lofthouse. I am thankful to Marcy Gerstein of Ego Film Arts for allowing me access to the files regarding Just to Be Together. I also received great help from the staff of the Videoteca Pasinetti in Venice. At the University of Exeter, I wish to thank the Department of Italian Studies, where I found a very friendly and supportive atmosphere: Sonia Cunico, Alice Farris, Francesco Goglia, Danielle Hipkins, Angelo Mangini, and Luciano Parisi. A special thank also to Micheal Jecks and James Wilson. I am grateful to Dr. Armando Pajalich for his guidance during my years at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and for encouraging me to apply to a doctoral programme abroad. Last, but not least, I want to thank my family, particularly my grandmother Jole, for their support and understanding. Thanks to my friends: to my colleagues, Caterina, Claudia, Elena, Ilaria, and Iole; to Barbara, Donald, and my housemates in Exeter, Akiko and Isaure; and to Anna, Chiara, Daniela, Francesco, Irene, and Marta. Thanks to Lucia, for everything. Translations Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Italian are mine. 3 Abstract By bringing M. Antonioni and A. Egoyan into dialogue with one another, this thesis sheds light on a significant yet neglected aspect of their cinematic visions: the interactions of practices of technological mediation with phenomena of contamination and dissolution of boundaries. My work is inspired by the recovery of archival material that demonstrates the two auteurs’ intention to collaborate on a filmmaking project, entitled Just to Be Together, between 1997 and 1998. This unfinished film invites us to look retrospectively at Antonioni’s and Egoyan’s oeuvres in a way that transcends established frameworks of analysis based on national, art-house, and diasporic/exilic paradigms. Focusing on what came before this suspended artistic collaboration, the present study proceeds through a series of paired readings of films, framed within a theoretical context of transnational cinema. The final section includes an expanded, intertextual discussion of the major findings of my research in relation to the screenplay of Just to Be Together. Whilst recognising the directors’ different cultural and historical backgrounds, I argue that there exist strong thematic and stylistic affinities between Antonioni’s ‘art-house’ cinema and Egoyan’s ‘accented’ aesthetics. The corpus I have chosen to concentrate on reflects my view that such similarities are most noticeable in Antonioni’s first colour films and Egoyan’s early features. In particular, the following films are examined in pairs: Il deserto rosso (1964) / The Adjuster (1991) (Chapter One, ‘Reconfiguring Modernity’); Blow-up (1966) / Speaking Parts (1989) (Chapter Two, ‘Capturing What Vanishes’); The Passenger (1974) / Next of Kin (1984) (Chapter Three, ‘Discarding the Unwanted Skin’). By using different conceptual frameworks developed by scholars such as Zygmunt Bauman, Julia Kristeva, Rosi Braidotti, Roland Barthes, and Richard Dyer, this study explores themes of fluidity, ambivalence, renegotiation of bodily boundaries, media technologies, pollution, and identity. It aims to engage with recent critical efforts to rethink Antonioni’s aesthetics from the perspective of contemporary theoretical frames, whilst opening up a discursive space from which to challenge the validity of diasporic and accented models for Egoyan’s early features. 4 Contents Introduction 8 Chapter One Reconfiguring Modernity: Il deserto rosso and The Adjuster 1.1 The Impact of Development 24 1.2 Objects and Waste 36 1.3 Perceptual Indeterminacy: Sound and Colour 51 1.3.1 From Solid to Liquid 52 1.3.2 Fluid Sounds: The Acousmatic Voice 57 1.3.3 Superimpositions and the Chromophobic Impulse 63 Chapter Two Capturing What Vanishes: Blow-Up and Speaking Parts 2.1 The Viral Force of Images 70 2.2 Dismantling the Integrity of the Body 81 2.2.1 ‘So… Intimate’: Posthuman Renegotiations of Boundaries 82 2.2.2 Clothing As a Second Skin 94 2.2.3 Un-fashioning/Re-fashioning the Body 100 2.3 Dismantling the Integrity of the Image 115 2.3.1 Ghostliness 116 2.3.2 Decomposition 125 Chapter Three Discarding the Unwanted Skin: The Passenger and Next of Kin 3.1 Two Stories of Invented Identities 131 3.2 Nomadism and Homecoming 141 3.2.1 Exiles, Migrants, Nomads, and Polyglots 142 3.2.2 The Desire for Contamination 161 3.3 The Distracted Camera 175 5 Conclusion The Film They Never Made 185 Illustrations 194 Bibliography 197 Archival Sources 207 Filmography 208 6 List of Illustrations Figure 1.a; 1.c from The Adjuster (Atom Egoyan, 1991) Figure 1.b from Il deserto rosso (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964) Figure 2.a; 2.b from Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) Figure 2.c from Speaking Parts (Atom Egoyan, 1989) Figure 3.a; 3.c from Next of Kin (Atom Egoyan, 1984) Figure 3.b from The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1974) 7 Introduction Antonioni today powerfully escapes the reach of old categorisations that have attempted to congeal his figure once and for all into an inert monument of modern cinema. His continued influence on world film-makers and the new pressing questions that his films raise today for contemporary audiences call for a renewed critical effort. Laura Rascaroli and John David Rhodes1 Looking back at the work of Michelangelo Antonioni today, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, one might feel that everything has already been said or written about the director of ‘alienation’. Yet recent instances of film criticism have powerfully demonstrated that his cinema is more alive than ever, and continues to pose pressing questions to contemporary audiences. This thesis aims to bring to the surface one neglected trajectory of Antonioni’s transnational artistic legacy: the connection with Canadian director Atom Egoyan. Through a series of paired readings of films, it draws together two major filmmakers in a way that sheds new light upon their oeuvres. Antonioni lends himself to national (Italian), art-house, and modernist paradigms of analysis. His cinema is commonly seen as bearing the mark of a European auteur tradition. Egoyan can be variously claimed as a national (Canadian), diasporic/exilic, accented, and mainstream director. My dissertation is informed to some degree by all of these critical perspectives; one of its purposes, however, will be to unsettle dominant assumptions about how Antonioni’s and Egoyan’s films should be read. In order to do so, it attempts to trace the contours of Egoyan’s artistic indebtedness to European art cinema, whilst bringing Antonioni’s oeuvre into dialogue with key conceptual models for understanding late-modernity. Without negating the directors’ different temporal, geographical, and cultural contexts, the present study argues that there exists a strong affinity between their cinematic visions. The corpus I decided to focus on reflects my view that such similarities are most noticeable in Antonioni’s first colour films and Egoyan’s early features. More specifically, the following filmic 1 Laura Rascaroli and John David Rhodes, eds., ‘Interstitial, Pretentious, Alienated, Dead’, in Antonioni: Centenary Essays (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1-17 (p. 1). 8 texts will be closely examined in pairs: Il deserto rosso (1964) / The Adjuster (1991) (Chapter One); Blow-up (1966) / Speaking Parts (1989) (Chapter Two); The Passenger (1974) / Next of Kin (1984) (Chapter Three). The first chapter, ‘Reconfiguring Modernity’, explores the historical resonances of Il deserto rosso and The Adjuster, with particular attention given to Italy’s economic miracle of the late 1950s and early 1960s. After having outlined the role of actresses Monica Vitti and Arsinée Khanjian, my discussion engages with discourses on objects, waste, and perceptual indeterminacy through reflections on the directors’ expressive use of cinematography. It is concerned with demonstrating how the two films reconfigure aspects of the modern condition against a backdrop of globalisation and fluidity. Chapter Two, ‘Capturing What Vanishes’, argues that processes of renegotiation of boundaries are central to both Antonioni’s and Egoyan’s configurations of media technologies.