REFERENCE ONLY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THESIS Degree Year T o o ^ NameofAuthor •% C O P Y R IG H T This is a thesis accepted for a Higher Degree of the University of London. It is an unpublished typescript and the copyright is held by the author. All persons consulting the thesis must read and abide by the Copyright Declaration below. COPYRIGHT DECLARATION I recognise that the copyright of the above-described thesis rests with the author and that no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. LOANS Theses may not be lent to individuals, but the Senate House Library may lend a copy to approved libraries within the United Kingdom, for consultation solely on the premises of those libraries. Application should be made to: Inter-Library Loans, Senate House Library, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. REPRODUCTION University of London theses may not be reproduced without explicit written permission from the Senate House Library. Enquiries should be addressed to the Theses Section of the Library. Regulations concerning reproduction vary according to the date of acceptance of the thesis and are listed below as guidelines. A. Before 1962. Permission granted only upon the prior written consent of the author. (The Senate House Library will provide addresses where possible). B. 1962- 1974. In many cases the author has agreed to permit copying upon completion of a Copyright Declaration. C. 1975 - 1988. Most theses may be copied upon completion of a Copyright Declaration. D. 1989 onwards. Most theses may be copied. This thesis comes within category D. r ^ ^ T h i s copy has been deposited in the Libraryu of C l This copy has been deposited in the Senate House Library, Senate House, □ Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. C:\Documents and Settings\lproctor\Local SettingsYTemporary Internet Files\OLK8\Copyright - thesis (2).doc 1 Apprehensions of Time: Michelangelo Antonioni and Experimental Cinema, 1960-1975 Matilde Nardelli University College London, University of London January, 2006 Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD UMI Number: U593040 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U593040 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis considers representations of time in cinema in the work of Michelangelo Antonioni and American and European experimental filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, it considers the role of the technology of cinema itself, and its relation to photography and sound recording, in the “representability” and embodiment of time. Chapter One considers the prominence of “the cut,” and how this relates to notions of time, subjectivity and their discontinuity. Drawing on Hollis Frampton, Antonioni and Alain Resnais, I discuss how these notions are differently articulated in their work. Chapter Two focuses on the period’s intensive reflection on the stillness of the photographic at the root of cinema, and on the ways in which Antonioni, Frampton, Michael Snow, Andy Warhol and Marguerite Duras amongst others “remediate” photography within cinema. In particular, I discuss this in relation to the contemporary problem of boredom. Chapter Three considers sound and, more specifically, how the conditions of aurality were changed by the development of magnetic tape technology in the course of the 1960s. Here I discuss Antonioni development of “soundscapes” in his films, indebted to the ideas of the French musique concrete movement and John Cage. In addition, I look at the representation of sound recording technology within Antonioni’s films themselves, and the ways in which this also temporalizes the cinematic image. Chapter 4 concludes the thesis by discussing the thematic of “The End” that pervades the period. I consider how film itself could function as an emblem of temporal irreversibility and entropic decay. Entropy is further considered through a discussion of “the desert” in Antonioni, Robert Smithson, and Nancy Holt. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the British Academy for funding my research on this thesis, and David Forgacs and Briony Fer for supervising. 4 Contents List of Illustrations 5 Introduction 8 Chapter 1: The Cut 39 Chapter 2: The Still 82 Chapter 3: Sound and Sound Recording 142 Chapter 4: Ends (and Beginnings) 210 Conclusion 270 Filmography 277 Bibliography 282 Illustrations 329 5 List of Illustrations 1. Hollis Frampton, Zorns Lemma, 1970. Source: British Film Institute, London. 2. Hollis Frampton, Zorns Lemma, 1970. Source: Artforum 10: Special Film Issue (September 1971). 3. Hollis Frampton, Zorns Lemma, 1970. Source: Artforum 10: Special Film Issue (September 1971). 4. Hollis Frampton, Zorns Lemma, 1970. Source: Artforum 10: Special Film Issue (September 1971). 5. Michelangelo Antonioni, Red Desert, 1964. Source: British Film Institute, London. 6. Michelangelo Antonioni,Red Desert, 1964. Source: British Film Institute, London. 7. Michelangelo Antonioni,Red Desert, 1964. Source: British Film Institute, London. 8. Michelangelo Antonioni,Red Desert, 1964. Source: British Film Institute, London. 9. Etienne-Jules Marey, Movements of a White Horse, 1885-1886. Source: College de France. 10. Hollis Frampton, 5, 12, 15 and 20 from the photographic series A Visitation from Insomnia, 1970-1973; black and white photographs, each 10 3/4 x 10 3 /8 . Source: Bruce Jenkins and Susan Krane, eds., Hollis Frampton: Recollections/ Recreations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. 11. Hollis Frampton, “Scallop Squash Revolving” [var. “Patty Pan”], fromSixteen Studies from Vegetable Locomotion, 1975; black and white photograph, 11 x 14. Source: Bruce Jenkins and Susan Krane, eds., Hollis Frampton: Recollections/ Recreations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984. 12. Hollis Frampton, nostalgia, 1971 (Frampton’s self-portrait burning). Source: Lux, London. 13. Michelangelo Antonioni,Blow-up , 1966. Source: British Film Institute. 14. Michelangelo Antonioni,Blow-up, 1966. Source: British Film Institute. 15. Michelangelo Antonioni, Ueclisse, 1962. Source: British Film Institute. 16. Marguerite Duras, India Song, 1975. Source: British Film Institute. 17. Marguerite Duras, India Song, 1975. Source: British Film Institute. 18. Diagram: Musical Soundtrack in Antonioni’s films (1950-1964). Source: Giuseppe D’Amato, “Antonioni: la poetica dei materiali,”Bianco e Nero 62 (January/April 2001), 154-181. 19. John Cage on the Italian TV quiz Lascia o Raddoppia (“Double or Nothing”), 1959. Above: with the quiz host, Mike Buongiorno. Below: Premiere of Water Walk, 1959. Source: Richard Kostelanetz, ed., John Cage (London: Allen Lane, 1971). 20. Robert Smithson,Spiral Jetty, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1970. Coil 1500’ long and approx. 15’ wide. Black rock, salt crystals, earth, red water (algae). Photo: Gianfranco Gorgoni. 21. Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels, The Great Basin Desert, Northwestern Utah, 1973-76. Concrete tunnels: length 18’; diameters outside 9’ 2 1/2”; diameters inside: 8’. Wall thickness: 7’ 1/4”. Photo: Nancy Holt. 22. Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels, The Great Basin Desert, Northwestern Utah, 1973-76, interior detail. Photo: Nancy Holt 8 Introduction: Apprehending Time Time is what we know about it. Gaston Bachelard1 In a short piece entitled “La ruota” (“The Wheel”), Michelangelo Antonioni describes an emergency landing in which he was involved in Death Valley, whilst making Zabriskie Point (1970). He and his crew were shooting the scene in which the aeroplane piloted by Mark, the male protagonist, descends to within metres of the ground, nearly touching the roof of the car where Daria, whom he is yet to meet, is driving across the desert. With his cameraman, Antonioni was filming from a plane behind the first. At one point, they accidentally hit the car’s roof: though the impact was almost imperceptible, both actress and driver were injured. “I looked down,” Antonioni recalls, and I saw a wheel rolling next to the car, and I immediately asked Jim, the pilot, how it could be that, having touched the roof of the car, it was a wheel that had come off. - It’s not the car’s wheel - Jim replied - It’s ours. The front one. Faced with an emergency landing in the desert, Antonioni’s reaction was, apparently, calm and serene. To facilitate the operation and make the plane lighter, he started to throw things off-board - except, he points out, the movie camera. As he did this, he contemplated the surrounding landscape: 9 I knew it well: I saw it every day and there was nothing different in it now. I thought that, since the landscape was the same as always, there was no reason why we, instead, should change and go from being alive to being dead. This - so very human - incredulity of mine made me smile. There were indeed all the same things as always in that landscape, except one: the tiny wheel that only a minute ago was still attached under our plane.2 In this contingency, then, the tiny wheel stands out in the vastness of the desert - a setting