"Men get laid, but women get screwed." - Quentin Crisp
Man returns to his empty home. Man tries to outsmart security alarm but sets it off. Concerned neighbour arrives, asking if there has been a break in. Man says no. Later he will dismiss the existence of robbers altogether: "people of the night are innocents like us". Where, then, does misunderstanding and paranoia originate?
Man is revealed to be film director in search of the subject matter of his next film. Man uses relationship with women to fuel his imagination. Man's proclamation: "woman is art." Film's title? "Identification of a Woman"; a search for the perfect woman, perfect work of art - the idealised image.
Director Michelangelo Antonioni develops theme: study of female form inspires the nature of the cinematic form. Art and sex intertwine, a libidinal extension of male artist. Man believes himself to be creator, conqueror, artist. Man believes woman to be object, passive, art.
Film exposes male arrogance: woman should be like nature. Relationship with woman should be filled with mutual silence, her innate physical responsiveness mirroring the purely physical and silent response of the wild outdoors. She should be passive and non-judgemental. More importantly, woman should be without an identity and completely without a gaze. In other words, perfect woman is without eyes, perfect woman is devoid of perception, perfect woman is submission, perfect woman is robot. We recall the robot alarm that catches its owner sneaking into his own home. When the robot sees, the subject feels guilt.
Film director embarks on two affairs with two different woman. First relationship marked by wild, carnal sex. Couple seemingly content, but relationship confined to bedroom. Relationship expands and man feels belittled by woman's wealthy friends, family and air of sophistication. Being with woman means being in her gaze, being subjected to her opinions, perceptions and "universe". Man wants woman stripped down, devoid of all context but his own.
A "mysterious man" leaves threatening messages. He orders director to stay away from first woman. In response: alarm bells. Hero grows paranoid and takes first woman to remote location where he can have her "all for himself". On the way to remote location, couple is trapped in fog. Fog represents truth of their relationship: they are mystery to one another, living in a haze, sharing flesh and nothing else.
Couple reach remote location – a home in the woods – and find it inhabited by strangers. Ontological shock: man cannot have woman alone. The closer man gets, the more he is forced to accept that he has to share. Man cannot cope. He loses woman to, he believes, the "mysterious man".
But there is no "mysterious man". He is a figment of the imagination. Paranoia. Jealousy. Competition. Woman as barred subject and fictional Other as harbourer of all pleasure. It is too much. To cope: first woman revealed or rationalised to be lesbian. Scar her.
Woman walks by a department store window where a display model of a naked man stands. Woman tells man that her friends love the model and often take pictures of it. Scene offers ironic commentary on love: attraction starts with the body and the eye (camera), and the presence of the body and its signs is that which creates the imaginary romantic link between two people. The model in the window is the male equivalent of the alluring, one-dimensional silent partner that the male director wants to find for his cinematic inspiration.
Man and first woman split. Director then embarks on relationship with second woman. She is identical image of first woman. Difference: aroused by horses, by nature, looks up to director, has no class, no social ties. She pees on toilet seat, naked, wipes herself. Kubrick borrows image. Antonioni steals from Godard's "Contempt". Modernist interests intersect.
Director gradually revealed to be visually and tactilely oriented. He ignores words. Male brain: sight and touch. Case in point: telephone conversation where he meets first woman. He asks for her to visually describe herself. His eye is attuned to the perfect camera angle. When he looks at women, he makes them uncomfortable. "Are you trying to frame a shot?" they ask. (again, links to Freud and Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut", where man's desires exist in image space, woman's desires recounted in the realm of words and monologues)
We meet a strange girl at poolside. She says she prefers being masturbated by other woman, rather than having sex with men. According to her, men only use sex as an occasion to express their virility, strength and dominance.
Man and new woman share time. He pushes her away from public events. He wants her to himself. He takes her on a boat, out in the middle of the ocean. Alone. He tells her that he can best love her in solitude, her surrounded by him, everything else excluded.
Solitude shattered in next scene. Woman magically reveals she is pregnant. Man knows it is not his baby. Again, the intrusion of some Other man's desire. Man wants only his uninterrupted desires. Furthermore, man doesn't think "mother" can be artistic muse, a mysterious presence, an erotic gravitational force. Muse must be object. Art.
Ambiguous ending. Silly spaceship travels toward sun. Can the sun be understood? Can its energy be harnessed? How close can the spaceship get, before burning up? Can the erotic attraction, the gravitational pull, of two ordinary everyday people exist without either becoming banal or exploding in a ball of self-destructive fire? Is this the illness of the idealist or the artist? Antonioni doesn't say. Film's last words: "And thereafter?"
8/10 – First viewing: boring, annoying. Second viewing: film inserts its fangs and sucks you in, every scene ominous, powerful. Antonioni: proto-feminist, captures the modern condition, loves ellipses, fascinating.
Man returns to his empty home. Man tries to outsmart security alarm but sets it off. Concerned neighbour arrives, asking if there has been a break in. Man says no. Later he will dismiss the existence of robbers altogether: "people of the night are innocents like us". Where, then, does misunderstanding and paranoia originate?
Man is revealed to be film director in search of the subject matter of his next film. Man uses relationship with women to fuel his imagination. Man's proclamation: "woman is art." Film's title? "Identification of a Woman"; a search for the perfect woman, perfect work of art - the idealised image.
Director Michelangelo Antonioni develops theme: study of female form inspires the nature of the cinematic form. Art and sex intertwine, a libidinal extension of male artist. Man believes himself to be creator, conqueror, artist. Man believes woman to be object, passive, art.
Film exposes male arrogance: woman should be like nature. Relationship with woman should be filled with mutual silence, her innate physical responsiveness mirroring the purely physical and silent response of the wild outdoors. She should be passive and non-judgemental. More importantly, woman should be without an identity and completely without a gaze. In other words, perfect woman is without eyes, perfect woman is devoid of perception, perfect woman is submission, perfect woman is robot. We recall the robot alarm that catches its owner sneaking into his own home. When the robot sees, the subject feels guilt.
Film director embarks on two affairs with two different woman. First relationship marked by wild, carnal sex. Couple seemingly content, but relationship confined to bedroom. Relationship expands and man feels belittled by woman's wealthy friends, family and air of sophistication. Being with woman means being in her gaze, being subjected to her opinions, perceptions and "universe". Man wants woman stripped down, devoid of all context but his own.
A "mysterious man" leaves threatening messages. He orders director to stay away from first woman. In response: alarm bells. Hero grows paranoid and takes first woman to remote location where he can have her "all for himself". On the way to remote location, couple is trapped in fog. Fog represents truth of their relationship: they are mystery to one another, living in a haze, sharing flesh and nothing else.
Couple reach remote location – a home in the woods – and find it inhabited by strangers. Ontological shock: man cannot have woman alone. The closer man gets, the more he is forced to accept that he has to share. Man cannot cope. He loses woman to, he believes, the "mysterious man".
But there is no "mysterious man". He is a figment of the imagination. Paranoia. Jealousy. Competition. Woman as barred subject and fictional Other as harbourer of all pleasure. It is too much. To cope: first woman revealed or rationalised to be lesbian. Scar her.
Woman walks by a department store window where a display model of a naked man stands. Woman tells man that her friends love the model and often take pictures of it. Scene offers ironic commentary on love: attraction starts with the body and the eye (camera), and the presence of the body and its signs is that which creates the imaginary romantic link between two people. The model in the window is the male equivalent of the alluring, one-dimensional silent partner that the male director wants to find for his cinematic inspiration.
Man and first woman split. Director then embarks on relationship with second woman. She is identical image of first woman. Difference: aroused by horses, by nature, looks up to director, has no class, no social ties. She pees on toilet seat, naked, wipes herself. Kubrick borrows image. Antonioni steals from Godard's "Contempt". Modernist interests intersect.
Director gradually revealed to be visually and tactilely oriented. He ignores words. Male brain: sight and touch. Case in point: telephone conversation where he meets first woman. He asks for her to visually describe herself. His eye is attuned to the perfect camera angle. When he looks at women, he makes them uncomfortable. "Are you trying to frame a shot?" they ask. (again, links to Freud and Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut", where man's desires exist in image space, woman's desires recounted in the realm of words and monologues)
We meet a strange girl at poolside. She says she prefers being masturbated by other woman, rather than having sex with men. According to her, men only use sex as an occasion to express their virility, strength and dominance.
Man and new woman share time. He pushes her away from public events. He wants her to himself. He takes her on a boat, out in the middle of the ocean. Alone. He tells her that he can best love her in solitude, her surrounded by him, everything else excluded.
Solitude shattered in next scene. Woman magically reveals she is pregnant. Man knows it is not his baby. Again, the intrusion of some Other man's desire. Man wants only his uninterrupted desires. Furthermore, man doesn't think "mother" can be artistic muse, a mysterious presence, an erotic gravitational force. Muse must be object. Art.
Ambiguous ending. Silly spaceship travels toward sun. Can the sun be understood? Can its energy be harnessed? How close can the spaceship get, before burning up? Can the erotic attraction, the gravitational pull, of two ordinary everyday people exist without either becoming banal or exploding in a ball of self-destructive fire? Is this the illness of the idealist or the artist? Antonioni doesn't say. Film's last words: "And thereafter?"
8/10 – First viewing: boring, annoying. Second viewing: film inserts its fangs and sucks you in, every scene ominous, powerful. Antonioni: proto-feminist, captures the modern condition, loves ellipses, fascinating.