Antonioni and 'alienation'

There has to be a better word than the frequently invoked "alienation" to describe what Michelangelo Antonioni depicted onscreen. "Alienation" has taken on a slightly puling tinge, and it's always been entirely clinical. As much as Antonioni's films bemoaned the state of man in the modern world, they never were whiny about it. And as precise a picture-maker as Antonioni was, he was never clinical or antiseptic.

I don't know if it's objectively better, but my preferred word is "disengagement." Antonioni's characters attempt to engage each other, to engage the often oppressive environments they live in; sometimes the attempts are tentative, even indifferent—most famously with Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and Claudia (Monica Vitti) in L'Avventura. Sometimes they're passionate, obsessive almost to the point of madness, as in David Hemmings' photographer, desperately trying to piece together a mystery of death in Blow Up. The viewer meets Jack Nicholson's journalist in The Passenger at the end of his tether (see above); desperately seeking an estrangement he hopes will liberate him, he moves with calm deliberation when fate offers him an escape hatch. These characters' attempts invariably fail, and the best they can do at the end—if they don't die—is maybe call a draw with the world, as Hemmings does when he throws that imaginary tennis ball. Then there are the rare privileged moments when an idea of freedom brushes one on the shoulder; here's Maria Schneider looking back and moving forward, also from The Passenger.

This is much, much more than the cinema of alienation.

Comments

[Mark J]

Unbelievable that both Bergman and Antonioni are taken within 24 hours of each other. It would be nice to see Premiere run a proper retrospective on their work/art.

"That which has entertained so many for so long contains the seed of immortality."

[David Hudson]

Glenn, I'm guessing "alienation" is an example of the sort of legacy terminology that clings to certain artists, writers, etc., long after the original contexts and associations have been forgotten. Maybe "alienation" got stuck to Antonioni back when his films were seen as exemplary existentialist works?

All the more reason you're right: time for an update and "disengagement" is an interesting proposal.

[Ryland Walker Knight]

How about "willful marginalization"? (Still not quite there, I know.) Characters in his films find themselves somehow unfit for the life they find themselves leading and do their best to change their lot. Sometimes it's more drastic than others, as in _The Passenger_ or _L'avventura_, but I think there's something of the solipsist in Antonioni that you named in regards to Bergman. It would always appear a choice in MA's films. But what makes them more than antiseptic or clinical is that the films of both men are desperate to reckon _this_ life: they know it's unavoidable. It's not like Nicholson's character succeeds...

More later, I imagine.

[stpetebeach]

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