Comments on: Antonioni’s L’eclisse

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:55:55 +0000

Antonioni is my own personal god — I am so jazzed to see that someone else appreciates L’Eclisse.

I try to capture the surface of the world myself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xctmx/

By: Gardner

Gardner — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:28:36 +0000

Yes, a wonderful post, despite the reference to Foucault. But I hope you take some satisfaction, Jim, in the fact that I will never be able to dismiss Foucault entirely so long as someone of your intelligence and great-heartedness finds him worthy of attention.

With regard to surfaces, a small observation from someone who’s seen only three Antonioni movies (”Blow-Up,” “The Passenger,” and “Red Desert”): I’d argue that deep, intense, detailed examinations of surfaces turn surfaces into depths, or at least point to the depths in us out of which our surfaces emerge. We’ve long known that the act of observation changes the thing observed. I think that’s true here too. As Robyn Hitchcock says, “A thing is psychedelic if it changes when you look at it closely.”

By: NBR

NBR — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:11:45 +0000

Hey, have you seen this guy’s photos?

http://www.markluthringer.com/

By: jimgroom

jimgroom — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:32:47 +0000

Very cool, Nathan. In many ways I think Anontioni L’eclisse comes off as a series of beuaiful photographs about a very ugly place. Which seems to be your vision as well, are you secretly Italian? I was amazed at just how much his photographic sequence could seduce me, despite the fact I had little or no interest in the narrative unfolding.

In that regard, this film is a grand experiment and should be a must see for y photographer, but particularly for someone like you who shares his obsession. Glad you dropped that link, I now have another contact who is similarly obsessed. But as you might soon see my Flickr photos are all about my kids, namely because I was th second to last of seven and don;t have n image of myself before the age of 12. Deep wounds I am trying to make up for daily

By: NBR

NBR — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:25:46 +0000

This is a great post. I’ve never really appreciated Antonioni, since the only movie of his I’ve ever actually watched is Blow-Up, which I found interesting but a little underwhelming. It struck me as the kind of thing that actually requires good commentary in order to be accessible to the novice. So, the commentary you’ve provided actually goes a long way in the right direction, as far as I’m concerned.

I really appreciate your comments on the notion of surface and the built environment. I’ve had this odd obsession, myself, for some time now with photographing seemingly mundane details of my own suburban environment, as if I were fingering pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle, mostly by shooting with my cameraphone more or less randomly out the window of my car while driving and then sifting through the results later. (Evidence for this obsession can be seen on Flickr: http://snipr.com/neo-ugly). Anyhow I have nothing intelligent to say on the subject, but I thought you might like to hear some kind of “Widerhall”, as the germans say, to your post.