82 Il grido

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
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Re: 82 Il grido

#51 Post by ellipsis7 » Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:00 am

I did also put links to Youtube quality GENTE DEL PO & NETTEZZA URBANA in my May 30th post in this thread (SUPERSTIZIONE (1949) can also be viewed there).... NETTEZZA URBANA & SETTE CANNE, UN VESTITO (1949) can be found as extras on the French DVD of LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE in Carlotta's 3 film COFFRET ANTONIONI... The BFI NFT Antonioni season in 2005 had two shorts programmes, covering first 1943-1953 (8 films lasting 80mins), and then 1978-1997 (7 films lasting 88 mins) - would thus make a nice 2 disc set...

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Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 82 Il grido

#52 Post by Sloper » Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:44 am

Thanks for the info - I wasn't ignoring your earlier post, but I'd already sought out Gente and N.U. some time ago, whereas L'Amorosa was new to me. As is Superstizione. I wonder what the BBFC would make of that one!

A two-disc, English-friendly release of all these films would be a very marketable product, I'd have thought; I mean the BFI are doing much more obscure things these days...

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: 82 Il grido

#53 Post by Tommaso » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:38 am

Sloper, you make excellent points about the music and have practically convinced me; and to answer in more detail, I'd simply have to watch the film again (this was my first time watching "Il Grido").
Sloper wrote: Perhaps it’s because I’m used to Antonioni’s later films, where the ‘harsher soundscapes’ do indeed serve to drive home the sense of alienation in a more extreme, confrontational way, but there just seemed to be a lot of moments in Il Grido when the music seemed redundant, as if it was put in there to try and give the film more melodramatic appeal.
Perhaps the main difference in our perceptions is that I probably didn't find the music as intrusive as you seem to do; in many scenes I almost didn't really notice it, being captivated by the images in the first place.

Sloper wrote: Aldo has been a stop-gap, a shadow of the husband in Australia, feeding off his money until he dies, and then being discarded – even to the extent of passing his own child on, for another man to bring up.
I'm not fully sure about whether Aldo was really nothing more than a mere stop-gap; after all, as the booklet essay points out, the relationship between Aldo and Irma clearly was regarded as illegitimate (probably even in a legal sense) in Italy at the time. In order to engage in it for a period of several years, Irma must have had a genuine liking, if not more, for Aldo at least at the beginning of their relationship. The film never really explains the nature of this liking, nor does it explain the reasons why Irma has 'moved on' and Aldo hasn't. In this sense, alienation as a 'given' could also be noticed in "Il Grido" already (contrary to what I wrote above, where I thought that it first appears as such a 'given' in the Vitti films).

Sloper wrote:Look at the way he makes love to Virginia, as though imitating her movements, going through the motions (she lies back and stretches, so does he; in the deleted scene, she climbs onto him, then he climbs onto her). When he cries out ‘Irma’, it isn’t simply because he misses her, it’s because he’s realising that, just as she has changed and moved on, so everyone and everything else he might potentially become attached to is changing, adapting. When he cries out for his lost love – and this is perhaps the central recurring ‘cry’ of the film – it’s because he feels her awful lesson dawning on him, sees the abyss opening up beneath him.
Yes, absolutely true. Surprisingly for me, I found that scene working even better without the deleted footage; it's just repetition of Aldo imitating Virginia's movements, a tautology I found unnecessary, and the stronger pronouncement of the sexual act in the deleted footage somehow takes away a little from the mental/spiritual side of the problem that is clearly at the heart of the film.

ellipsis7 wrote:NETTEZZA URBANA & SETTE CANNE, UN VESTITO (1949) can be found as extras on the French DVD of LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE in Carlotta's 3 film COFFRET ANTONIONI... The BFI NFT Antonioni season in 2005 had two shorts programmes, covering first 1943-1953 (8 films lasting 80mins), and then 1978-1997 (7 films lasting 88 mins) - would thus make a nice 2 disc set...
Yes, fantastic. Such a 2 disc set would be ideally suited for the BFI, who strangely haven't done anything by Antonioni before "Il deserto rosso" IIRC. But I would also be happy if MoC simply took over the Carlotta disc and put English subs on everything. Given Carlotta's track record, I assume the Carlotta transfer is excellent?

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: 82 Il grido

#54 Post by ellipsis7 » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:44 am

The Carlotta transfer of CAMELIE is indeed excellent, as is that of CRONACA DI UN AMORE in the same set (the best out there of that film IMHO)...

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Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 82 Il grido

#55 Post by Sloper » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:44 am

Tommaso wrote:Perhaps the main difference in our perceptions is that I probably didn't find the music as intrusive as you seem to do; in many scenes I almost didn't really notice it, being captivated by the images in the first place.
I am one of these people who gets unduly bothered by music in films; noise on the soundtrack when there shouldn’t be any is probably my biggest cinematic pet hate. This is one of the reasons I like Antonioni so much, since he’s a classic example of a director who operates best without a (conventional) score, and I believe sometimes said that the ideal film should use no music on the soundtrack, but rather construct a kind of 'score' out of carefully chosen sound effects.
Tommaso wrote:I'm not fully sure about whether Aldo was really nothing more than a mere stop-gap; after all, as the booklet essay points out, the relationship between Aldo and Irma clearly was regarded as illegitimate (probably even in a legal sense) in Italy at the time. In order to engage in it for a period of several years, Irma must have had a genuine liking, if not more, for Aldo at least at the beginning of their relationship. The film never really explains the nature of this liking, nor does it explain the reasons why Irma has 'moved on' and Aldo hasn't. In this sense, alienation as a 'given' could also be noticed in "Il Grido" already (contrary to what I wrote above, where I thought that it first appears as such a 'given' in the Vitti films).
You’re right, it is inaccurate to dismiss their whole affair – Irma says it’s been effectively dead for the last four months, and I guess that’s a long enough time to make us (and Aldo) realise that these two have not really been communicating. But yes, the reasons why relationships fail in Antonioni’s films are always obscure, suggesting, as you say, that we are to take alienation as a ‘given’. Part of the fun is looking out for clues – in the imagery, in the interaction between the characters, and so on – that might provide the unspoken explanation. This approach could have made the story seem artificially symbolic and inhuman (as it does, I think, in Contempt, where the implied reasons for the break-up seem rather facile and, to adapt your phrase Tommaso, ‘inconsequent’), but the quality of the writing and acting lend the whole thing a kind of universality, which is what makes it so powerful.

I also agree the film is better without the gratuitous sex. It helps to maintain the sense of Aldo’s disconnection, the joylessness of his erotic adventures.

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: 82 Il grido

#56 Post by Tommaso » Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:37 pm

Sloper wrote:I am one of these people who gets unduly bothered by music in films; noise on the soundtrack when there shouldn’t be any is probably my biggest cinematic pet hate.
This reminds me of another litte bit of nitpicking I have to do: almost throughout the film there are occasional instances of pops from the optical soundtrack which I found irritatingly intrusive. It doesn't sound like the usual background crackle that is on many older films, but rather like individual pops which come over rather distinctly and also sound somewhat unnatural to me, probably because the whole of the soundtrack has been digitally tweaked and perhaps cleaned-up for the most part. It's not a big deal, but it somehow fits in with other MoC releases like "Kwaidan" or "The Idiot", both of which also have this phenomenon, whereas their CC counterparts don't, to the expense of a less clear (read: less treble boosted) sound overall on the CC's.
Sloper wrote: This approach could have made the story seem artificially symbolic and inhuman (as it does, I think, in Contempt, where the implied reasons for the break-up seem rather facile and, to adapt your phrase Tommaso, ‘inconsequent’)
Sure, though I never regarded the love problem in "Contempt" as very central to the film (and it is indeed probably used there only as a symbol for the general falling-apart of the film-making world). But I'm certainly not the best commentator on JLG: the more I see from him, the more I get the feeling that Godard just isn't for me. And my main reason why I actually like "Contempt" has little do with the film itself, but mostly with the fact of being able to see Fritz Lang do some directing and musing about film. But to put it this way is the equivalent of saying that the main attraction of "Sunset Boulevard" lies in seeing Erich von Stroheim directing Swanson's final act....

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Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 82 Il grido

#57 Post by Sloper » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:02 pm

I didn't notice the pops on the soundtrack you mention (this kind of thing tends not to bother me), although coming out of the crappy little speaker on my TV, Aldo's mother's voice was distorted and grating. Good actress, but I'm glad she only had one scene.

The only Godard I've really enjoyed so far is Vivre Sa Vie, mainly because the reference to Joan of Arc seemed to contribute to an interesting commentary on the use of sound and music in films, with the repetition of the classical theme actually serving a point, rather than just making me want to shoot myself (as in Contempt). I suspect that liking JLG for the film references is something he would approve of!

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Florinaldo
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:38 pm
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Re: 82 Il grido

#58 Post by Florinaldo » Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:31 pm

This one came in today. The booklet seems another strong contribution to MoC's apparent systematic campaign to demonstrate that worthwhile extras need not be disc-based, although they did not go as far with this one as they did with Une Femme Mariée in cereating a small objet d'art.

And I like their practice of showing the correct aspect ratio of the film in the booklet through capture examples. Useful to make sure one's player and TV set cominbation does not give inaccurate results on automatic settings (for my part, I have experienced it with only one disc, but others have told that it is more frequent on their system).

So thanks again to MoC for bringing an essential film in such a beautiful edition. The only thing left now is to watch the whole movie; I am especially looking forward to seeing Alida Valli at her strongest.

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: 82 Il grido

#59 Post by Tommaso » Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:02 am

Which brings us back to the deserved bitching about CC's announcements vs their release schedule....

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Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: 82 Il grido

#60 Post by Yojimbo » Sat Sep 18, 2010 8:53 pm

ellipsis7 wrote:. IL GRIDO returns to Antonioni's beloved Po Valley (where he shot his first short, the documentary GENTE DEL PO, at the same time as Visconti was also shooting OSSESSIONE in the same location, ostensibly the first neo-realist film), while Antonioni's early feature career from 1950 on was almost exclusively focussed on the middle classes, and basically moves in a completely different direction to neo-realism... IL GRIDO represented a rare focus on a working class protagonist, also unusually a male, facing an existential crisis...
I was struck, early on, by how much the whole look of the film, especially the 'road trip' aspects, reminded me of that early Visconti Masterpiece.
In fact its interesting that not only did Antonioni return to dealing with the travails of the bored middle classes after making this film, but Visconti went one better, with his production designer intensive films focussing overmuch on upper-class opulence.

And I wonder what impact this theme had on Italian male-dom's machismo?
It seems to have been a subject, and perspective, decades ahead of his time

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Yojimbo
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Location: Ireland

Re: 82 Il grido

#61 Post by Yojimbo » Sat Sep 18, 2010 9:01 pm

ellipsis7 wrote:. NETTEZZA URBANA & SETTE CANNE, UN VESTITO (1949) can be found as extras on the French DVD of LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE in Carlotta's 3 film COFFRET ANTONIONI... ...
Great news!
I must dig out my Carlotta set
(having gorged on an Antonioni triple-bill last night, I find I'm still far from sated!)

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: 82 Il grido

#62 Post by ellipsis7 » Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:30 am

Just looking at this Spanish IL GRIDO/EL GRITO BR & wondering if it is a genuine HD transfer & if so whether MoC might consider an UK/IRL BR upgrade from the same master...

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Pepsi
Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:01 pm

Re: 82 Il grido

#63 Post by Pepsi » Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:20 pm

If the sleeve is correct, it's a BD-Recordable disc 25Gb and in PAL (1080i). If you upscale your Eureka DVD disc, you probably get the same image, or better.

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

Re: 82 Il grido

#64 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:32 am

Caught some lovely high res footage of rushes of IL GRIDO at the current wonderful LA DOLCE VITTI exhibition in Rome, maybe there's now a great opportunity at this juncture for MoC to explore an upgrade of this title to a much needed BluRay?...

That show, well worth visiting...

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