Slow Moving Pictures
@lewisbeerblog.bsky.social
Relentlessly blogging about a single film - currently Red Desert. www.slowmovingpictures.org
Pinned
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (1)
Loss of focus
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Every Saturday in 2025, I will be blogging about Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, a film that (for me) perfectly encapsulates how it feels to be at odds with the reality you live in. All content is free and all comments are welcome.
Reposted by Slow Moving Pictures
Those times when filmmakers (Antonioni, Godard, Truffaut...) sowed (meaningful) books like pebbles in their films so that careful watchers could find their way (but sometimes it was a trap and designed to lose them in the woods)
In L’avventura, Anna has been reading Tender is the Night. On the cover is a painting by Matisse: a woman reclines languidly beside an empty chair (she does not want company), her features blank as though she has effaced herself. The image is both eloquent and opaque, like Anna's disappearance.
November 9, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Those times when filmmakers (Antonioni, Godard, Truffaut...) sowed (meaningful) books like pebbles in their films so that careful watchers could find their way (but sometimes it was a trap and designed to lose them in the woods)
In L’avventura, Anna has been reading Tender is the Night. On the cover is a painting by Matisse: a woman reclines languidly beside an empty chair (she does not want company), her features blank as though she has effaced herself. The image is both eloquent and opaque, like Anna's disappearance.
November 9, 2025 at 7:33 AM
In L’avventura, Anna has been reading Tender is the Night. On the cover is a painting by Matisse: a woman reclines languidly beside an empty chair (she does not want company), her features blank as though she has effaced herself. The image is both eloquent and opaque, like Anna's disappearance.
What do you do when one of your lead actors storms off set and ruins the ending of your movie? You wander around the Ravenna docks and invent a weirdly anti-climactic sequence that will haunt people’s dreams forever. Anti-fouling paint and toxic sludge have never been so mesmerising. #filmsky
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (45)
The harbour
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November 8, 2025 at 12:15 PM
What do you do when one of your lead actors storms off set and ruins the ending of your movie? You wander around the Ravenna docks and invent a weirdly anti-climactic sequence that will haunt people’s dreams forever. Anti-fouling paint and toxic sludge have never been so mesmerising. #filmsky
Reposted by Slow Moving Pictures
I think I’ve discovered the origin of the title ‘Red Desert’: it’s in the novel Homo Faber by Max Frisch, which can be seen on Corrado’s bedside table in the hotel room scene. (This is the 1959 Italian edition.)
January 12, 2025 at 7:46 AM
I think I’ve discovered the origin of the title ‘Red Desert’: it’s in the novel Homo Faber by Max Frisch, which can be seen on Corrado’s bedside table in the hotel room scene. (This is the 1959 Italian edition.)
‘Even you haven’t helped me,’ says Giuliana to Corrado, in their final scene together. Red Desert’s screenplay states that he interprets this as an accusation, but Richard Harris’s face is more inscrutable: besides a mild sadness, it communicates almost nothing.
November 6, 2025 at 6:31 AM
‘Even you haven’t helped me,’ says Giuliana to Corrado, in their final scene together. Red Desert’s screenplay states that he interprets this as an accusation, but Richard Harris’s face is more inscrutable: besides a mild sadness, it communicates almost nothing.
Jeanne Moreau, in La notte, gives a masterclass in non-verbal ennui. Soaked with rainwater, at what should be a moment of liberated passion, she looks at Roberto as if to say, ‘This too would amount to nothing.’ Her eyes express a profound inner sadness.
November 4, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Jeanne Moreau, in La notte, gives a masterclass in non-verbal ennui. Soaked with rainwater, at what should be a moment of liberated passion, she looks at Roberto as if to say, ‘This too would amount to nothing.’ Her eyes express a profound inner sadness.
This is the most beautiful sequence in La notte: the camera tracks alongside Roberto's car as it passes beneath street-lamps, alternately lost in darkness and half-illuminated. Rain dominates the soundtrack and distorts the characters' features; there are no fully legible surfaces here.
November 3, 2025 at 6:29 AM
This is the most beautiful sequence in La notte: the camera tracks alongside Roberto's car as it passes beneath street-lamps, alternately lost in darkness and half-illuminated. Rain dominates the soundtrack and distorts the characters' features; there are no fully legible surfaces here.
Reposted by Slow Moving Pictures
"…we know that beneath the image revealed there is another one, more faithful to reality, and that beneath there is another one, and again a new one under this last one, up to the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that no one will ever see", - Michelangelo Antonioni
October 31, 2025 at 9:18 AM
"…we know that beneath the image revealed there is another one, more faithful to reality, and that beneath there is another one, and again a new one under this last one, up to the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that no one will ever see", - Michelangelo Antonioni
This week in Red Desert, it’s a wrap for Corrado Zeller: in his sullen farewell and his hangdog retreat into the darkness, we see a microcosm of his relationship with Giuliana. An epiphany is taking place here, but he refuses to see it, and Giuliana is left to deal with it alone. #filmsky
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (44)
Corrado's exit
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November 1, 2025 at 9:05 AM
This week in Red Desert, it’s a wrap for Corrado Zeller: in his sullen farewell and his hangdog retreat into the darkness, we see a microcosm of his relationship with Giuliana. An epiphany is taking place here, but he refuses to see it, and Giuliana is left to deal with it alone. #filmsky
Monica Vitti in Red Desert: alone with her shadow and a blank wall, she looks at her surroundings with wry disappointment. Earlier, Giuliana pictured blue walls and a green ceiling, but now the swirling white void seems more apt. Though not literally red, it is one manifestation of the red desert.
October 30, 2025 at 5:39 AM
Monica Vitti in Red Desert: alone with her shadow and a blank wall, she looks at her surroundings with wry disappointment. Earlier, Giuliana pictured blue walls and a green ceiling, but now the swirling white void seems more apt. Though not literally red, it is one manifestation of the red desert.
This publicity still for Red Desert hints at an alternate ending, in which Giuliana vandalises the walls of her shop and faces Ugo and Corrado with a mixture of shame and defiance. In black-and-white, the dark paint-streaks look like blood, as though Giuliana has committed an act of violence.
October 29, 2025 at 6:25 AM
This publicity still for Red Desert hints at an alternate ending, in which Giuliana vandalises the walls of her shop and faces Ugo and Corrado with a mixture of shame and defiance. In black-and-white, the dark paint-streaks look like blood, as though Giuliana has committed an act of violence.
‘There is something terrible in reality, and I don’t know what it is.’ This week in Red Desert, we explore what it means to be reinserted into an intolerable reality, and we take a semi-deep dive into Robert Musil’s long, confusing, unfinished masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities. #filmsky
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (43)
Something terrible in reality
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October 25, 2025 at 8:41 AM
‘There is something terrible in reality, and I don’t know what it is.’ This week in Red Desert, we explore what it means to be reinserted into an intolerable reality, and we take a semi-deep dive into Robert Musil’s long, confusing, unfinished masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities. #filmsky
This image from Red Desert may have inspired Lucio Fontana to make his slashed red canvas. On the back, he wrote: ‘I returned from Venice yesterday, I saw Antonioni’s film!!!’
Behind the blood-red surface, infinite shadows. Giuliana inhabits that behind-the-canvas shadow-realm.
Behind the blood-red surface, infinite shadows. Giuliana inhabits that behind-the-canvas shadow-realm.
October 24, 2025 at 12:16 PM
This image from Red Desert may have inspired Lucio Fontana to make his slashed red canvas. On the back, he wrote: ‘I returned from Venice yesterday, I saw Antonioni’s film!!!’
Behind the blood-red surface, infinite shadows. Giuliana inhabits that behind-the-canvas shadow-realm.
Behind the blood-red surface, infinite shadows. Giuliana inhabits that behind-the-canvas shadow-realm.
‘What are you afraid of?’ ‘The factories, streets, colours, people, everything!’ Giuliana’s outburst, at this key moment in Red Desert, begins quietly and rises into a terrified scream. We are asked simply to look into her face as she says this, and to share her fear without understanding it.
October 24, 2025 at 4:46 AM
‘What are you afraid of?’ ‘The factories, streets, colours, people, everything!’ Giuliana’s outburst, at this key moment in Red Desert, begins quietly and rises into a terrified scream. We are asked simply to look into her face as she says this, and to share her fear without understanding it.
Walter McGinn as the recruiter in The Parallax View.
With his wearily sympathetic eyes, he tells you that he understands and doesn’t judge…but he also sees right through you.
If McGinn hadn’t died in a car crash three years later, we would know him as one of the great American character actors.
With his wearily sympathetic eyes, he tells you that he understands and doesn’t judge…but he also sees right through you.
If McGinn hadn’t died in a car crash three years later, we would know him as one of the great American character actors.
October 19, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Walter McGinn as the recruiter in The Parallax View.
With his wearily sympathetic eyes, he tells you that he understands and doesn’t judge…but he also sees right through you.
If McGinn hadn’t died in a car crash three years later, we would know him as one of the great American character actors.
With his wearily sympathetic eyes, he tells you that he understands and doesn’t judge…but he also sees right through you.
If McGinn hadn’t died in a car crash three years later, we would know him as one of the great American character actors.
From a scary pink room to a somehow-even-scarier white one: this week in Red Desert, we plumb new depths of the existential void as we begin our brief but densely disturbing farewell to Corrado. We also learn the true meaning of boredom, courtesy of Alberto Moravia. #filmsky
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (42)
Two failed projects
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October 18, 2025 at 10:42 AM
From a scary pink room to a somehow-even-scarier white one: this week in Red Desert, we plumb new depths of the existential void as we begin our brief but densely disturbing farewell to Corrado. We also learn the true meaning of boredom, courtesy of Alberto Moravia. #filmsky
‘My genius would appear to be my ability to do the wrong thing at the right time. Is there any final test of genius but success?’
Gillian Anderson, in The House of Mirth, makes us empathise with failure: we see Lily making all the wrong decisions, and we know we would have made them too.
Gillian Anderson, in The House of Mirth, makes us empathise with failure: we see Lily making all the wrong decisions, and we know we would have made them too.
October 14, 2025 at 6:14 AM
‘My genius would appear to be my ability to do the wrong thing at the right time. Is there any final test of genius but success?’
Gillian Anderson, in The House of Mirth, makes us empathise with failure: we see Lily making all the wrong decisions, and we know we would have made them too.
Gillian Anderson, in The House of Mirth, makes us empathise with failure: we see Lily making all the wrong decisions, and we know we would have made them too.
‘Did I ever tell you my favourite colour was blue?’
Look at Sam Neill's face, in this scene from In the Mouth of Madness, and tell me that colours aren't terrifying. They remind us that we are contingent fragments of reality, created against our will and doomed to be annihilated in the same way.
Look at Sam Neill's face, in this scene from In the Mouth of Madness, and tell me that colours aren't terrifying. They remind us that we are contingent fragments of reality, created against our will and doomed to be annihilated in the same way.
October 13, 2025 at 5:08 AM
‘Did I ever tell you my favourite colour was blue?’
Look at Sam Neill's face, in this scene from In the Mouth of Madness, and tell me that colours aren't terrifying. They remind us that we are contingent fragments of reality, created against our will and doomed to be annihilated in the same way.
Look at Sam Neill's face, in this scene from In the Mouth of Madness, and tell me that colours aren't terrifying. They remind us that we are contingent fragments of reality, created against our will and doomed to be annihilated in the same way.
Four creepy bedrooms: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Night of the Hunter, Red Desert, and The Parallax View.
The frames are theatrical, artificial; the characters trapped within a construct, a pathology, dogma, shadowy conspiracies, or (in the case of Red Desert) something more nebulous.
The frames are theatrical, artificial; the characters trapped within a construct, a pathology, dogma, shadowy conspiracies, or (in the case of Red Desert) something more nebulous.
October 12, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Four creepy bedrooms: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Night of the Hunter, Red Desert, and The Parallax View.
The frames are theatrical, artificial; the characters trapped within a construct, a pathology, dogma, shadowy conspiracies, or (in the case of Red Desert) something more nebulous.
The frames are theatrical, artificial; the characters trapped within a construct, a pathology, dogma, shadowy conspiracies, or (in the case of Red Desert) something more nebulous.
The most dream-like but also, strangely, the most memorable scene in Red Desert: an entire room turns pink, to the sound of sinister electronic music. This will inevitably suggest different meanings to different viewers. For me, of course, the scene is about horror and despair. #filmsky
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (41)
The transformation
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October 11, 2025 at 10:41 AM
The most dream-like but also, strangely, the most memorable scene in Red Desert: an entire room turns pink, to the sound of sinister electronic music. This will inevitably suggest different meanings to different viewers. For me, of course, the scene is about horror and despair. #filmsky
In The Double Life of Véronique, when Alexandre shows off his creepy twin-puppets, Véronique realises he has been manipulating her for the sake of his art – which her instincts had already told her. She is trapped in an exploitative construct, until she ends both this relationship and this film.
October 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM
In The Double Life of Véronique, when Alexandre shows off his creepy twin-puppets, Véronique realises he has been manipulating her for the sake of his art – which her instincts had already told her. She is trapped in an exploitative construct, until she ends both this relationship and this film.
Antonioni admitted to having bullied and slapped Lucia Bosè on the set of Story of a Love Affair. Rather than separating the art from the artist, I argue that this real-life abusive hypocrisy is connected to something ugly in the films, and that the rape scene in Red Desert is a case in point.
Everything That Happens in Red Desert (40)
What happens to Giuliana?
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October 4, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Antonioni admitted to having bullied and slapped Lucia Bosè on the set of Story of a Love Affair. Rather than separating the art from the artist, I argue that this real-life abusive hypocrisy is connected to something ugly in the films, and that the rape scene in Red Desert is a case in point.
Reposted by Slow Moving Pictures
Buon compleanno, Michelangelo Antonioni!
From my blog...
adventuresinvertigo.blogspot.com/2015/05/clas...
From my blog...
adventuresinvertigo.blogspot.com/2015/05/clas...
Classicism, Modernism, Christopher Booker & ‘L’Eclisse’
Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘L’Eclisse’ (1962): Monica Vitti (partially obscured, left) and Alain Delon One of the most illuminating boo...
adventuresinvertigo.blogspot.com
September 29, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Buon compleanno, Michelangelo Antonioni!
From my blog...
adventuresinvertigo.blogspot.com/2015/05/clas...
From my blog...
adventuresinvertigo.blogspot.com/2015/05/clas...
Reposted by Slow Moving Pictures
We actively are seeking hosts for future Women and the Silent Screen conferences, including WSS 2027!
A helpful potential host info sheet & the application form can be found here: www.wfhi.org/about-wss.
If you are interested in hosting WSS 2027, please submit a proposal by 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓.
A helpful potential host info sheet & the application form can be found here: www.wfhi.org/about-wss.
If you are interested in hosting WSS 2027, please submit a proposal by 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓.
September 27, 2025 at 3:48 PM
We actively are seeking hosts for future Women and the Silent Screen conferences, including WSS 2027!
A helpful potential host info sheet & the application form can be found here: www.wfhi.org/about-wss.
If you are interested in hosting WSS 2027, please submit a proposal by 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓.
A helpful potential host info sheet & the application form can be found here: www.wfhi.org/about-wss.
If you are interested in hosting WSS 2027, please submit a proposal by 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓.
In this astonishing image from Satyajit Ray’s Devi, the individual and her surroundings are dissolved by sunlight. This trick-of-excessive-light symbolises the delusion that has been imposed on Doya; the film suggests that the clearer light of reason might have prevented this.
September 28, 2025 at 11:57 AM
In this astonishing image from Satyajit Ray’s Devi, the individual and her surroundings are dissolved by sunlight. This trick-of-excessive-light symbolises the delusion that has been imposed on Doya; the film suggests that the clearer light of reason might have prevented this.