When thinking of Antonioni I would never say his short documentaries are the first thing to come to mind. His visual flare and focus on the setting as well as the subjects are all prevalent in every title I have seen, 7 Reeds for a Dress perhaps the most reminiscent of his future works.What seems to be the element that links all the documentaries together has less to do with visual style and more with Antonioni’s background and infatuation with his home country. These films seem to be about the destructive results of clinging to old customs in the modern era, how attempting to capture the past is a futile effort. There is no shortage of notes about social classes either. “Gente Del Po” was the most memorable to me as I’m sure it was to most.
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This documentary was difficult to watch. Endless images of statues shot in poor quality was anything but interesting. The statues were often so different from each other that I would find myself thinking more about what the creatures were supposed to be. The switch between statues of beasts and statues of human beings created a bizarre tone that truthfully left me without any proper interpretation after my first viewing. It became apparent that the switches between these statues is to show the difficulty of capturing a moment, even when captured in stone. Though images of people are carved out in what most would call “realistic”, they still are no more real than the dragons and leviathans nearby. L 'amorosa menzogna touches upon similar ideas with magazine ads in the place of statues. The Magazine ad is made through a rigorous process and attempts to capture a moment that wasn’t ever really there. Through editing the picture and drawing in objects, the moment the magazine attempts to capture is already falsified. It is evident that Antonioni believed people could notice the difference as well. Even after an extensive process, people seem equally if not more interested in the sight of a little girl dancing. People are more interested in the genuine moment as opposed to something that never really was, even if they don’t realize it
This documentary was difficult to watch. Endless images of statues shot in poor quality was anything but interesting. The statues were often so different from each other that I would find myself thinking more about what the creatures were supposed to be. The switch between statues of beasts and statues of human beings created a bizarre tone that truthfully left me without any proper interpretation after my first viewing. It became apparent that the switches between these statues is to show the difficulty of capturing a moment, even when captured in stone. Though images of people are carved out in what most would call “realistic”, they still are no more real than the dragons and leviathans nearby. L 'amorosa menzogna touches upon similar ideas with magazine ads in the place of statues. The Magazine ad is made through a rigorous process and attempts to capture a moment that wasn’t ever really there. Through editing the picture and drawing in objects, the moment the magazine attempts to capture is already falsified. It is evident that Antonioni believed people could notice the difference as well. Even after an extensive process, people seem equally if not more interested in the sight of a little girl dancing. People are more interested in the genuine moment as opposed to something that never really was, even if they don’t realize it