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Red Desert



Red Desert tells the story of Giuliana (Monica Vitti), a young married woman suffering a mental and emotional crisis and embarking tentatively on an affair. Vitti - Antonioni's lover and muse, and the star of his earlier films L'avventura, L'eclisse and La notte - gives a magnificent, startling performance. Richard Harris also stars as the restless young man who finds himself drawn to her.

Italy's industrial landscape is rendered both beautiful and apocalyptic in Antonioni's hands. Red Desert was a deserved winner of the Golden Lion at the 1964 Venice Film Festival and a high point in modern cinema.

Extras
- Brand new restoration with new English subtitles
- New full-feature commentary by Italian scholar David Forgacs
- Original trailer
- Fully illustrated colour booklet containing newly commissioned essays, notes, and Antonioni's recollections of making Red Desert

ellipsis7 wrote:Any more news yet on the BFI disc of Antonioni's RED DESERT - when it is coming, any extras etc.?...

I've not heard anything else. I read about it in an interview. The new BFI Southbank magazine has no news.

foggy eyes wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:Any more news yet on the BFI disc of Antonioni's RED DESERT - when it is coming, any extras etc.?...

Later in the year apparently, with a commentary from David Forgacs and new subtitle translation - white ones too!

Great news - certainly the only place there should be yellow is in the flames coming out of the factory flue...

RED DESERT coming to R2UK/IRL DVD on a BFI 2 discer on 20th October, also on BluRay same day!...

Up @ HMV here and here

Awesome. I've been waiting to see Red Desert for a long ass time!

I hope bfi can avoid using the "remastered" audio featured on the R4 Red Desert disc by Madman. Artifacts galore due to overly aggressive noise reduction.

Oedipax wrote:I hope bfi can avoid using the "remastered" audio featured on the R4 Red Desert disc by Madman. Artifacts galore due to overly aggressive noise reduction.

They have gone directly to Rome for the new releases, so, any previous issues should be irrelevant here.

Pro-B

I'm happy to confirm that, like Salò, the Blu-Ray of Red Desert was telecined directly from the original negative - in fact, both telecines were done in Rome at the same time.

And yes, the technical supervisor is well aware of the colour issues!

This will actually be my 4th dip on RED DESERT (after Image, Madman & Carlotta) and I'm still really looking forward to it - hopefully a perfect transfer at last for one of my most favoured films!

Wonder what will be on DVD disc 2/Blu-Ray extras apart from Forgacs commentary?... Could it be DEAR ANTONIONI/CARO ANTONIONI the BBC Arena docu? There's also a few of MA's outtakes on the Carlotta disc that could be included...

Great to see this finally coming out in what promises to be the definitive version. I'll be picking up the Blu-ray so I can finally get rid of my Connoisseur Video VHS. I was never convinced enough to buy any of the DVD versions so I hope this one will look/sound great.

For me this has the potential to be one of the releases of the year along with the Bill Douglas trilogy. Well done BFI. =D>

ellipsis7 wrote:Wonder what will be on DVD disc 2/Blu-Ray extras apart from Forgacs commentary?... Could it be DEAR ANTONIONI/CARO ANTONIONI the BBC Arena docu?

Not with the ludicrous prices the BBC charges.

Narshty wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:Wonder what will be on DVD disc 2/Blu-Ray extras apart from Forgacs commentary?... Could it be DEAR ANTONIONI/CARO ANTONIONI the BBC Arena docu?

Not with the ludicrous prices the BBC charges.

One for BFI Chair/ex-BBC DG Greg Dyke to sort?

Oedipax wrote:I hope bfi can avoid using the "remastered" audio featured on the R4 Red Desert disc by Madman. Artifacts galore due to overly aggressive noise reduction.

Hear hear.
Er, no pun intended...

MichaelB wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:Wonder what will be on DVD disc 2/Blu-Ray extras apart from Forgacs commentary?... Could it be DEAR ANTONIONI/CARO ANTONIONI the BBC Arena docu? There's also a few of MA's outtakes on the Carlotta disc that could be included...

I hate to break it to you, but nothing will be on disc two because there won't be a disc two, and there never was going to be a disc two.

I'm not entirely sure why Amazon seems to think otherwise, but it's being investigated.

But my claim that Red Desert is a brand new HD telecine from the original negative was correct, so hopefully that hasn't put anyone off.

That's great news anyway Michael, re. RED DESERT, I look forward to seeing those yellow fumes belch out of the factory in a glorious new hi-def transfer...

I have an original Italian fotobusta poster of the film here and a copy of the original Italian pressbook - and amuse myself also reading contemporary reports of Richard Harris' encounter with Michelangelo Antonioni, which was less than a meeting of minds, but nonetheless productive... The Limerickman couldn't quite understand what the director wanted of him, hot star that he was... (And of course Harris is dubbed throughout by an Italian actor)... Harris was supposed to be in the final scenes, but had to leave the production, and Antonioni improvised, crafting an even better ending...

Superb film!...

RED DESERT specs/extras...

New full-feature commentary by Italian film scholar David Forgacs; Fully illustrated colour booklet containing newly commissioned essays, notes, and Antonioni's recollections of making Red Desert; Brand new restoration with new improved English subtitle translation

Cover to BFI RED DESERT...



While it's not the exact same shot, this and similar still in original Italian press book suggest the BFI may have reversed the direction of the photo...



Pic was widely used...



Including on the OOP Image DVD cover...

Details of DVD and Blu-ray up at DVDTimes

Thank goodness they un-flipped the cover

I'm playing a checkdisc of the Blu-ray right now.

This is the first time I've ever seen the film, so I only have the Beaver comparison to draw on - but I can confirm that the BFI transfer looks appreciably different from the three that Gary's compared.

Take the first grab, for instance, where Richard Harris says "Faenza isn't far away...". In terms of brightness and contrast, the new BFI disc is closest to the Image transfer (i.e. slightly darker than the Madman and Prestige DVDs), but the colours are quite different - the walls are properly grey (as opposed to the Image disc's quasi-beige), so Harris stands out against them much more noticeably. Also, the massive increase in definition means that the textural detail of the walls is much more pronounced.

With the shot of Monica Vitti against the backdrop of red pylons, the colours are closest to the Madman transfer, but the BFI picture is darker, making them look more oppressive. And with the shot of the glass bottles, the colours are closer to the Image (i.e. they're more blue than green), though the picture definition is infinitely superior, and there's more information on all four sides.

As for general comments on the picture, DNR fetishists will be disturbed to hear that a faint patina of grain is visible throughout, but I was delighted. The picture is generally very clean indeed for a colour film of this vintage, with only the occasional speck of damage. There are very occasional (and very slight) exposure fluctuations, almost certainly unavoidably inherent in the original negative (from which this new transfer was directly drawn).

I'm aware that other DVDs have controversial sound issues, but I can't draw a direct comparison, and it's hard to say if it sounds "correct" since it's a typical mid-1960s post-synched Italian dub - in other words, it sounds unnatural to begin with. But it definitely doesn't have the "hiss and whine" noted on the Image disc, and I'm not aware of any obtrusive digital artefacting of the type noted on the Madman disc - but I haven't watched the whole thing yet.

The disc extras consist of a trailer (also in hi-def, albeit in worse condition than the main feature - though it's been preserved surprisingly well for something so ephemeral) and a commentary by David Forgacs - I shall quote the opening:

I'm David Forgacs, and I'm going to be commenting on various aspects of this film. The Red Desert was Antonioni's ninth feature film and his first in colour. All his remaining films were to be in colour too, and one of them, The Oberwald Mystery, of 1980, was shot experimentally on videotape and then transferred to film. But none of these films would match The Red Desert's radical experimentation with colour, or, for that matter, its experiments with sound. Some writers on The Red Desert have suggested it's really mainly about colour and visual form. The film does pull in that abstract direction, but it has a social dimension too. It's about the new industrial Italy that had emerged since the 1950s and it's also a character film about a woman with an anxiety disorder. The objects in this title sequence are recognisable as bits of industrial plant but they're shot out of focus, the colours are muted, and they resemble paintings, in particular the urban landscapes of the Italian artists Mario Sironi and Giorgio Morandi...

...and so on. Subtitles (white and razor-sharp) are provided both for the main feature and the commentary, and can be switched on the fly - and switched off. I assume there'll also be a booklet. I can't comment on the region coding because this isn't a final production version and I don't want to mislead anyone.

All in all, though, this looks pretty definitive, and I'm greatly looking forward to exploring it in more depth when my wife lets me have the telly for a whole two hours. Talking of which, the running time is 1:56:46 - 26 seconds longer than the Image release for some reason. (No point comparing with the others as they've undergone PAL speedup, while the Blu-ray is at the correct 24fps).

MichaelB wrote:I'm playing a checkdisc of the Blu-ray right now.

Michael, the essential color test with this film is that when the flames and fumes come out of the chimney in the opening sequence they're supposed to be much more yellow than orange or red... I look foward enthusiastically to the BFI disc...

ellipsis7 wrote:Michael, the essential color test with this film is that when the flames and fumes come out of the chimney in the opening sequence they're supposed to be much more yellow than orange or red... I look foward enthusiastically to the BFI disc...

Well, I've lost control of the high-def telly until my wife nods off on the sofa, but I'll confirm as soon as she does. I think it's a pretty vivid yellow, but I'll check for definite when I get a chance.

UPDATE: Yellow is very definitely the dominant colour.

is this region coded??

PNeski wrote:is this region coded??

I don't know yet. I recommend assuming that it's Region B unless otherwise advised.

MichaelB wrote:I can't comment on the region coding because this isn't a final production version and I don't want to mislead anyone.

MichaelB wrote:

PNeski wrote:is this region coded??

I don't know yet. I recommend assuming that it's Region B unless otherwise advised.

See, Michael, it just doesn't pay to bury this kind of information in a post with (shudder) multiple paragraphs. It is preferred, for the benefit of our AOL users, that you post it separately, with as few capital letters and as many punctuation marks as you can manage.

Matt wrote:

MichaelB wrote:I can't comment on the region coding because this isn't a final production version and I don't want to mislead anyone.

MichaelB wrote:

PNeski wrote:is this region coded??

I don't know yet. I recommend assuming that it's Region B unless otherwise advised.

See, Michael, it just doesn't pay to bury this kind of information in a post with (shudder) multiple paragraphs. It is preferred, for the benefit of our AOL users, that you post it separately, with as few capital letters and as many punctuation marks as you can manage.

=D>

The box artwork has a Region B logo.

Beaver - seems to be generally in agreement with my assessment, but with frame grabs to illustrate it.

This looks pretty good - I have the original Italian locandina for RED DESERT framed on the wall, and that shot of Monica Vitti by the pylons matches the colour schema and the hues in the photomontage that make up the poster pretty closely... Checking the corridor shot against a similar image in the original press book - maybe a little too much blue there... But looking at Monica Vitti's hair colour in several grabs - that's absolutely perfect...

I'm very interested to see the hi-res images from the BFI Blu-Ray, because I can actually get at least similar if not better picture quality from SDDVD (quality transferred Criterions & BFI discs etc.) from a high end Arcam DVD player through HDMI into hi-def projector onto 2.5m wide silver grey widescreen - gives that standard of sharpness, detail & grain... Shows things are not as simple as they first appear....