| Notes | Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960s panoramas of contemporary alienation were decade-defining artistic events, and Red Desert, his first color film, is perhaps his most epochal. This provocative look at the spiritual desolation of the technological age—about a disaffected woman, brilliantly portrayed by Antonioni muse Monica Vitti, wandering through a bleak industrial landscape beset by power plants and environmental toxins, and tentatively flirting with her husband’s coworker, played by Richard Harris—continues to keep viewers spellbound. With one startling, painterly composition after another—of abandoned fishing cottages, electrical towers, looming docked ships—Red Desert creates a nearly apocalyptic image of its time, and confirms Antonioni as cinema’s preeminent poet of the modern age.
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Italian film scholar David Forgacs
Archival interviews with director Michelangelo Antonioni and actress Monica Vitti
Two short documentaries by Antonioni: Gente del Po, about a barge trip down the Po River, and N.U. about urban street cleaners
Dailies from the original production
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film writer Mark Le Fanu, a reprinted interview with Antonioni conducted by Jean-Luc Godard, and writings by Antonioni on Gente del Po and N.U.
New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang |
