Americans at the Verona Fly Club
What's the significance, especially the two guys drinking beer outside the bar and say "We are the center of attraction right now because everybody is checking us out."?
sharefellini,
Heh, interesting question.
imo one of Antonioni's themes is how what appears to be the center of attention in the unfolding of the narrative can unexpectedly go off in some other direction. (the most obvious, and earlier, case of this sort concerns the role of Anna in L'Avventura, who at first seems to be the protagonist, only to unexpectedly, and essentially inexplicably, spin out of the narrative. Antonioni is noting how in following Vittoria's narrative we encounter the two men at the airport who subjectively are the focus of their own narrative, and so their quoted dialogue shows they so believe themselves to be, when Vittoria "experiences" them as a kind of random encounter with the world outside her "narrative".
But that's not all, as we should also note the juxtaposition of the two you refer to with the two black men also encountered at the airport, sitting impassively against the wall of the airport's public building, staring at Vittoria as she enters the bar. The two black men's appearance comes after Vittoria's experience in Marta's apartment, pictures of Kenya on the wall, the odd dance and "blackface" playing - while we see the two men looking at Vittoria, we also see the back of her head suggesting not only that she sees them, but also that she sees them and is possibly thinking back to her experience in Marta's apartment. The visual of the two black men, black compared to the two white men you ask about, also is a random encounter that refers back to a specific event in Vittoria's narrative.
My own sense of these kinds of encounters is that Antonioni insists on showing events and things in his films that do not appear to be "necessary" to the plot to make a critical point. He does so I think to give us an awareness that the characters in the film struggle to determine, to distinguish, that which is significant from what is insignificant. In other words his characters are shown moving in linear fashion, but NOT learning the lessons of each stage as a kind of unfolding of increasing awareness, as they proceed through the narrative. Instead we recognize that they, as we do in "real life", struggle to determine what is revealing from that which is not. Not only do not all things have equal significance, but some things have significance only limited to the fact that they exist in the world, but do so not as part of our own narrative. Meaning that we understand that our narrative proceeds in a larger world that not only is indifferent to our course, but having a relation of no greater significance than a random juxtaposition, essentially without meaning or importance.