MovieChat Forums > Il deserto rosso (1965) Discussion > The Spectacular Fog Scene

The Spectacular Fog Scene

posted 12 years ago by thecuckooclock
14 replies | jump to latest

I'm surprised no one on this board has brought up what is -to my mind- the single best scene in the film: the fog engulfing Giuliana's friends on the waterfront after they've left the loveshack. Here's a link to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLWGXm-rM4Y

The stillness and formality of the groups composition is beautiful and extremely eerie. As they all stare fixedly at Giuliana you realize how palpable her isolation really is, and I believe this truly hits her as well (as the lady states later, "we are all separate." Prompting her rushed borderline car-off-the-pier suicide attempt). As the figures are enveloped one by one in the mist a shiver ran down my spine. This was a moment of pure cinema, one which works on a visceral, intellectual and thematic level. Hella cool.

I can think of only one other transcendent scene like this done by Antonioni and that's in The Passenger's penultimate tracking shot. Everything comes together so beautifully both technically and in narrative terms there. Any others you can think of? Also, feel free to say I'm wrong or crazy misjudging it, but please explain why.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

Fog scenes do seem to be very cool in films - like the one in Amarcord or the foggy car chase in The Fury. Fog rules.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] maz89 12 years ago

Good point. There's an elaborately lengthy one in Theo Angelopoulos' Ulysses' Gaze.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] PrometheusTree64 10 years ago

I agree with all of you, fog scenes are very effective, moody, and beautiful. They have a unique quality which, to my mind, is underutilized.

I recall a gay porn film called Bald Benny's Boisterous and Bodacious Big Butt Boy Brigade 2 (because the first installment left so many unanswered questions) which used fog to great effect. As the sun rose on the harbor, the fog receded slowly, and the camera executed a slow crane shot upwards, revealing row after row of naked and glistening buttocks below, lined up like toy soldiers, oiled and ready.

I might have forgotten that scene had it not been for the brilliant use of fog to add suspense before the grand payoff.

Not that I am condoning that nasty gayism and sodomy, mind you. Lord Jesus doesn't approve, and therefore neither do I. But the film was shot very well, and that's the only reason my mom and I watched it. I swear.

So funny.

--

Non-sequiturs are delicious.

[–] amd8404 12 years ago

I often can't tell what someone means by the term "pure cinema," but I like the way you used it here. In a film that is made up of subjective images and sequences, this scene is one of the most striking departures from narrativity, time and objectivity. It is very moving.

[–] thecuckooclock 12 years ago

Thanks, I am great like that. I often find that smoke, fog or mist works best in black and white. Thank god for film noir. A great fog movie that comes to mind is Woody Allen's Shadows & Fog. It's a great throwback to expressionist film and really lives up to its name visually. Les Yeux Sans Visage uses fog artfully too.

Side discussion: I've noticed in horror films fog is very hard to pull off properly(Just look at Darabont's The Mist). The video game Silent Hill seems to be the only member of the genre to truly make it work, because they use it as a metaphor for the dread in the protagonist's clouded subconscious. And the terrific music helps.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

And there´s Kurosawa´s Throne Of Blood... and the best (imo) Sherlock Holmes film Murder By Decree with Plummer & Mason... and indeed a host of noirs, many of which used it to disguise the fact they were filmed on small, cheap sets. The Big Combo, for instance.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] thecuckooclock 12 years ago

Ah how could I forget Throne of Blood! Easily the best film adaptation of Shakespeare I've ever witnessed. Could well be my favorite of those I've seen from Kurosawa (still dying to see Dersu Uzala). And let's not forget the smallest, cheapest and dingiest great noir of em all: Detour. Though, to be fair, the fog doesn't factor in very heavily.

A film I just viewed last night used snow in a beautiful way, outside of being brilliant in other aspects, Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. Very underrated, almost as good as The Third Man. In fact, Polanski said he much preferred it to Reed's more well known masterpiece. Got me thinking of other flicks that put snow to good use, like Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller. That third act showdown really was somethin, eh?

[–] thecuckooclock 12 years ago

Also worthy of note is the badass use of coloured smoke and haze in Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Gotta love it!

[–] Ethan_Ford 12 years ago

There is also an even longer scene in the fog when two characters drive through a very dense one in Antonioni`s underrrated Identification of a woman which is the most famous sequence in the whole film.

[–] nutsberryfarm 10 years ago

agree about 'throne of blood' being the best adaptation of the bard.

Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate

[–] craigbhill 10 years ago

A slight dissent: I think the reason we seem to want to see fog depicted in b & w is because that's how we're used to seeing it depicted. The beauty of this film provides proof fog is more opaque in color, and therefore more effective---when it's shot by a master who knows precisely the effect he's going after. (Compared to Antonioni, Woody Allen is a stick figure.)

~ Native Angeleno

[–] craigbhill 10 years ago

She wasn't trying to commit suicide in the car on the pier, she was, as she said, confused when she went the direction THE CAR WAS POINTING WHEN SHE GOT IN IT. How do i know that? Because when she got to the end of the pier, she stopped. Had she wanted to commit suicide, she'd have floored it right then. She wasn't in that frame of mind, which if you go back to her thinking just before and after it, you see she was lucid enough to not want to kill herself. IF you watch carefully, you'll note that since everywhere she stands still she can't wait to get away so she rushes off, even if it's only a few feet away, to try to shake her mental condition. Which is what she was trying to accomplish when she drove off.

As for the fog itself, she was stunned to see that reality, the fog, was also mirroring her own feeling of isolation from everyone---which is why she just had to get out of there asap.

~ Native Angeleno

[–] goatboy969 10 years ago

Best shot in the whole movie. Your reaction to the scene made me want to watch red desert all over again, it's such visual poetry. Every shot drips with intention and meaning,