In 1993, with the final,
complete adoption of video cameras even in the offices of the national
registry, cinema both commercial and underground was in real trouble. The prise de la parole had by now
transformed moviemaking into a technique within everyone’s reach, and everyone
was watching his or her own film, deserting the movie theaters. New methods of
reproduction and projection in cassettes insertable into the dashboard of the
family car had made obsolete the primitive equipment of the avant-garde cinema.
Numerous handbooks were published on the order of Be Your Own Antonioni. The buyer bought a “plot pattern,” the
skeleton of a story which he could then fill in from a wide selection of
variants. With a single pattern and an accompanying package of variants an
individual could make, for example, 15,741 Antonioni movies. Below we reprint
the instructions that came with some of these cassettes. The letters refer to
the interchangeable elements. For example, the basic Antonioni pattern (“An
empty lot. She walks away”) can generate “A maze of McDonald’s with visibility
limited due to the sun’s glare. He toys for a long time with an object.” Etc.
Antonioni
Scenario
An (x) empty (y) lot. (z) She
(k) walks away. (n)
Variants Key
(x). Two, three, an infinity of.
An enclosure of. A maze of.
(y). Empty. As far as the eye
can see. With visibility limited due to the sun’s glare. Foggy. Blocked by
wire-mesh fence. Radioactive. Distorted by wide-angle lens.
(z). An island. City.
Superhighway cloverleaf. McDonald’s. Subway station. Oil field. Levittown.
World Trade Center. Stockpile of pipes. Scaffolding. Car cemetery. Factory area
on Sunday. Expo after closing. Space center on Labor Day. UCLA campus during
student protest in Washington. JFK airport.
(k). He. Both he and she.
(n). Remains there. Toys for a long
time with an object. Starts to leave, then stops, puzzled, comes back a couple
of paces, then goes off again. Doesn’t go away, but the camera dollies back.
Look at the camera without any expression as he touches her scarf.
Jean-Luc Godard Scenario
He arrives (a) and then bang
(b) a refinery (c) explodes. The Americans (d) make love. (e) Cannibals (f)
armed with bazookas (g) fire (h) on the railroad. (i) She falls (l) riddled
with bullets (m) from a rifle. (n) At mad speed (o) to Vincennes (p)
Cohn-Bendit (q) catches the train (r) and speaks. (s) Two men (t) kill her. (u)
He reads sayings of Mao. (v) Montesquieu (z) throws a bomb (w) at Diderot. (x)
He kills himself. (k) He peddles Le Figaro. (j) The red skins arrive. (y)
Variants Key
(a). Is already there reading
the sayings of Mao. Lies dead on the superhighway with brains spattered. Is
killing himself. Harangues a crowd. Runs along the street. Jumps out of a
window.
(b). Splash. Splat. Wham.
Rat-tat-tat. Mumble mumble.
(c). A kindergarten. Notre
Dame. Communist Party headquarters. Houses of Parliament. The Parthenon. The
offices of Le Figaro. The Elysée.
Paris.
(d). The Germans. French
paratroopers. Vietnamese. Arabs. Israelis. Police.
(e). Do not make love.
(f). Indians. Hordes of
accountants. Dissident Communists. Crazed truck drivers.
(g). Yagatan. Copies of Le Figaro.
Pirate’s sabers. Submachine guns. Cans of red paint. Cans of blue paint. Cans
of yellow paint. Cans of orange paint. Cans of black paint. Picasso paintings.
Little red books. Picture postcards.
(h). Throw rocks. Bombs. Empty
cans of red paint, green paint, blue paint, yellow paint, black paint. Pour
some slippery stuff.
(i). On the Elysée. On the
University of Nanterre. In Piazza Navona. All over the road.
(l). Is thrown out of the
window by CIA agents. Is raped by paratroopers. Is killed by Australian
aborigines.
(m). With a gaping wound in the
belly. Spewing forth streams of yellow (red, blue, black) paint. Making love
with Voltaire.
(n). Loquat.
(o). Unsteadily. Very, very
slowly. Remaining still while the background (process shot) moves.
(p). Nanterre. Flins. Place de
la Bastille. Clignancourt. Venice.
(q). Jacques Servan-Schreiber.
Jean-Paul Sartre. Pier Paolo Pasolini. D’Alembert.
(r). Misses the train. Goes on
a bicycle. On roller skates.
(s). Bursts into tears. Shouts Viva Guevara.
(t). A band of Indians.
(u). Kill everybody. Kill
nobody.
(v). Quotations from Brecht.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man. Saint-John Perse. Prince Korzybski.
Eluard. Lo Sun. Charles Péguy. Rosa Luxembourg.
(z). Diderot. Sade. Restif de
la Bretonne. Pompidou.
(w). A tomato. Red paint (blue,
yellow, black).
(x). Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Nixon.
Madame de Sevigné. Voiture. Van Vogt. Einstein.
(k). Goes away. Kills all the
others. Throws a bomb at the Arc de Triomphe. Blows up an electronic brain. Empties
onto the ground various cans of yellow (green, blue, red, black) paint.
(j). The sayings of Mao. Writes
a ta-tze-bao. Reads verses of Pierre Emmanuel. Watches a Chaplin movie.
(y). The paratroopers. The
Germans. Hordes of starving accountants brandishing sabers. Armored cars. Pier
Paolo Pasolini with Pompidou. The Bank Holiday traffic. Diderot selling the
Encyclopédie door to door. The Marxist-Leninist Union on skateboards.
Ermanno Olmi Scenario
A forester (a) out of work (b)
roams at length (c) then comes back to his native village (d) and finds his
mother (e) is dead. (f) He walks in the woods, (g) talks with a tramp (h) who
understands (i) the beauty of the trees (l) and he remains there, (m) thinking.
(n)
Variants Key
(a). A young man who has just
arrived in the city. A former partisan. A jaded executive. An Alpine soldier. A
miner. A ski instructor.
(b). Overworked. Sad. Without
any purpose in life. Sick. Just fired. Overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness.
Who has lost his faith. Who has returned to the faith. After a vision of Pope
John XXIII.
(c). Briefly. Drive a mini
Cooper along the superhighway. Is driving a truck from Bergamo to Brindisi.
(d). To his brother’s sawmill.
To the mountain hut. To Pizzo Gloria. To Chamonix. To Lago di Carezza. To
Piazzale Corvetto and his cousin’s tobacco shop.
(e). Another close relative.
Fiancée. Male friend. Parish priest.
(f). Sick. Has become a
prostitute. Has lost her faith. Has returned to the faith. Has had a vision of
Pope John XXIII. Has left for France. Is lost in an avalanche. Is still
performing the humble little daily tasks as always.
(g). On the superhighway. Near
the Idroscalo. At Rogoredo. Through immaculate snow. At San Giovanni sotto il Monte,
Pope John XXIII’s birthplace. In the halls of a totally alienated advertising
agency.
(h). With a former Alpine
soldier. With the parish priest. With Monsignor Loris Capovilla. With a former
partisan. With a mountain guide. With a ski instructor. With the head forester.
With the executive of an industrial design studio. With a worker. With an
unemployed southerner.
(i). Doesn’t understand.
Remembers. Rediscovers. Learns thanks to a vision of Pope John XXIII.
(l). Of the snow. Of the work
site. Of solitude. Of friendship. Of silence.
(m). Goes away forever.
(n). Thinking of nothing. With
no purpose in life now. With a new purpose in life. Making a novena to Pope
John XXIII. Becoming a forester (mountain guide, tramp, miner, water bearer).
Angry Young Directors’s Scenario
A young polio victim (x) of
very rich (y) parents sits in a wheelchair (z) in a villa (n) with a park full
of gravel. (k) He hates his cousin, (s) an architect (w) and a radical, (q) and
has sexual congress (e) with his own mother (b) in the missionary position, (v)
then kills himself (f) after first playing chess (a) with the farm manager. (j)
Variants Key
(x). Paraplegic. Compulsive
hysteric. Simple neurotic. Revolted by the neocapitalistic society. Unable to
forget an act of sexual abuse at the age of three by his grandfather. With a
facial tic. Handsome but impotent. Blond and lame (and unhappy about it).
Pretending to be crazy. Pretending to be sane. With a religious mania. Enrolled
in the Marxist-Leninist Union but for neurotic reasons.
(y). Fairly well off. In
decline. Diseased. Destroyed. Separated.
(z). On cul-de-jatte. On
crutches. With a wooden leg. With false teeth. With long fangs on which he
leans. Supports himself by leaning against trees.
(n). Yacht. Garden city.
Sanatorium. Father’s private clinic.
(k). Another kind of paving,
provided it makes a constant sound when a heavy vehicle arrives.
(s). Other close relation, as
desired, half brothers and in-laws admissible. Mother’s lover (or father’s,
aunt’s, grandmother’s, farmer’s, fiancée’s).
(w). City planner. Writer.
President of Save Venice. Stockbrocker (successful). Left-wing political
writer.
(q). Subscriber to the New York Review. Moderate Communist.
Liberal professor. Former partisan leader. Member of WWF board. Friend of
Theodorakis, Gary Wills, Jessica Mitford. Cousin of Berlinguer. Former leader
of Student Movement.
(e). Tries to have sexual
congress. Reveals impotence. Thinks of having sexual congress (dream sequence).
Deflowers with bicycle pump.
(b). Grandmother, aunt, father,
sister, female second cousin, female first cousin, sister-in-law, brother.
(v). From behind. Inserting a
stick of dynamite into the vagina. With an ear of corn (must be preceded by
casual Faulkner quotation from radical architect, see s-w). Cunnilingus.
Beating her savagely. Wearing female dress. Dressing up to look like father
(grandmother, aunt, mother, brother, cousin). Dressed as Fascist official. In
U.S. Marine uniform. With plastic mask of Dracula. In SS uniform. In radical
dress. In Scorpio Rising costume. In a Paco Rabanne tailleur. In prelate’s
robes.
(f). Sprinkles himself with
gasoline. Swallows sleeping pills. Doesn’t kill himself but thinks of killing
himself (dream sequence). Kills her (him). Masturbates while singing “Love
divine, all loves excelling.” Calls the suicide hot line. Blows up the post
office. Urinates on the family tomb. Sets fire to photo of himself as a baby,
with savage laughter. Sings “Mira Norma.”
(a). Chinese checkers. Toy
soldiers. Hide-and-seek. Tag. Gin Rummy. Slapjack. Racing demons. Fantan. Snap.
Spin the bottle.
(j). His aunt. Grandmother.
Innocent little sister. Himself in the mirror. Dead mother (dream sequence).
The postman on his rounds. The old housekeeper. Carmen Moravia. A Bellocchio
brother (according to preference).
Luchino Visconti Scenario
The Baroness, (a) a Hanseatic
(b) lesbian, betrays her male lover, (c) a worker at Fiat, (d) reporting him (e)
to the police. (f) He dies (g) and she repents (h) and gives a big party, (i)
orgiastic, (l) in the cellars of La Scala (m) with transvestites, (n) and there
poisons himself. (o)
Variants Key
(a). Duchess. Daughter of the
Pharaoh. Marquise. Dupont stockholder. Middle European (male) composer.
(b). From Munich. Sicilian.
Papal aristocracy. From Pittsburgh.
(c). Her female lover. Husband.
Son with whom she has an incestuous relationship. Sister with whom she has an
incestuous relationship. Lover of her daughter with whom she has an incestuous
relationship, though she betrays her daughter with her daughter’s male lover.
The Oberkommandanturweltanschaunggotterdammerungführer of the SA of Upper
Silesia. The catamite of her impotent and racist husband.
(d). A fisherman from the
Tremiti Islands. Steelworker. Riverboat gambler. Mad doctor in a Nazi
concentration camp. Commander of the Pharaoh’s light cavalry. Aide-de-camp of
Marshal Radetzsky. Garibaldi’s lieutenant. Gondolier.
(e). Giving him wrong
directions about the route. Entrusting him a bogus secret message. Summoning
him to a cemetery on the night of Good Friday. Disguising him as Rigoletto’s
daughter and putting him in a sack. Opening a trapdoor in the great hall of the
ancestral castle while he is singing Manon dressed up as Marlene Dietrich.
(f). To Marshal Radetzsky. To
the Pharaoh. To Tigellinus. To the Duke of Parma. To the Prince of Salina. To
the Oberdeutscheskriminalinterpolphallusführer of the SS of Pomerania.
(g). Sings an aria from Aida. Sets off in a fishing smack to
reach Malta and is never heard from again. Is beaten with iron bars during a
wildcat strike. Is sodomized by a squadron of uhlans under the command of the
Prince of Homburg. Becomes infected during sexual contact with Vanina Vanini.
Is sold as a slave to the Sultan and found again by the Borgia at the flea
market of Portobello Road. Is used as a throw rug by the Pharaoh’s daughter.
(h). Is not the least
repentant. Is wild with joy. Gone mad. Bathing at the Lido to the sound of
balalaikas.
(i). A big funeral. A satanic
rite. A Te Deum of thanksgiving.
(l). Mystical. Dramatic.
Baroque. Algolagnical. Scatological. Sadomasochistic.
(m). Père-Lachaise. Hitler’s
Bunker. In a castle in the Black Forest. In section 215 of the Fiat Mirafiori
factory. At the Hôtel des Bains on the Lido at Venice.
(n). With corrupt little boys.
With German homosexuals. With the Trovatore
chorus. With lesbians dressed as Napoleonic soldiers. With Cardinal Tisserant
and Garibaldi. With Claudio Abbado. With Gustav Mahler.
(o). Attends the entire Ring
cycle. Plays ancient songs of Burgundy on a Jew’s harp. Undresses at the climax
of the party, revealing that she is really a man, then castrates herself. Dies
of consumption, wrapped in Gobelin tapestries. Swallows liquid wax and is
buried in the Musée Grévin. Has her throat cut by a lathe operator as she
utters obscure prophecies. Waits for the acqua alta in St. Mark’s square and drowns
herself.
1972
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