At 17:30 19.11.96 -0500, you wrote:
>Stephen Brophy wrote:
>Since the sound only comes in after he has
>>involved himself in the pretense, I interpret it to represent some
>>complex weakening of his mental state vis a vis reality, given what he
>>has experienced through the night.
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>Or could it be said that the soundtrack reflects his own -- voluntary and
>subjective -- participation in a certain reality?  Whether this constitutes
>a weakening of his mental state, I can't say...
>Aaron Curtiss
 
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I would like to contribute in line with Aaron saying that Antonioni (or his
film) is trying to convey is the very essence of the short story in which it
is inspired (Julio Cortazar's): the character is finally participating in a
"certain reality" which Cortazar use to name as "moments of exception" for
lack of a better word. And it has little to do with clear rational states or
the contrary: mental sickness
It is more like a sudden access to a kind of understanding of other layers
or dimensions of  "everyday reality".  So we cannot assume that it
necessarily means a weakened but rather an enhanced sensibility for the
exceptional.
 
And this "deskant" sound is opening the doors to something else which
Antonioni don't expect us to necessarily comprehend rationally, but to...
maybe...experience it only.
By breaking the conventional use of sound attached to a visible source he is
pushing the espectator along... to what?
A poetic moment?
 
I am just trying to ask myself those questions...
 
Alvaro R.
Institute of Media Studies - University of Bergen
 
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