Antonioni

Antonioni. No, not really, but there is a connection. In one of his later films--The Passenger--almost a thriller, with Jack Nicholson center screen--but in fact, Nicholson and all the would-be drama are a ploy, and the real subject for Antonioni is how everything looks. In other words, the atmosphere, the light--all very beautiful, and very very slow. An acquired taste, yes--but once you've acquired it, nothing else quite matters. So that the last scene, where we've passed from Southern France into Spain, and the car is approaching a small town, late in the day. This happens at dusk-- the evening light becomes visibly lower--and just as we're near the town's edge, a single electric bulb is switched on in a taberna in the distance. An astounding moment--not just for the human presence of that light--but because it's a different color than the light in the sky. We see the difference.

Like the screen here, where the cool world of an email page--its digital immediacy--is played against the incandescent light of memory...

,