Director:  Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix |
Italy,110’, 1970, color

English with Turkish subtitles

The opening half-verité footage of a student activist meeting sets the tone and themes of Antonioni's meandering portrait of 60s America, a painterly magazine spread of the anti-establishment that at times alternates between abstract urban montage and humane illustration of iconic Americana. Encased within his glossy, seductive cinematography are abrasive scenes of police brutality, overt racism, oblivious consumerism, capitalistic violence and the ubiquitous drone of the Vietnam death toll. Non-professional leads Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin became involved both on and off screen as respective symbols of Activism and Pacifism, illustrating the persistent tensions within the counter culture's own psyche. A notorious financial disaster for MGM that received brutally negative reviews and momentarily set Antonioni in the FBI's crosshairs, Zabriskie Point – like its uninhibited protagonists – plays with the existential depths despite its reflective surface, its horror and beauty climaxes in the film's stunning psychedelic ending – a cathartic summary of the USA with all of its conveniences and contradictions.

Story of a Love Affair

Story of a Love Affair

Red Desert

Red Desert

Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point

Identification of a Woman

Identification of a Woman

L’Avventura

L’Avventura

Blow-Up

Blow-Up

The Mystery of Oberwald

The Mystery of Oberwald

Shorts

Shorts

A Carriage and a Squat House  <br>Liliana Maresca

A Carriage and a Squat House
Liliana Maresca

Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017. Through the biennial, we will be sharing detailed information about the artists and the artworks.

Rational Medicine in Byzantium

Rational Medicine in Byzantium

Byzantine medical art was grounded in the Greco-Roman medicine transmitted by Hippocrates and Galen and new concepts introduced by such physicians as Oribasios of Pergamon, Aetius of Amida, Alexander of Tralles and Paul of Aegina. 

Baby King

Baby King

1638, the year Louis XIV was born –his second name, Dieudonné, alluding to his God-given status– saw the diffusion of a cult of maternity encouraged by the very devout Anne of Austria, in thanks for the miracle by which she had given birth to an heir to the French throne. Simon François de Tours (1606-1671) painted the Queen in the guise of the Virgin Mary, and the young Louis XIV as the infant Jesus, in the allegorical portrait now in the Bishop’s Palace at Sens.