Less-than-fluid pan

Sometimes I think there is an almost Brechtian/Epic Theatre direction in Antonioni's films. I know he likes to film his films from a third perspective, in a sense that he is standingt here silently watching what is going on, participating in every scene but doesn't speak, but looks where he wants to look, but in that sense, relating to the Epic Theatre theory, that he's almost quite happy for you to be aware that this is a film you're watching and that camera with the jerky pan is really there and is breaking from reality of the film.

Antonioni is obsessed with alienation in his films, and the theory behind epic theatre is that no one watching it should buy into it as a reality, that one must always be aware that they are watching a staged performance, and perhaps this is Antonioni's way of using that theory, and alienating us, the audience, from what is going, because the characters are alienated from their surroundings so why then should we buy into their story and sympathise with it, maybe he chooses to alienate us as well. I think that's what he does, because he gives us so little information and so much ambiguity that we find it difficult to know what's going on in his films and find it difficult to relate. We only seem to be able to relate to the isolation.