Michelangelo Antonioni's shot on video TV movie adaptation of Jean Cocteau's play "The Eagle With Two Heads" starring Monica Vitti and Tinto Brass regular Franco Branciaroli has been released on DVD in Spain by Manga Films. According to DVDGo, its a 1.85:1 16:9 transfer on a dual-layered disc. No English subtitles, though.

Any opinions on this one? It was shot by Luciano Tovoli (SUSPIRIA).

I got a copy of the Facets tape through interlibrary loan and I can see why its obscure. Its got a nice Monica Vitti performance (though she's nowhere near as mesmerizing as she was in her earlier Antonioni films). Good turns from Luigi Diberti and Paolo Bonacelli (who were both featured in Dario Argento's STENDHAL SYNDROME 15 years later). Obviously, this was just a technical experiment for Antonioni in using video. The staging feels rushed (it seems little to no attempt was made to get past the script's stage origins), Tovoli manages some (some) nice lighting and occasionally nice compositions but the darting pans following the actors fail to liven things up. The color filters and superimpositions aren't very effective either. To be fair, Tovoli did manage a more consistently attractive look with video than Giuseppe Rotunno did a few years later with Peter Del Monte's JULIA AND JULIA (Rotunno's muted color schemes and lighting are better suited to film).

The PAL-converted Facets image looks more like consumer video than professional video (most NTSC tapes of British TV look better than this) and the subtitles lag behind the dialogue. I'm sure the Spanish DVD is something of an improvement but I wonder if the transfer suffers from making it anamorphic (if the specs are right).

Is the original Cocteau film available on DVD anywhere?

Don't know about DVD, but the old (1998) VHS from Water Bearer Films is available at Amazon (for $32.99).

I watched (fitfully) the Antonioni a couple times via RAI TV broadcasts. It was produced by the television network, and it does look and play like one of their potboiler historical dramas (an Alexandre Dumas Fils-like adventure of considerable inherent tension and intrigue but played here at a leaden pace and suffering from obviously limited resources), albeit with very curious special effects and other eccentricities. Yes, it's obviously an Antonioni-esque interpretation of the material, but the material seems much better suited to a Cocteau-ian gothic fairy tale treatment. Though I haven't seen it, the original (Aigle à deux têtes) has just got to be a more compelling film. Jean Marais, alone, makes me want to seek it out.

I'm thinking someone was tossing around the idea of doing a TV adaptation of the Cocteau play/film and Antonioni was just looking for anything to put in front of a video camera to see if the medium suited him.