When Daria is looking for the town, and the cafe/bar owner says she's in it, she says she looking for
& the bartender says he's going to "ruin this town," I assume by developing it. He rambles on about how the old isn't appreciated & gets torn down & replaced by the new, to paraphrase. She's listening & then follows the bartender around to the other side, to hear him finish what he's saying (she takes her cheeseburger with her, but leaves the beer untouched) where the old guy says he was a boxer in the 1920s. I took it that the old guy was just kind of alone & geriatric, and just told her because she happened to be a pretty girl wandering by, which he probably doesn't see every day. Maybe he's just crazy & tells that same thing to everyone. It wasn't really out of the blue; a lot of older people are like that, especially if their mind is starting to go. They are kind of living in past memories. Otherwise, I didn't find that particular scene unusual or any more important; it was just showing the oldsters of the town & where they hang out, probably every single day. They're representative of non-change, while Daria's boss is representative of change. Daria "passes through" both, physically & symbolically.
When the bartender guy said Daria's boss "takes kids from LA" & just "dumps them out here," I didn't take that as
literally.
I thought he meant that he was trying to get younger people, with children, moving out to the desert. Like maybe he was trying to spiff the place up a bit ahead of time before they built all the new houses, just so it would look more appealing to people to move out there. If there were kids about then it would appear that it was a nice place to live, possibly. I didn't consider that he possibly meant that her boss was literally abducting kids with mental issues & dumping them off in the desert to fend for themselves. If that is what he meant, then I have no idea what that means, nor where he could get so many kids with "mental issues" that no one seemed to care much where they disappeared to. The mental issues comment just seemed like he was making an insulting remark, because the kids were apparently bratty & kept throwing rocks & being a general nuisance. Indeed, they seem quite bored.
I don't know why Daria chased after the kids. She repeatedly pleads with them to stop running, but when she finally catches up with them, she doesn't say anything or seem to have a reason for catching up to them. Suddenly, instead of running away, the children all get pushy & start grabbing at her body, sexually, causing her to run away. I don't see what the point of that was. Why did she chase after them in the first place? Was she just being playful? If it was a major, symbolic scene, then I would interpret it like this. The children are all male, & represent men in general. Her attitude is playful, she seems to like their playful nature, so she is attracted to them & chases after them (men). They are sometimes shy & run awaybut when she finally catches up to them & wants to get to know them, they turn from shy into sexual, and pushy. They start grabbing at her body and this distresses her, so she runs away from them. It's saying, no matter how attractive & shy a guy is, all roads lead to the same place: sexual encounter. Whether it's a 1-time thing or full relationship, it comes down to being physical & having sex. Now I'm not saying I agree to disagree, or even that my interpretation is correct; I'm just saying that, if that scene with the children is meant to explain something symbolically, that's how I interpret it.
Also, interestingly, the one lone kid plunking away at the piano strings entirely ignores her. I found that interesting, and if it's to mean anything, perhaps it's saying that creative people are more withdrawn, and don't "run with the pack." They are more sensitive & introverted, therefore it's even more difficult to get to know them. He is the only child who doesn't join with the others encircling Daria & grabbing at her body.
|{(V)
I can't understand your crazy moon language.

It has to be said that a lot of images in Antonioni films are not to be taken literally. Instead, they are there to represent the landscape, both external (real) and internal (personal and character-motivated).
To me this scene illustrates the relationship between establishment and change, between the old (in the bar) and the young (on the street). In this way it echoes the basic scenario of cops and society versus young college students, as already established in the earlier sequences.
Antonioni is showing us that Daria cannot escape this archetype, not even by running away to the desert. Though an innocent, she takes with her the incipient violence that comes with being human. That's also why she is attacked and sexualised by the children. These scenes consistently lead to the same conclusions about the human condition.

I think you are right about the person he was looking for - I also thought it had something to do with the Hippies, not the real estate people.

Part of the solution to the mystery is a mistaken assumption, which scrambles the question:
Her boss is "Mr. Allen/Lee Allen". He runs the company. He also seems to be the master of the house on the cliff at the end.
The person she's looking for, on the other hand, is "James Patterson". He's reputed to be a sort of meditation guru. He's not popular with the locals, probably mainly because he brought the weird boys into the town - that seems to be why the bartender says he'll be the "death of the town".
I never got crystal clear whether or not the proposed real estate development would have affected that particular town/place. My guess though is it wouldn't have, as on the phone, Mr. Allen seemed to know nothing about any town with a similar name.
Daria gives up and leaves after getting no information from either the bartender or anybody else in the bar or the gang of boys. So she (and we) never meet this "James Patterson".
Even with this mistaken identity straightened out, I -like you- am still puzzled by

• why he brought the boys to this town
• who threw something through the window
• what the scene is supposed to mean to us viewers

I still don't know how to answer properly; just feel like commenting. I think this was a gem of a film and I'm anctious to see it again, not on Youtube though. I thought the whole segment in the desert is beautifully shot and the explosion at the end with Pink Floyd is one of the absolute most beautiful scenes of all-time.
To me the kids sort of represent the people that might be investing the area? Perhaps they are a symbol of people who behave like kids; who have needs of some sort and will do anything to get them, maybe it's about rich people coming into town and changing it to their liking?
Both Blow-Up and this were at first extremely difficult to watch at first; unless you give into them and their photography (especially this one because the landscape is so beautiful and the ideas are so rich). However, Blow-Up had one of the greatest endings as well which is almost like a slap in the face, in a positive way. I've yet to see the last three films he made but that's next on the list, haven't seen his earlier stuff (before L'Avventura that is) either. Amazing talent.

Thanks for the reply. Based on how little this board is used I was planning on checking in about once a month and expected to wait a lot longer.
I agree that I think the film crew just showed up at that location and someone told them about the boxer being there and it was decided to work him in. Its been a couple of months since I've watched the scene and already I'm not remembering it well.
I think I picked out this scene because I had read about this film for so long and I already knew most of what was in it, but had read nothing about this scene. I could never seem to find a way to see it. At one point Amazon had a page for the VHS but had none available. I put in some order where they would notify me if one became available but that's been like 8 years ago and I never was notified. If one did become available there might have been a waiting list of people ahead of me. I saw the VHS on ebay a few times but I just didn't want to pay $70 for a used tape.
The Youtube version I saw had at least one segment missing and other segments had no sound. If you saw the whole thing then I guess the thing with the kids is never explained. I think Daria went to the small town looking for her boss. Why her boss was dumping LA kids in the small town was what I hoped might have been explained in a part I missed, but I guess not.
I have wanted to see this film sinced I was a kid in the 70s. In my dad's hidden stash of Playboys there was a picture of Daria Halprin from this movie, probably in a Sex in Cinema pictorial. Now that I've seen most of it I have no desire to see the parts I missed, which is kind of a disappointment.

Saw the film myself for the first time last night. I have no clear answers obviously, except maybe for the Johnny Wilson question, other than that it's feel based what I'm about to say in response to your questions I think it's interesting you picked out the scene in particular since you apparently felt it was out of tone with the rest of the film, I gathered?
Johnny Wilson, it is said on Wikipedia, was born in 1893, which would make him 77 years old by the time of the film's release. Add to that the living conditions of the past and the fact that the man was a professional fighter it's no surprise he looks old as Christ. I don't remember the exact words but he doesn't say much else than who he is, that he was a middleweight champion in the 20s and asks if she still remembers him To me there's just a lot of information to interpret from the question whether she remembers him or not? I have no facts but maybe they just found him around the area I just think it's interesting an old prizefighter who I hadn't heard of myself before either because he must've been a celebrity in his time and one remembers him anymore. Just on that level it's a pondering into his own existence or lost youth, whatever.
Other than that I'm a bit lost on the dialogue she had with the owner of the cafe, I must've gotten the characters a bit mixed because I can't remember who Daria was looking for in particular. Maybe the harrassing boys represented somekind of modern way of children being let alone and do whatever they want, I don't know. Someone smarter and who's seen the film more than once should answer, I wish.