★ 7 / 10
I have always thought Jeanne Moreau to be
CinemaSerf
I have always thought Jeanne Moreau to be one of the most striking of actresses. He expressions with her smile and her eyes would have made her a fantastic…
I have always thought Jeanne Moreau to be one of the most striking of actresses. He expressions with her smile and her eyes would have made her a fantastic silent film star. Here she portrays "Lidia", married to "Giovanni" (an equally potent Marcello Mastroianni), with whom she has a pretty open relationship in what is a rapidly deteriorating marriage. It's only after they visit a terminally ill friend "Garani" (Bernhard Wicki) that she becomes distraught, leaves the hospital and her thoughts start to focus a little. She visits the home of her youth, he goes to a party to celebrate the release of his latest tome then they both end up at a lavish soirée where they are as if independent of each other - both pretty shamelessly flirting with other, younger, people whilst maintaining just about enough of a façade to remember that this is all about business. Michelangelo Antonioni has created the ultimately crafted fly-on-the-wall film, here. The photography is intimate, almost invasive, at times as we watch these two people heading on a crash course to marital oblivion taking a great deal of themselves with them too. Though at times outwardly superficial, the characterisations are actually quite complex and both play with a subtle, nuanced charisma that compliments the more obvious symptoms of their declining interest in each other. What also adds a richness to this is a distinct paucity of dialogue. Giorgio Gaslini has provided us with a score that allows the photography to tell us great swathes of the story using imagery only - the lack of needless conversation between the characters helps it to showcase the ostentatiousness of their ball or the use of the Milanese city-scape in the darkness illuminated only by the occassional street-light - and that frequently creates a compelling atmosphere as sterile and barren as is their failing partnership. By the end, we know that something has to give, but what might that be? For two hours it just flies by. It's Golden Bear was well won.
★ 9 / 10
Loving to depict bourgeois alienation, Antonioni shows here a couple's marriage breaking down, with Monica Vitti as a delightful foil
crculver
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni shot a series of films exploring the psychological torment of his bourgeois…
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni shot a series of films exploring the psychological torment of his bourgeois protagonists. In spite of the wealth and security they established, they had no idea what they wanted in life or what they were supposed to do. In spite of busy social lives, they found it impossible to truly connect with other people. LA NOTTE, from 1961, is one of these, and I think it's the very best of them.As the film opens, one morning in Milano, married couple Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) visit their friend Tomasso (Bernhard Wicki) in the hospital as he lays dying. Lidia is clearly shaken by the experience and, after Giovanni leaves for an appearance to promote his new book, the camera tracks Lidia through a long, aimless walk around Milano as she processes her thoughts. Here Antonioni (anticipating his later film Il Deserto Rosso) shows the drastically changing face of Milano in the postwar construction boom, and the appearance of new tech gadgetry in everyday life, as just one more way people can feel they have nothing certain they can hold on to in this world.Giovanni and Lidia, while never outright squabbling, have clearly grown cold towards each other. Gradually one begins to wonder if there is any life left in their marriage whatsoever. Things come to a head, however, when Giovanni and Lidia go that evening to a party at a rich industrialist's villa, and Antonioni's favourite actress Monica Vitti appears. Vitti's role as a foil to Giovanni and Lidia is powerful and moving, but I think its precise nature should be left unsaid here, as it's better audiences aren't spoiled first.A mere description of the plot might seem like nothing happens in this film besides bored people talking and yet another mid-century European cinematic tale of adultery. But LA NOTTE is a film of incredible visual poetry, almost like the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. Even scenes that evoke the characters' boredom are shot as such beautiful tableaux that the viewer is enraptured. Antonioni often shoots his characters reflected in mirrors and the like, and there is some cinematic legerdemain here that just makes you go "wow".Appearing in Antonioni's body of work between two similar films that are often considered a trilogy, LA NOTTE has often got less buzz than its predecessor L'AVVENTURA, with its daring plot twist, or its successor L'ECLISSE with its chic Monica Vitti-Alain Delon love affair. But I think that in terms of the picture-perfect visuals and elegant pacing, LA NOTTE deserves every bit as much praise as those other two classic films.
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