La Notte
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Movie Reviews of La Notte
Movie Review: Antonioni at the top of his form.
Summary: 5 Stars
La Notte was released over forty years ago, yet it is modern in the way it is filmed and the themes it portrays, testimony to Michelangelo Antonioni's skill as one of the great directors in film history. Antonioni communicates to us not only through the dialogue and artistry of the actors, but also through the images he painstakingly creates for us in each scene. It is a satisfying experience for viewers to have so much to work with as we construct meaning and truth value from what we see and hear.In the opening scenes Giovanni Pontano, played by the young and brilliant Marcello Mastroianni, and his wife Lidia, portrayed by the great french actress Jeanne Moreau, visit a friend in the hospital and learn that he is dying. Lidia's discomfort is palpable as she moves about the room restlessly and hardly says anything. At last, she excuses herself and leaves the room and the hospital. The patient, a writer as is Giovanni, discusses Giovanni's new book. The patient has read fifty pages and hopes to finish the book before he dies. We sense that Giovanni is more interested in his friend's critical appreciation of his book than he is concerned about the health of the dying man.
This self-centeredness of Giovanni is confirmed when he leaves his friend to join Lidia. A disturbed young and attractive woman patient at the hospital, whom Giovanni had met briefly before visiting his friend, approaches Giovanni again and makes sexual advances toward him. The pair move quickly to the young woman's hospital room where they squirm about briefly on her bed before being interrupted by two nurses who are aware of the young woman's habits and tendencies.
When Giovanni meets Lidia outside the hospital he confesses to her, as they drive away in their car, what has happened. In this scene we get a sense of the history of this troubled couple. Giovanni is the worst sort of womanizer; that is, he is the kind who feels compelled to tell his wife of his various sexual escapades. She knows him better than he knows himself and passes off lightly what she has been told. Much of what happens later in the film is foreshadowed by the hospital visit and discussion in the car.
From the hospital Giovanni and Lidia return to their apartment and seem restless. They have been invited to the party of a rich industrialist, they decide not to go, and then change their minds while having drinks at a nightclub.
At the party Giovanni immediately is attracted to the industrialist's eighteen year old daughter Valentina, played well by Monica Vitti. Valentina is not only beautiful, but also provocative. She exudes energy and excitement and Giovanni is drawn irrestibly to her even though his actions can be seen by Lidia, who has finally arrived at her breaking point. She is used up and burned out. It appears as if her marriage is over, but La Notte only leaves us with appearances. The film may be over, but the troubled marriage may struggle on.
La Notte is not a story in a traditional sense, but more a series of episodes that take us deeper into the lives of Giovanni and Lidia. Mastroianni and Moreau are talented actors, as is Vitti, and Antonioni's direction is superb, down to the last small detail. Taking our eyes off the screen even for a minute is a mistake. Of course, having the DVD gives us the advantage of being able to go back and pick up some of the details we might have missed.
Those viewers who enjoy La Notte are almost certain to want to see Antonioni's masterpiece, L'Aventura, filmed a year earlier in 1960. Both of these early films of the master demonstrate Antonioni's immense skill as a filmmaker. The art and craft of moviemaking has been advanced under Antonioni's capable direction.
Movie Review: A brutally honest depiction of the bitter end...
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a simplicity about `La Notte' that permeates every scene; but it's not a simplicity that is meant to degrade the films impact. There is something about this film that is so honest and upfront; it is easy for us to see what is taking place and easy for us to then become emotionally absorbed. `La Notte' is simply a very direct film about the apathy that consumes us at certain points of our lives and leaves us wandering aimlessly, searching for some direction.
The film takes place over an evening where self indulgent writer Giovanni Pontano and his wife attend a house party. They mingle, flirt (with other people) and ultimately conclude that their marriage is over. What is so stunning about this film is that these actors say so little yet convey so much to the audience, transcending their own scenes and becoming a part of us.
I remember when I saw `The Purple Rose of Cairo' and Cecilia (Mia Farrow's character) is just so enamored by the film she is watching, in particular Tom Baxter, who becomes so real to her that he walks off the screen and into her life. That feeling is the same feeling I got while watching this film, especially with regard to Jeanne Moreau, who after watching this and `Jules et Jim' I must conclude it a screen goddess. Both Moreau and Mastroianni are fantastic here, using their subtleties to spark a genuine connection to the audience. There are scene of silent stares and soft whispers and it is in those scenes that these two lost souls come to life in all their anguished glory. They breathe a life into Giovanni and Lidia that is so evident yet never overwhelming.
There are no Hollywood hysterics here and no manipulated breakdowns; just pure honesty.
As Giovanni and Lidia float through the rooms of this gigantic home they come face to face with would-be lovers and friends; most notably Valentina Gherardini, the daughter of the host. As played by Monica Vitti, Valentina is seductive and playful yet mature for her age, all knowing as she contemplates her next move with Giovanni. Her interactions with him are key to understanding the state of the Pontano's marriage, and their own affections appear simulated and emotionally vapid.
Moreau walks away with this film though; her blank stare reading so far into her own confusion.
The film is essentially about the alienation that one undergoes when they are at the end of all they know and all they understand. As their marriage crumbles before their eyes, Giovanni and Lidia retreat into themselves, and even though they venture into the lives of others and even contemplate making a life with someone else, they are restrained due to their confused loyalties. They don't love one another, yet something inside them won't let them love anyone else; not even themselves.
Movie Review: Holed in a bunker
Summary: 5 Stars
The middle of the `incommunicability trilogy'. If art is life squeezed through a repression, then Antonioni is Fellini sqeezed through a repression. La Dolce Vita came a year before with Mastroianni ,one of his key roles as the playboy-journalist. Here he is a serious intellectual,a novelist whose marriage is all but over, exhausted with his life and writing.Similarly this film has no truck with the divine, as with Fellini's film, we seem to feel the age of faith is over.Mastoianni is not after La Dolce Vita in this role.
This is a secularist's film with all the appurtenances of modern life, like modern architecture,rockets,helicopters,book openings.We get 24 hours in the life of this married couple.Alienation is a strong theme,uncertainty.People are onlookers in their own lives.There is a concentration on their inner lives but,they have no language to communicate it.As one of the characters says `when I try to communicate,love goes'. Morality is old fashioned,they carry the baggage of their emotions through the checkpoint of the modern world.
Antonionni uses the dynamics of architecture, horizontals and verticals to show the backdrop to a world that's in transition between the old and new. They cling to a pathetic remnant of the old codes. As a couple they do not engage with each other but turn up together at book signings and parties.They are open to other relationships, but neither is unfaithful. They go out together, but face in different directions,drift apart,go off with other people.Nothing comes of this.
Moreau acts as Lidia who goes on solitary walks around the streets of Milan. She meets young men fighting, she demands that it stops after observing it awhile; she also sees another grouping of young men setting off rockets. We are drawn into her personality, as she looks outwards and we are drawn into reacting through her. Giovanni attracts a rich business man with his creative talents.The business world is seen as glamorous,at the forefront of change. He is attracted towards this man's daughter, Valentina(Monica Vitti) and they play with the compact.
However there is no adultery, and Giovanni maybe feels the job offer is like selling out. Nothing much happens at the rich people's party apart from people getting wet or diving into the swimming pool fully clothed. The couple are essentially kind and decent people and treat each other well. They reach out to each other with small gestures but do not connect, like a cat looking at a statue. They themselves being like objects in the landscape. Their last grope on a golf course may be an act of desperation to camouflage the fact they are holed in a bunker.Or maybe not.Moreau is sensational.
Movie Review: Figures in a Landscape, a study of modern man & woman
Summary: 5 Stars
A classic. Its close but....Antonioni films are meditations which rely less on actual dialogue than on inner moods conveyed with Antonionis very original way of framing characters within a shot. A trick he uses over and over again is to show a character against a flat plane like a wall. The look of it and feel of it is like a modern painting. Isolation is the key emotion. Characters isolated within themselves, characters isolated from each other. So long passages of the film are wordless as the camera merely follows the lone footsteps of one character or another. Antonioni also calls attention over and over again to the impersonal feel of the modern city. The opening shots out the window of a glass elevator slowly descending into a world of glass and concrete are especially memorable. The characters are not fully drawn people rather they are representatives of the way modern people feel. So although you do get the stars Moreau and Mastroaianni and Vitti (and what stars) they don't do or say a whole lot. Fellini covers a lot of the same ground in La Dolca Vita. In fact the stories are very similar. Both deal with an all night party but Fellini makes the party seem a whole lot more fun. Antonionis characters are not really capable of letting loose, they are too bored with their lives to be decadent. It is a very watchable film although some shots seem a little too ripe with a too obvious symbolism as when Moreaus character walks through a bombed out building and then picks a large patch of rust off of a wall(zoom in to hand picking rust). Definitely a film to enjoy when in a serious mood. This is a study of modern angst told in a modern way. I think Monica Vitti's portrayal of the young disaffected rich girl steals the show. She out angsts her elders. Sophisticated they are when compared to most any other film style but Antonioni films are also a bit vague when looked at too closely, his characters just a little too flat. But still it is an interesting aesthetic to focus exclusively on angst. This is as good as anything Antonioni ever did so if you are already a fan of his style you won't want to miss it and this is an excellent place to start if you don't know him yet. Visual artists of any medium will find much to admire here. I think the most appealing thing about Antonioni is his knowledge and synthesis of all the art forms including the visual, the written word and music.Movie Review: Another Antonioni Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
While "L'Avventura" was a film about mystery, and about the discovery of mystery in our lives, this follow-up is darker, stressing the loss of mystery--along with the loss of love and of value in life. Like "L'Avventura," it's supremely beautiful to look at, and it also focuses on the Italian upper-class world of the early 60s. Here, Marcello Mastroianni plays a celebrated novelist who's in the process of burning out, and Jeanne Moreau is his wife--who's burning out too, but unlike him, she's aware of it. She (and he, to a lesser extent) embarks on a sort of odyssey of self-discovery in the course of a day and night; among the many brilliant episodes is a long night party at the home of a millionaire (who, we learn, "collects" intellectuals such as the novelist, and then seeks to buy them). The millionaire's speeches are brilliantly written, as he gradually caricatures himself, and as he implicates the intelligentsia in the process of emptying that the modern world is rapidly accomplishing. Moreau herself has never been more expressive--well, maybe in "Jules and Jim"--and Mastroianni is also at his best. As if that pairing weren't enough, about two-thirds of the way through we meet the magnificent Monica Vitti, playing the 18-year-old daughter of the millionaire, and giving endless shadings to her character--as she usually does.The DVD is good, though not as good as it might have been. The film is letterboxed, and the image is good and crisp. The subtitles are good, but often bits of dialogue aren't translated, especially bits in the party scenes. There are very few extras, but the filmographies are good. The DVD promises weblinks, but the main link is to the Internet Movie Database, which anybody likely to watch this film will probably have bookmarked long ago. Still, for anyone interested in Antonioni, or in the greatest films of the era, this is well worth the purchase price.