La Notte
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Movie Reviews of La Notte
Movie Review: Scenes From A Marriage
Summary: 4 Stars
"La Notte" is the middle part of Michelangelo Antonioni's trilogy coming after "L' Avventura" and before "L'Eclisse". Between the three of them "La Notte" is my favorite.
This is really a typical Antonioni film. There isn't anything here you haven't seen in the other two films. All three deal with alienation and all three pull the rug from underneath us. At the start of this film we meet a couple going to meet a friend in the hospital. We then think perhaps this movie will be about the three people's relationship. But no, then the movie seems to disect the married couple, but yet again the movie goes on to something else.
The couple in question is Giovanni Pontona, (Marcello Mastroianni) a famous writer and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau). The film is about their mid-life crisis. It is not about an alienation between the two people so much as it is about their alienation from society. What do they want out of life? And once they figure that out, where do they go to find it? The films in this trilogy are never about the relationship of the couple but instead are about their relationship to the world.
Now all of this is done with Antonioni's usual eye for details and symbolism. Pay attention to the wide open spaces, the lonely landscapes, and the camera angles. There is a scene where Lidia sees her husband kiss another women but the scene is shot from an overhead view. Lidia is looking down at Giovanni, it is very symbolic of the whole situation. She sees all. She is above him in this situation. When the chance comes for her to cheat she doesn't. These elements make for very revealing moments. The only problem, for some viewers, is the fact that thinking is required. You have to be on your toes if you want to fully understand this film. To some though that may not be a problem. And personally I don't think it should be either.
Monica Vitti co-stars in the film, she was in all three movies, and in "L'Eclisse" would be the lead character. Her performance comes mid-way into the film but it brings the movie to life. At this point in the film we've enter a new stage. Another layer to the plot has been added. I really enjoyed her performance here though. She brings a certain desperation to the character. It had the same effect on me as the performance she gave in "L'Eclisse".
I think anyone who is already an Antonioni fan will enjoy this movie. And if you've seen either or both of the other films in the trilogy you should appreciate this film as well. Some say "Red Desert" extends on the trilogy, so if you've seen that film as well you may like this movie.
I would like to say something about the film's ending and how rewarding it is. The movie ends on a note that I didn't expect. It is at the end of the film we come to know who these characters are. It is the only moment in the film I think where the two lead characters are being honest and confessional with one another. There are no mask on. I think the ending is perfect for this film. I couldn't see it ending any other way.
Bottom-line The best of Antonioni's trilogy on alienation. Has two memorable performances from Mastroianni and Moreau but also a very effective one from Vitti. One of Antonioni's best.
Movie Review: L'avventura...La Notte...L'eclisse...
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the middle of the so-called Antonioni trilogy focusing on alienation and emotional deadness in modern life. Some also include Red Desert as a postlude to this trilogy. The one constant in the films is Monica Vitti, looking as pretty as ever, here in La Notte wearing a wig. La Notte is the least of the three films, L'avventura was the big breakthrough and L'eclisse is the outstanding finish with it's quasi avant-garde moments and the stunning, hypnotic, modernist ending.
While La Notte might be the least of the trilogy, it doesn't mean the film is poor by any measure. It's actually another wonderful, rhythmically spacious work with fine acting by Mastroianni and Moreau. Monica Vitti adds the appropriate allure too. The mood and pacing of this film is just something that one can easily fall in love with. The time flies by over the nearly two hour running time. It has practically no conventional plot to speak of, just a glimpse into a marriage over one day and primarily one night. We also see the typical decadent, emotionally sterile bourgeoisie inhabiting the background, the environment which our lead actors traverse. I enjoyed this film without a doubt every time I saw it, but it won't blow you away like it's counterparts L'avventura and L'eclisse. The DVD is decent quality but let's wait until the people at Criterion get their hands on it!
Movie Review: Upperclass Angst
Summary: 4 Stars
La Notte links Antonioni's 'L'Avventura' and 'L'Eclisse' together in its stark and very beautiful portrayal of the disintegration of a marriage. Although less magnificently esoteric than the great 'L'Avventura,' Antonioni's film is a necessary piece of the trilogy. Marcello Mastrioanni is the self-absorbed intellectual writer who falls for the beautiful Monica Vitti at a black and white party. His narcissism permits his own unfaithfulness to his wife. Jeanne Moreau's performance is probably the most interesting in the film; her weathered face bears the mark of a used and worn trophy, her aged beauty is no longer satisfactory for her husband, and her intellect has long since been forfeited for the sake of his ego. Antonioni was one of the most interesting filmmakers of the 1960's. His uncanny ability to incorporate setting and landscape into the thematics of the work was perhaps unprecedented. In La Notte, the story unfolds primarily in the modern house-party, which is both luxurious and stifling. Perhaps what bothered audiences most about this film was Antonioni's failure to achieve the aching sublimity of L'Avventura's final sequence, or the astonishing radicalism of the final moments in L'Eclisse. Nevertheless, for all of its shortcomings, La Notte is a remarkable film.Movie Review: This is how falling out of love looks
Summary: 4 Stars
The DVD offers few frills, but the film is a superb study of the death of love. As in the best of Antonioni's films, we are asked to understand and empathize with characters we'd prefer to castigate or dismiss. The slow pace invites thinking -- of all things!Movie Review: A TRULY GREAT FILM; A TERRIBLE DVD
Summary: 3 Stars
A film that Jean Renoir called "Magnificent" and Orson Welles said he couldn't stand, "La Notte" is arguably Antonioni's most flawless, concentrated and deeply layered masterpiece (the late great critic William Arrowsmith has put forth the most masterful argument in favor of this high opinion in his fantastically unconventional and myth-debunking, chapter-long review of it in "Antonioni: Poet of Images"), and it certainly deserved better than the amateurish & just plain awful transfer it has gotten from the philistine cheapskates at Fox-Lorber. The film's influence on other filmmakers & especially the most famous of American directors such as Scorsese, Coppola, and De Palma is IMMENSE: for direct proof check out Scorsese's homage to the famous silent-conversation-in-the-parked-car-in-the-rain scene in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," where Ellen Burstyn is seen grieving silently in the closed capsule of her car in the pouring rain for her son who has run away. Some people also mention Kubrick's final pretentious mediocrity "Eyes Wide Shut" as being similar to this film. Well, it figures, and no real film fans are too surpried since "Barry Lyndon" and "2001" were also both practically Antonioni films in their deliberate, super-concentrated compositions and slow pacing, and also because back when he was still a great director (in 1963) Kubrick listed "La Notte" as his 7th favorite film of all-time.The picture quality of this DVD version Fox-Lorber-Winstar has thrown on the market is maybe SLIGHTLY better than a mediocre VHS copy, but that's about it! The ONLY reason to buy the DVD is to be able to get to your favorite parts quicker. The picture is undermatted, has annoying lines and moving dots through it throughout, and the sound sometimes has weird pops and crackles in it as if it was recorded off a scratched LP! Not only that, but the English Subtitles are NOT REMOVABLE and their text in this version is BADLY TRANSLATED, making the non-Italian-speaking viewer miss quite a few conversational points that I, for one, know by heart, through having watched my old Video copy of the well-translated JANUS Collection Print (perfectly matted by the way) recorded off a TV Showing on BRAVO many years ago, many times (I truly LOVE this film and unlike some other Antonioni films which I had to 'grow into,' was instantly hypnotized by its poetry the FIRST time I saw it in a visceral way I haven't experienced with any other film except maybe Godard's "Breathless," Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player" and Scorsese's "Taxi Driver").
Needless to say, I'm a big dupe, and I bought this DVD the day it came out and was totally disappointed, and what I could only hope for, and it doesn't seem likely because, apparently, Fox-Lorber own the DVD rights to this classic film, is for a CRITERION transfer of "La Notte," "The Eclipse," and every other Antonioni film to go along with their pristine version of "L'Avventura," and maybe even with commentary as great as Gene Youngblood's on all of them! When will Fox-Lorber learn to give classic works of cinematic art the respect they deserve?