La Notte (1962)

Outstanding

La Notte (The Night), the 1961 film by Michelangelo Antonioni, and the second of his Alienation Trilogy, after L'Avventura and before L'Eclisse, is a huge artistic leap up from its predecessor film. It's not so much that L'Avventura was such a bad film- it's not. It has its moments, and a good premise that swiftly decays into anomie and melodrama, whereas La Notte, even at an hour and fifty-five minutes in length, is a highly focused, layered, and concentrated, adult drama about the ennui that occurs in a marriage of dilettantes where all of one's life has been plotted out beforehand, yet happiness still eludes its participants. Yet, La Notte is not Italian neorealism, in the vein of what dominated that country's cinema in the prior decade, and this is clear from this film's opening shots, of slowly scaling down the side of a skyscraper to the strains of an otherworldly jazz-like score. The straight lines of the building and the reflected isolation of the city of Milan, dead in its modernity, evoke the suffocating sterility of the Precisionist painters, and a barred prison-like feel that permeates the film from start to finish. The film was shot in a gauzey black and white, that smears beautifully both polar colors into a stark and desistant gray. There is probably no bleaker landscape in film that than which may be called Antonionian. The sight of decaying urban areas, along with the odd film score, and the moments of lunacy and borderline surrealism, lends the whole film a hermetic quality. It is as if the film is its own world and apart from that which the viewer experiences every day. It could be set almost at any time in the last century, and in almost any major urban area. Not even Ingmar Bergman captures emotional desolation so well, for that director's obsessional penchant for close-ups of the human face are too irresistibly inviting to imbue emotion into, whereas Antonioni spurns close-ups for immuring and trammeling his characters in complex visual compositions.
The plot, however, of La Notte is very simple, yet the simpleminded are those most wont to dismiss the whole film as being `simple', even though it is one of the most complex and realistic films ever to depict a marriage. It follows one day, from early morning to the next early morning, in the life of a couple. Giovanni Pontano (Marcello Mastroianni- just off his superstar-making turn in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita) is a famed and highly lauded novelist, who also makes a living writing magazine articles. He has enough money to live comfortably in a chic Milanese high rise apartment tower, replete with a domestic, and all the modern amenities of that era's present. His wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), whom he's been married to for almost a decade, cannot stand him any longer, and comes from a wealthy family.... The writing, by Antonioni, Ennio Flaiano, and Tonino Guerra, is masterful, and whereas the screenplay in L'Avventura sometimes felt as if it was a bad soap opera, especially in the second half, this film crackles with depth, realism, and dialogue that is first rate. Antonioni never forcefeeds his viewer what he wants them to think, and lets things remain open for personal imbuement. The cinematography Gianni Di Venanzo is not as spectacular as the island scenery that dominates L'Avventura, but it is far more intense and deliberate. The acting by Marcello Mastroianni, as Giovanni, is outstanding, and far richer and deeper than his more lauded performance in Fellini's 8½, a few years later. Jeanne Moreau is not an emotional zombie, for we see, in her reactions to the streetfight and Roberto, that, despite being a spoiled brat, she does have some depth. And, we see the same thing in Monica Vitti's character, Valentina, for she is merely a younger version of Lidia. Were Giovanni to choose her over his wife, doubtless, in a decade, this film would play itself out again, with Vitti as the new Lidia, and a younger sexier stand-in as the new Valentina. The acting in this film is so much `realer' than the fluff Hollywood puts out, even back then, because the actors are not projecting themselves into roles, but letting the roles take them over. Whereas a Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts is always that persona in a slightly different role, Marcello Mastroianni and Monica Vitti, equally huge international stars in their day, are always actors first, and stars second.
Yet, the most frustrating thing about this film is how few critics, famed and online anonymities, appreciate just how drastically better this great film is over its predecessor, in all ways. Yes, L'Avventura may have made Antonioni a `name', but La Notte made him a great filmmaker. Those that find this film too slow, or claim it has no `action', simply will never get what real art is about. They live in a stupor devoid of the pinpricks that a work of art like this can give. Fortunately, the characters within the frame are not so hopeless, and in the scars that their pricks bear to the viewer, the engaged and intelligent viewer, in turn, will know not only what to salve, but where.
September 14, 2008

Upperclass Angst

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. September 3, 2008

A bit light

I guess I was expecting a whole lot more, considering Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni were the stars of the film. I actually didn't make it through the whole film. I got bored, because nothing seemed to happen throughout the movie. July 10, 2008

This is how falling out of love looks

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! June 27, 2007

Another gem from Antonioni

La Notte is an apt title for the second film in Michelangelo Antonioni's trilogy, with L'Avventura being the first and L'Eclisse the last. All that symbolizes the night--darkness, melancholy, and particularly sleep and death, are referred to throughout the movie. Our difficulty communicating with one another and subsequent sense of alienation are, of course, addressed in La Notte just as they are in the other two films. The story here centers around a married couple, Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and Lidia (Jeanne Moreau). From the moment we first see these two we sense a disconnect, a kind of sickness, even a death of sorts. Lidia's demeanor is zombie-like, as though she were sleepwalking. Without giving too much away, the opening scene, which Giovanni and Lidia are not in, subtly sets the tone for the film. A hospital patient is given morphine, which renders him half-awake and half-asleep. This state of being will take many forms and appear again and again in La Notte.

Lidia seems to be the only character in the movie with any depth of feeling, which is precisely why she has gone numb. Her pain overwhelms her. She suddenly leaves a party given for her husband, a writer who has just released a new book, to wander the streets of Milan. She is dwarfed and seemingly trapped by the skyscrapers surrounding her, and further alienated by the male passers-by who turn their heads to check her out. At one point she takes a taxi out of town to a more open area where, unlike Milan, not much has changed. But even here, shortly after stepping out of the taxi, she happens upon two street toughs engaged in a brawl which she fearlessly stops. It seems Lidia is searching for a paradise, an escape to salve her wounds, but there isn't one. Evening is falling now, streetlights gradually come on, and she returns home. Later that night, at another party she attends with her husband, she will do the same thing; wander around, alone and in pain.

It is at this party, which takes place at night and will last into the wee hours, where the problems between Lidia and Giovanni rise to the surface. And this is also where those symbols of the night mentioned earlier come at you one after the other. Antonioni is clever in how he portrays these symbols. One of the most interesting is a cat staring at a statue as if waiting for it to wake up and respond. Trying to catch all these metaphors is part of the enjoyment of this party segment.

One of the similarities between L'Avventura and La Notte is the men's handling of their troubled relationships versus the women's. Giovanni, as well as Sandro in L'Avventura, takes advantage of every opportunity to lose himself in the arms of another woman in order to fill the void. Lidia, on the other hand, has the chance to be with another man whom she meets at the party, but decides not to go through with it. She seems to know that the pleasure is fleeting and no cure for her marriage problems.

In the conclusion of the film the couple finally address what is happening between them, and it is heart-wrenching to watch. The truth hurts as they say. This ending differs from L'Avventura's in that more is said between the man and woman involved. We have a better idea of the outcome for Lidia and Giovanni, but we're still not quite sure of it even though they have verbalized their feelings. In L'Avventura, Claudia and Sandro do not say a word to each other and we are left with the same uncertainty. So one can derive that in the end we are alone no matter how hard we try to connect with another human being.

Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, and Monica Vitti are amazing. In this film, as in all of Antonioni's films, so much relies on facial expressions, gestures, and choreography, and these actors make it all look easy. However, even though La Notte is a great film, L'Avventura and L'Eclisse are better as they have a complexity and quiet beauty that is missing here. It is also a shame that La Notte is not in the Criterion Collection because there are no extras, no commentaries, interviews with the actors, etc. The bonus discs included in the other movies of the trilogy are a delight for the film buff. There is no doubt, despite these criticisms, that La Notte should be on everyone's list of movies to watch.








May 27, 2007

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