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A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship.
As the French New Wave movement was gradually changing the shape of cinema forever, itself spawned by the splurge of Italian neorealist films of the 1950s, Italian directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini (himself one of the originators of neorealism) began to redefine the “art film.” Antonioni particularly favored atmosphere and mood over conventional narrative structure, producing films that would be felt on a subconscious, visceral level rather than an overtly intellectual one. He made seemingly obtuse cinematic offerings mainstream. Fellini, in the meantime, fully embraced surreal/magical realism, both alienating a good portion of his devoted fans, and gaining a new cult audience. Some of the world’s greatest screen legends starred in their films, including Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti, Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau. One cannot underestimate those celluloid maestros’ significance when it comes to tracing modern cinema’s past.
The central film of Antonioni’s “trilogy on modernity and its discontents” – which started with the Cannes Jury Prize Winner, the convention-shattering drama “L’Avventura,” and climaxed with the Palme d’Or nominated, poetic “L’Eclisse” (a film that influenced the majority of Martin Scorsese’s work) – “La Notte” won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1961, but encountered censorship upon release due to its tame-by-today’s-standards nudity and sexual innuendoes. It also appeared on Stanley Kubrick’s top 10 list, its shadows, silences and uncanny, symmetrical visuals evident in most of the late director’s work (as they are in pretty much everything, from Cassavetes’ ouvre to the Dardenne brothers’ modern masterpieces). Looking back at “La Notte” now, it’s shockingly ironic how fresh it feels, amongst the deluge of clone-like Hollywood by-products. It makes one long for the days of true cinematic innovation, pity those that avert their ADD-addled glances in favor of bombastic, shut-your-brain-off entertainment, and be grateful that those films exist, their imprint still palpable in the small portion of truly innovative films that come out today.
“La Notte” opens with an ambient, sterile, desolate soundtrack that accompanies blankly geometric visuals of Milan construction sites. The camera slides down the side of a modern skyscraper, instantly setting the mood of a downward spiral, an alienation felt in the New substituting the Old, as the lens’ gaze shifts to a stunning shot of the historical part of Milan. Author of a just-published book called “The Season,” Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) visit their terminally-ill friend Tommaso (Bernhard Wicki), nary exchanging a word on their way to the hospital. Tommaso is filled with regret, but ends his sad soliloquy with a bright note: “A little self-criticism puts things in perspective and gives you courage.” He then longingly looks out the hospital window, at a helicopter tracing its way through the concrete jungle. “Quite a place, eh?” he dryly states. “Everything I used to hate in terms of style. I never thought I’d end my days in such luxury. I feel like a fraud.” His sardonic, pessimistic outlook reverberates throughout the rest of the film, as does the theme of change.
Lidia leaves to cry outside the hospital, while Giovanni gets sidetracked by a mentally-unstable-but-gorgeous patient, who – almost successfully – tries to seduce him in a highly unexpected, erotically-charged sequence. When Giovanni relates this incident to his wife, Lidia’s response is that of apathy. Their relationship is deteriorating as fast as poor Tommaso, as rapidly as the Old City is being replaced by the New One. We follow the couple to Giovanni’s book party – but Lidia promptly leaves, to go wandering through the streets of Milan, where she encounters an abandoned child, witnesses a street fight and joins some guys who are setting out fireworks. Giovanni returns to an empty home, to soon reunite with Lidia and bring her home. Somehow both restless, sensual and forlorn (Moreau’s acting prowess on full display here), Lidia, nude in a bathtub, asks Giovanni if they could leave the house; Giovanni suggests going to the filthy rich Gherardini’s, but, just as they get dressed for the occasion, in a desperate attempt to sustain their relationship, Lidia asks to go elsewhere, just the two of them. They end up in a burlesque jazz club (featuring a highly memorable dance sequence), where Lidia, bored, changes her mind about going the Gherardini’s.
They crash a celebration, where the cynical Valentina Gherardini (Monica Vitti, a force to be reckoned with) comes in, sweeping Giovanni off his feet (quite literally). In the meantime, the mysterious Roberto (Giorgio Negro) lurks in Lidia’s shadows, an alluring and somewhat-alarming presence. The party a background of jazz and distant laughter, Lidia spots her husband making out with Valentina. A sudden downpour sends the entire party diving into the pool (and, in my favorite non-sequitur moment, a young woman making out with a statue). A pivotal moment occurs when Giovanni and Valentina emerge after an intimate session, to come face-to-face with Lidia and Roberto, soaked from the rain – and a consequent heartrending confrontation between the couple, out in the vast and quiet Italian fields.
If this all doesn’t exactly sound like a thrill-a-second ride, well, it’s because it’s not. “La Notte” is about moods: those of doubt, jealousy, despair, alienation, reconciliation. It’s an immersive aural and visual experience, an artistic statement on the disillusionment of marriage. The jazzy, sparse, seductive and melancholic soundtrack echoes the film’s dualities of serenity and melancholia, graceful eroticism and empathy for its characters. The long stretches of silence serve as moments of reflection, as much for the film’s characters as they are for the audience. Each shot is perfectly composed, the camera movement fluid, the gorgeous black-and-white accentuating its juxtapositions. Antonioni pulls you in with his visuals, into his world of space between words, of change and nostalgia, of a dissipating love. In a sparsely-verbal film, the phrases that are uttered tend to matter. “But sometimes beauty can really be depressing,” a character observes, and dammit if it weren’t true. “I no longer have ideas, just memories,” another character states. There is an incisive dissection of writing and why humans aspire to greatness and strive to leave behind a legacy. A beautiful-but-inaudible moment of conversation in a rain-soaked car wedges itself into your consciousness. My favorite line of dialogue comes towards the end, from Valentina: “You two have really worn me out tonight.”
The film’s acting is (almost) uniformly top-notch. Antonioni’s protagonists say a lot more with gestures, glances and movements than words ever could, particularly Moreau, in a masterclass showcase, a highlight of an incredible career. If I have one gripe with the film, it’s Mastroianni’s wooden performance, especially compared to the wildly expressive women that surround him. Perhaps it was the director’s intention, to paint Giovanni as abstract and unreadable as the future he faces, a faceless object, but towards the end his lack of readability becomes a nuisance (almost saved in the film’s final, unforgettable shot).
The film’s profound minimalism, its unconventional editing – sometimes a cut anticipates an action within the shot, at other times it accentuates a certain object or expression – coupled with its infinite artistic merits and historical significance in the annals of cinema, marks it as one of those “can’t miss” experiences. If you’re a true cinefile – or an appreciator of culture in general – you owe it to yourself to see “La Notte” – or Antonioni’s entire trilogy, for that matter, or any film from that magical, transformative era of filmmaking. I promise, the journey will leave you “Breathless” (couldn’t help myself). Indeed, how marvelously ironic – to delve into the past, in order to get a breath of fresh air.
New restoration of the 1961 Italian drama opens for a one week run at the Film Forum in New York September 14th and at Laemmle’s Royal in Los Angeles September 16th
