• L’Avventura is a triumph of composition
  • Opaque, lyrical and ambiguous
  • Location shooting off of Sicily- the rocky Aeolian island
  • It was a landmark in 1960 and stands as one today (somewhat- we have the works of Ozu and others that eschew traditional Hollywood narratives and Ozu predates Antonioni– they just weren’t here in the west or that popular in 1960)—these are not singularly focused or driven characters—Cannes (where it was booed at first) award it the winner and said it was a “new language” for cinema. Characters that change, are indefinite, a continuation (and apex in many ways though I think many would argue each of his next 4 films are actually his best films which is a testament to the strength of his works) of Antonioni’s oeuvre- meditations on alienation and loneliness. Dissatisfaction in the wake of WWII and the modern world
  • The first leg of the unofficial “incommunicability trilogy”- la notte the following year and l’eclisse in 62’- an unbelievable achievement and prodigious achievement- those are consecutive years and these are highly detailed and exacting films.
  • A box office smash which is crazy to think about given the content and high style
  • For the score, director Michelangelo Antonioni asked Giovanni Fusco to compose “jazz as though it had been written in the Hellenic era.”
  • Uncanny chill
  • Monica Vitti (Antonioni’s great muse)- she’s the perfect vessel for Antonioni’s protagonists—her achievement here and in her four films with Antonioni (L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse, Red Desert) warrant historical consideration
  • Andrew Sarris- “every shot is the result of calculation of the highest order”
  • The characteristic Antonioni image is of two characters in the same frame not looking at each other
  • Great pairing with the other 1960 Italian cinematic landmark- Fellini’s La Dolce Vita– superficial empty people-
  • Ebert- “Aldo’s cinematography is haunting”
  • Deep film, shallow people
  • #2 film on the sight and sound top 10 list in 1962 which blows me away
  • We open on Lea Massari with her father—we end with Ferzetti and Vitti and the Massari strand is never answered for
  • Shots of Vitti in the open doorway. Vitti in space between curtains as she watches Massari and Ferzetti in bed together (a depth you only get with a second viewing).
  • Vitti’s high cheek bones- Jennifer Lawrence could be her daughter/twin
  • Much of the dialogue is purposefully innocuous and contradictory- that’s tough on audiences but it’s rewarding for students of cinema
  • Dialogue “I never understood islands-  they’re surrounded by nothing but water the poor things”—a little on the nose but we have great architecture as character
  • Massari gone in 26 minutes (dueling 1960 protagonist disappearing act with Janet Leigh in Psycho)
  • She faked a shark sighting less than an hour before she disappearing- depth to this mystery
  • Antonioni picked not only the perfect lead (Vitti) but the perfect location for the story- it’s not a masterpiece if it’s not on this island
  • There are no answers- Massari leaves two books—one is “tender is the night” from Fitzgerald and one is the bible—could go either way
  • Not a ton of camera movement but when they have sex. Close-ups and the camera tracking from the alley- wonderful sequence
  • Adultery themes for Antonioni—alienation, contemptuous with the world
  • The finale- she finds him cheating and then we get a great shot of her and the old church in the background with the park bench- San Domenico palace
  • And the vertical lines breaking up the frames in the park bench perfect final shot
  • As much a narrative landmark as a stylistic one- influential on everyone from Bergman to Kubrick to Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation
  • A Masterpiece