Tag Archive: Michelangelo Antonioni


ANTONIONI’S CRY

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January 3, 2013

IL GRIDO (The Cry) directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy, 1957)

ilgridoIn real life, Steve Cochran was a notorious womanizer. Joan Crawford, Mae West and Jayne Mansfield were among his impressive list of conquests. His rough and ready good looks make him look like a younger Mel Gibson, the type of strong silent hunk that makes women who should know better swoon.

Steven Patrick Morrissey was apparently named this actor who was best known for supporting roles as gangsters or boxers and for appearances in a string of B-Movies.

In Il Grido (The Cry), Antononioni uses Cochran’s chick magnet potential with a degree of irony by casting him as a one woman man named Aldo. Continue reading →

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THE ECLIPSE OF MONICA VITTI

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June 22, 2012

L’ECLISSE directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy, 1962)

Mostly, we watch movies as a means of seeking relief from the worries and tedium of everyday life but, with deliberate perversity, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse (Eclipse) makes no attempt to cater to this desire for contrived entertainment or escapism.

It’s a movie about nothing and everything with a plot so paper-thin it would fit on a post-it note. My summary would be : A young woman leaves her older husband – she meets a younger man – she doesn’t love either – she doesn’t know what she really wants.

The setting is Rome, but apart from the frenetic activity of the city’s stock exchange it looks like a ghost city. Many shots would not be out-of-place in the Sci-Fi classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still. When we do see the inhabitants, most of them look haunted, bored and ill at ease.

The narrative is linear yet the story feels as mysterious and enigmatic as one of David Lynch’s waking dream sequences. Continue reading →

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THE ADVENTURE WITH MONICA VITTI

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June 8, 2012

L’AVVENTURA directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy, 1960)

Where has Monica Vitti been all my life?

I am at a loss to explain how I’ve reached mature adulthood without ever seeing her in a movie before.

This is all the more shameful as this constitutes a neglect of classic Italian cinema which, having lived in the country for 16 years, is indefensible.

I now pledge to put this right by ravaging my local ‘mediateca’.

In L’Avventura, Vitti as Claudia looks so thoroughly modern and fills the screen in this curious, but pretty great Antonioni movie. In one scene she is waiting outside a hotel in a small town and gets surrounded by a horde of horny men trying to catch her eye. She remains coolly aloof throughout this ordeal. Continue reading →

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SOMEWHERE – COMFORTABLY NUMB

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January 3, 2011

Somewhere – directed by Sofia Coppola (2010)

As in Lost In Translation, Sofia Coppola is good at showing the comfortably numb circuit of boredom and isolation that comes with fame. Her movie Somewhere shows the emptiness of the pampered life while still managing to convey the glamour of a star actor’s lifestyle.

In the first shots here we learn everything there is to know about  the actor Johny Marco (Stephen Dorff)  without a word being spoken. We see him going round in circles in his black Ferrari on a race circuit. We see him at a fashionable party (when he falls and breaks his wrist). We see lying in bed being entertained in his hotel room by two blonde pole dancers – Bambi and Cindy!. We see him  fall asleep before their ‘erotic’ show is finished.  (These opening scenes made me think that it is not inconceivable that someone will actually a whole movie out of a character study like this where there is no dialogue). Continue reading →

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