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English Title: L’Eclisse
Original Title: L’eclisse
Year: 1962
Language:
Country:
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:
Michelangelo Antonioni
Tonino Guerra
Elio Bartolini
Ottiero Ottieri
Cast:
Monica Vitti
Alain Delon
Francisco Rabal
Louis Seigner
Lilla Brignone
Rossana Roey
Mirella Ricciardi
Rating: 7/10

Billed as the last episode of Michelangelo’s unofficial “Incommunicability Trilogy”, after L’avventura (1960) and La notte (1961), the film’s structure is as elusive as the latter part of L’avventura (a 6/10), while the pathos is not as empowering as La notte (a 8/10). As a result a in-between score of 7 out of 10 is my rating.

It’s an elliptical essay about a mental plight of a woman’s inner state, Michelangelo uses plentiful close-ups to enhance a visceral image of the troubled soul of our protagonist Vittoria (Monica Vitti), and the nihilistic struggle of any frayed individual is so incisive as that one can not get out of its grip afterwards.

It’s inherits the energizing effect of suffering on character, particularly female character throughout the trilogy, Antonioni’s muse Monica Vitti exposes herself without any lines of theatrical rendering, her emotion inward is lumbering and stressful to viewers, which could be divined as the auteur’s intention. Her counterpart, a youthful Alain Delon though billed first, is underplayed, emits very limited evocation compared to Vitti.

The tumultuous control of the stock market scenes is an emblem of Antonioni’s remarkable progress of character introspection under a social context (almost harks back to Hollywood luminary Frank Capra’s expertise). Nearly without any score, a bleak realistic setting with deployment of the natural sound again testify that Antonioni is the backbone of New Wave movement not only in Italy but also in the whole planet!

The commitment to beauty, grace and sensitivity is by and large foregrounded. A marvelous almost 8-minutes-long non-relevant ciphers montage ending is unexpected mesmerizing, and the ending scene of the radiation of street lights converges into a quasi-eclipse phenomenon delivers an impeccable finale for the film and the trilogy, an incommunicably mundane world alone can be an endless source for filmmakers to excavate!

Many people find it difficult or even boring to watch Antonioni’s movies. But it wasn’t until I watched all three pieces+Red Desert, analysing various aspects,and I comed to conclusion that Antonioni’s movies are masterpieces, especially L’Eclisse and Red Desert. In his movies cinematography/photography is just breathtaking, and landscapes are brilliantly connected to essence of story. Due to comparisons with Ingmar Bergman, I ‘ll have to say that it’s important to distinguish those two, as Bergman was known for his brilliant dialogues, while Antonioni’s motions capture the real beauty, disgrace and spirit of the time. It’s more difficult to compare him with other italian directors, such as Fellini or even Pasolini, cause they’re all quite a story for themselves.

Antonioni’s L’Eclisse is definitely the best one in whole trilogy (L’Avventura, La Notte, L’Eclisse). Dissatisfaction of modern man and trouble with finding any connection; boredom and dissapointment of modern world, brilliantly linked with the main point, and music which gives gist to every motion. Despite my personal preferences towards Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti’s performance in all three movies, and then in Red Desert was just like it supposed to be, charming, in sense, one word – exquisite. Alain Delon is, beside Marcello Mastroianni, perhaps the only actor who could bring forward such a role and put up with Antonioni’s demands and requests.

In this movie (L’Eclisse) like in La notte and La avventura, Antonioni is commonly refering to meaning of love and commitment between two people through a day-by-day conversations, sometimes quite trivial and meaningless. But if you watch carefully, you’ll find the true meaning in this and all his other movies, and you’ll just have to admit that he was a bloody genius.

(Originally written July 23, 2005)

Director Michelangelo Antonioni’s films typically study the boredom and dissatisfaction of people in the modern world. Blowup and L’Eclisse both portray characters in love with what they cannot understand or comprehend. The protagonist of the 1966 British masterpiece is obsessed with a murder that may or may not have happened just as Vittoria in L’Eclisse only loves what she is not sure of. One receives this impression of Vittoria in the very first scene. The breakup, for her, is necessary because she understands her lover too well. The audience is able to see that this man does not genuinely care about the relationship. Vittoria summarizes this philosophy best when she expresses that “people shouldn’t know each other too well if they want to fall in love.”

This thematic continuity is also evident when one takes into account the only scenes in which Vittoria laughs or appears to be enjoying herself. One of the few times she seems full of joy is when she is “playing negroe.” This mystical dance from a place she has never been allows her to break free form the restrictions of modern Italy. However, there is a sense of savagery in this as one notes the person from Kenya with her guns and hunting ferocity. She herself has escaped from Africa to move to Italy. Antonioni films show that people are discontent with their lives no matter where they are coming from. Vittoria asks her Kenyan friend whether she was afraid of the large animals. In response, the friend responds, “I grew up around them. Are you afraid of cars?” Vittoria is not, but there is still a sense of insecurity in the mechanized world.

The modern world is shown to be violent and disappointing through the stock market, which brings about the story of Piero. This portrait of the uncompromising and callous world of the investors is brought out when a man on the speaker asks for a moment of silence. Although they do pay respect to the dead, they immediately return to screaming out the stocks they want to invest in. “Seconds cost billions,” and the stock market is all they seem to be worrying about. They are gamblers caught up in a materialistic world.

Even Vittoria’s mother is caught up in this madness, expressing deep sadness when she loses money. The mother is lonely, caught up in superstitions and solitaire. Her own misery has resulted from her self-isolation and rejection of what truly matters. Vittoria unsuccessfully reaches out to her mother who is too concerned about her money. Time and time again, Vittoria reaches to people who are too absorbed in their selfish desires. When she asks for help from a friend, all he attempts to do is satisfy his own lust by offering his physical closeness.

The closing of the film is so powerful, resonating with a quiet beauty that leaves a story unresolved, understanding that Vittoria will never find authentic resolution to the struggles in her life. The ending would be unheard of in today’s cinematic climate due to the fact that there is no real action taking place. It’s a series of shots with little movement, indicating the emptiness that is left for people to hang on to.

The Steppenwolves – Being somewhat miffed by the current crop of DVD releases I’ve been going through the Criterion Collection catalog by directors as I know of them. Antonioni did The Passenger and Beyond the Clouds as memory serves so I picked L’ Avventura and L’ Eclisse and have proceeded to watch a lot of Monica Vitti be sultry, coy, evasive, provocative, and show endless shocks of the magnificent mane of blonde hair. I would call her the archetypical standard of her era. Is this a good thing I say? Oh yes, yes indeed.

This film does play out as if she walked from the set of one movie to the other, from the seaside coast into ever bustling Rome. Although we do see a lot of the quiet solitude of the suburban outreaches, the main difference in the 2 films being, she left a lot more interesting group of players behind in L’ Avventura. I do like the several cameos of the Italian stock market sans early 1960’s and the striking aerial fly over of a Rome that no longer exist. The use of black and white stock really flushes out the background as dominant as I realize this as a trait of the Antonioni pallet. He knows what look he wants where. I heard he could be a real bitch to work for since there is basically no solid story line in either film. What I took from the Antonioni films was the introduction and ease at which his heroine moved unencumbered. This modern movement in cinema gave way to style over substance.

What do we get? A lot of beautiful, bored, affluent, and restless souls wandering aimlessly around a lovely Italy some 50 years hence when Rome and Paris served as bookends of world culture and fashion. The snippets of insight we get into our characters are debatable since none of them are of any real interest. Like the seaside, ancient architecture, and volcanic islands, these are just locations for adult frivolity. Certainly of more interest and historical essence than any of our protagonist and cohorts, these are just moments that were, imagined or fact, mostly forgettable. Their main focus was true though as these sordid souls eat themselves from the inside out. Thus the sentient being to beast referenced at the start. For the film buff and passing fan, Monica Vitti became the modern dream machine icon of her time long before the bossa nova became passe.

I hated the film the first time I saw it. Now I love it and think it is a masterpiece. This is the exact same experience I had with L’Avventura and Blowup. You can say that nothing happens, but in a way that is Antonioni’s point. It’s incredible how his recurrent themes of alienation and malaise in the modern world can be conveyed with basically no words, just simply through the film’s breathtaking cinematography and landscapes. You are mesmerized thoughout and don’t realize until the end of the film how much of Antonioni’s pessimistic view of the world has creeped into your brain. Also of note are the remarkable stock exchange scenes, which for obvious reasons are eerily prescient.