A small movie role for shopclerk Clara develops into a full-blown career as a screen siren. Tension erupts when her husband can no longer tolerate watching her frivolous cinema escapades, and pushes her into a “serious, artistic” production of the life of Joan of Arc.

Before he cemented his reputation as a master of modernism, Michelangelo Antonioni circled the boundaries of genre. At once a showbiz melodrama and a sharp critique of the Italian film industry starring the magnetic Lucia Bosè, The Lady Without Camelias stands among the greatest of his early films.