It is with L’Avventura that one truly gets the sense of ground being broken. That’s not to say it is the best film [Antonioni] ever directed (though I would argue it is), but this is the film of his that most clearly worked to usher in a new form of cinema, from which there was no turning back.
“L’eclisse” is the third film in Michelangelo Antonioni’s so-called “Trilogy of Alienation,” the preceding works having been “L’avventura” and “La notte.” While the three films taken together do explore many of the same themes relating to spiritual emptiness, the disbanding of relationships, and a struggle to communicate in an increasingly modern and alienating world, “L’eclisse” differs from the two earlier works most notably in its increasingly experimental style and its blatant departures from conventional storytelling and stylistic design.
The first time we see Monica Vitti’s character Giuliana, the Italian woman whose mental struggle with her environment is chronicled in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964), she is an olive-green figure walking along a black, desolate wasteland. This green, a symbol of nature and tranquility, contrasts with the orange flames pulsing from the factory and …
Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead …