Antonioni
From June 22 through August 2, the Gene Siskel Film Center, in partnership with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago, presents Antonioni, a comprehensive retrospective of one of the masters of modern cinema.
A giant of the European Art Cinema movement, Michelangelo Antonioni has combined themes of contemporary alienation, a breathtaking precision of composition, and a resonant use of modern environments to create one of the most significant bodies of work in cinema history. This series presents 19 programs containing the complete features, rarely screened shorts, and films about him, including new and restored prints of important works long out of U.S. distribution.
As a film critic, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker in the 1940s, Antonioni allied himself with the then-thriving neorealist movement, but he soon diverged from its orthodoxy in order to explore what French critics called “interior neorealism.” In early works like STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR (1950) and IL GRIDO (1957), Antonioni moved away from neorealism’s social agenda and claims to objectivity in favor of an approach that was more metaphorical, aestheticized, and centered on individual consciousness, with a complex interplay between the objective and subjective worlds.
Antonioni attained artistic maturity and worldwide renown with his so-called trilogy of L’AVVENTURA (1960), LA NOTTE (1961), and L’ECLISSE (1962). Many critics now group those three ambitious works with his next, RED DESERT (1964). Although they have different plots and characters, these four core films are bound loosely by their Italian upper-middle-class milieus, concern with emotional/sexual malaise, stylistic rigor, and strong focus on female protagonists, often played by Monica Vitti.
The crossover sensation BLOWUP (1966) marked a new stage in Antonioni’s career, as he moved toward male protagonists, non-Italian settings, and a looser, more sensual style in such films as ZABRISKIE POINT (1970) and THE PASSENGER (1974). Though debilitated by a 1985 stroke, the 94-year-old Antonioni has remained active as a filmmaker, most recently completing an episode of the anthology film EROS in 2004.
Antonioni was organized by Cinecittˆ Holding and is sponsored by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago. Special thanks to Tina Cervone and Patrizia Gambarotta, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago; Federica Terzulli, Cinecittˆ Holding; Archer Nielson, Pacific Film Archive; Sarah Finklea, Janus Films; Jessica Rosner, Kino International; Valentina Mandozzi, Minerva Pictures; James Velaise, Pretty Pictures; Michael Piaker, Sony Pictures Classics; Mena de Villamor, Surf Film; Marilee Womack, Warner Brothers Classics.
-- Martin Rubin
STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR
(CRONACA DI UN AMORE)
1950, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 98 min.
With Lucia Bosè, Massimo Girotti
Antonioni’s first feature was initially attacked as a betrayal of neorealism for its genre plot and upper-class characters; twenty years later, historian/theorist Noël Burch called it “an absolute turning point in the history of cinema.” A wealthy industrialist’s use of a private eye to investigate his wife (the stunning Bosè) ironically reunites her with a former lover; together they plot to make her a rich widow. The film-noir material is revamped by Antonioni’s already distinctive use of setting, ambiguity, and form. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Surf Film; copy printed from materials restored by Associazione Philip Morris-Progetto Cinema. (MR)
Friday, June 22, 6:15 pm
Sunday, June 24, 3:00 pm
L’AVVENTURA
(THE ADVENTURE)
1960, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 143 min.
With Monica Vitti, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lea Massari
L’AVVENTURA hit the 1960 Cannes Film Festival like a bombshell--notoriously jeered at its press screening, then vigorously championed by a petition of prominent supporters. Now it is widely recognized as one of the key works in the evolution of modernist cinema. Like BLOWUP, it starts out as a mystery story but turns into something else entirely. A yachting party to a rocky Sicilian island leads to the inexplicable disappearance of one character and a tenuous liaison between two others. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Janus Films; copy printed from materials restored by Mediaset-Cinema Forever, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Compass Film e Société Cinématographique Lyre.
Followed by Antonioni’s short film RETURN TO LISCA BIANCA (1983, 9 min., Beta SP), in which he revisits the island setting of L’AVVENTURA. (MR)
Saturday, June 23, 3:00 pm
Thursday, June 28, 6:30 pm
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI: THE EYE THAT CHANGED CINEMA
(ANTONIONI: LO SGUARDO CHE CAMBIÒ IL CINEMA)
2001, Sandro Lai, Italy, 56 min.
Employing long-unseen material from the RAI archives, director Lai assembles interviews, clips, TV appearances, and on-the-set footage for a career overview that John Gallagher (The National Board of Review) calls “a perfect introduction to the Maestro’s films.”
Preceded by ANTONIONI ON ANTONIONI (1978, Lino Miccichè, Italy, 28 min.), an illuminating interview with much discussion of the early films. Both in Italian with English subtitles. Beta SP video. (MR)
Reduced admission! Buy a ticket to any other Antonioni film and get a ticket for this program at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4.
Saturday, June 23, 5:45 pm
I VINTI
(THE VANQUISHED)
1953, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 110 min.
With Jean-Pierre Mocky, Franco Interlenghi, Peter Reynolds
“Daring. . . a contemporary existentialist document that could almost have been coscripted by Albert Camus.”--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
I VINTI is one of Antonioni’s strangest and rarest films. Commissioned by a Catholic company, it contains an unusual amount of moralizing along with Antonioni’s more characteristic concerns with alienation and setting. Three episodes--set in France, Italy, and Britain, respectively--dramatize senseless violence among today’s youth. The final one, generally considered the strongest, anticipates BLOWUP as it tells of a young London writer who murders a woman in order to get an exclusive scoop on the story. In French, Italian, and English with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Minerva Pictures; copy printed from materials of Scuola Nazionale di Cinema-Cineteca Nazionale. (MR)
Tuesday, June 26, 6:00 pm
ZABRISKIE POINT
1970, Michelangelo Antonioni, USA, 110 min.
With Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin
Removed from the late-’60s climate of dissent, Antonioni’s only American-made film now stands as a startling work of art, alternately stark and excessive, cathartic and self-indulgent. Antonioni’s absorption in the landscape, both natural and man-made, is the real story, and he revels in every widescreen frame: billboards poised against the blue sky, the shadow of a plane traversing desert wasteland, youthful brown bodies intertwined in the sands of Death Valley. Forget revolution; the explosive finale is nothing less than an orgy of kineticism, as Antonioni gleefully blows up everything in sight from umpteen angles, because he can. 35mm widescreen. (BS)
Friday, June 29, 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 1, 3:00 pm
LA NOTTE
(THE NIGHT)
1961, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 122 min.
With Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau
The second film in Antonioni’s celebrated “trilogy,” LA NOTTE can be seen as his Quaalude-cool riposte to Fellini’s amphetamine-exuberant portrait of the decadent, idle rich in LA DOLCE VITA. Moving from a hectic Milan afternoon through an all-night debauch to a tentative dawn, the story centers on a successful novelist (Mastroianni), who is losing his desire to write, and his disaffected wife (Moreau), who is losing her desire to desire. Beginning in the sky and ending in a pit, LA NOTTE earns its dark title as Antonioni’s most vivid descent into a damned world. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Pretty Pictures. (MR)
Saturday, June 30, 3:00 pm
Thursday, July 5, 6:00 pm
Shorts by Antonioni
1947-1997, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 110 min. total
A program of 12 shorts spanning half a century. In Italian with English subtitles except where noted:
PEOPLE OF THE PO (1947) exemplifies the neorealist tradition that Antonioni would soon depart from. N.U. (1948), about Rome street cleaners, is already moving in a more poetic direction. LIES OF LOVE (1949) sardonically examines fumetti (photographed comic strips). SUPERSTITION (1949) catalogues bizarre superstitions of Southern Italy. 35mm copies printed from materials of Scuola Nazionale di Cinema-Cineteca Nazionale.
SEVEN REEDS, ONE SUIT (1949) details the complicated production of a rayon garment (35mm copy supplied by Cineteca del Friuli). THE VILLA OF MONSTERS (1950) visits the eerie rock carvings of the Villa Orsini (35mm, French subtitles). VERTIGINE (1950) recreates a vertiginous cable-car ride (35mm copy printed from materials restored by Associazione Philip Morris-Progetto Cinema with the collaboration of Marco Ferreri).
FOTOROMANZA (1984) is a music video of Gianna Nannini’s hit song. KUMBHA MELA (1989) contemplates pilgrims bathing in the Ganges. Antonioni’s exquisite sense of place elevates the travel sketches ROMA ‘90 (1990), NOTO MANDORLI VULCANO STROMBOLI CARNEVALE (1993), and SICILIA (1997). Beta SP video. (MR)
Saturday, June 30, 5:15 pm
Wednesday, July 4, 3:00 pm
CHUNG KUO CHINA
(CHUNG KUO--CINA)
1972, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 217 min.
Along with I VINTI, this is the hardest to see of Antonioni’s features. It is also unique as his only full-length documentary, picking up the nonfiction thread of his early career (see Shorts by Antonioni above) and combining it with the precise visual beauty of his mature work. Antonioni was chosen to make the film by the Chinese government, which then attacked him as a mouthpiece for Russia (China apologized to Antonioni in 1980). The political controversy overshadowed the virtues of the film itself, which is a joyful, sympathetic, and impressionistic portrait of China, making lovely use of pastel colors and telephoto lenses, with a special feeling for the faces of the people and the textures of their surroundings. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm copy printed from materials provided by Rai Direzione Teche. (MR)
There will be two five-minute intermissions.
Friday, July 6, 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 8, 2:45 pm
L’ECLISSE
(THE ECLIPSE)
1962, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 123 min.
With Monica Vitti, Alain Delon
The final film in Antonioni’s “trilogy” is widely considered one of his greatest achievements; Antonioni himself said, “Of all my old films, L’ECLISSE is the one I like best.” After breaking up with her longtime lover, a restless young woman (Vitti) embarks on an affair with a dynamic but shallow stockbroker (Delon). The story is secondary to Antonioni’s concrete yet poetic visualizations of the modern world, set in Rome, filtered through the volatile sensibility of the heroine, and climaxing in one of the director’s most daring and celebrated sequences. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Janus Films. (MR)
Saturday, July 7, 3:00 pm
Thursday, July 12, 6:00 pm
THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELLIAS
(LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE)
1953, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 105 min.
With Lucia Bosè, Andre Cecchi
This scathing inside view of moviemaking in general and the Italian film industry in particular makes an interesting companion piece to THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. A beautiful Milanese shop girl is discovered by a movie producer whose disastrous decision to cast her as Joan of Arc sends her fledgling career into a tailspin. Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader) calls LADY “the most unjustly neglected of Antonioni’s early features.” In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm copy printed from materials restored by RAI Cinema - RAI Teche. (MR)
Saturday, July 7, 5:30 pm
Tuesday, July 10, 6:00 pm
THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD
(IL MISTERO DI OBERWALD)
1980, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 128 min.
With Monica Vitti, Franco Branciaroli
“Antonioni’s gripping version breathes vivid life into what could be a claustrophobic costume drama--particularly through his stunning use of color dissolves.”--Robert Pardi, TV Guide
Never released in America, THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD is notable on several counts. It reunited Antonioni with his signature actress Monica Vitti for the first time since RED DESERT. It was adapted from Jean Cocteau’s play The Eagle Has Two Heads (filmed by Cocteau himself in 1948) about a Queen (Vitti) who falls in love with an anarchist/poet who has been sent assassinate her. Blazing a trail, Antonioni shot the film on video and manipulated the color in striking and symbolic patterns before transferring it to film. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Friday, July 13, 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 15, 5:15 pm
RED DESERT
(IL DESERTO ROSSO)
1964, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 118 min.
With Monica Vitti, Richard Harris
Antonioni’s first film in color was his third (and last until 1980) with Monica Vitti, who established herself as the quintessential Antonioni heroine in his earlier masterpieces L’AVVENTURA and L’ECLISSE. Vitti plays Giuliana, the wife of a Ravenna factory engineer. Feeling disoriented in the wake of an automobile accident, she takes a lover (Harris) who is a business associate of her husband. The director went to great lengths to control every aspect of the film’s environment, coloring sets, hair, fruit, even entire landscapes, to convey the precise quality of Giuliana’s mindscape. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm restoration courtesy of Mediaset - Cinema Forever. (BS)
Saturday, July 14, 3:00 pm
Thursday, July 19, 6:00 pm
THE GIRLFRIENDS
(LE AMICHE)
1955, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 99 min.
With Eleonora Rossi Drago, Madeleine Fischer
This lively early work is based on a Cesare Pavese novella and set in Antonioni’s native Turin. Clelia (Rossi Drago), a young businesswoman from Rome, comes to Turin to open a fashion salon and becomes involved with a group of decadent socialites. Clelia is one of Antonioni’s most vibrant characters, and her strong-willed independence gives the film a proto-feminist edge. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Saturday, July 14, 5:15 pm
Tuesday, July 17, 6:00 pm
IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN
(IDENTIFICAZIONE DI UNA DONNA)
1982, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 129 min.
With Tomas Milian, Christine Boisson, Daniela Silverio
“The most openly erotic of Antonioni’s features, and visually one of the most beautiful.”--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader.
A recently divorced director (Milian) is seeking both a new wife and a new actress for his next film. He becomes involved with a mysterious bisexual aristocrat (Silverio) and a down-to-earth stage actress (Boisson). As in other late Antonionis, the sex is plentiful and explicit, and, as always, the visuals are ravishing, especially a stunning scene of two lovers driving through the fog. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Friday, July 20, 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 22, 5:30 pm
BLOWUP
1966, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 111min.
With David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave
With its brittle, glistening images and sense of cool observation, Antonioni’s time capsule of Swinging London remains modern in the broadest sense. Underneath the camouflage of glamour, sex, and drugs, the dilemma of a callow fashion photographer who may have viewed a murder through his camera lens resonates in the director’s brilliant spatial metaphors for moral disengagement. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, July 21, 3:00 pm
Thursday, July 26, 6:00 pm
IL GRIDO
(THE CRY)
1957, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 115 min.
With Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, Betsy Blair
A key transitional film linking Antonioni’s early period and his later masterpieces, IL GRIDO combines documentary/neorealist elements with a more consciousness-centered sense of alienation and ambiguity (most vividly in the film’s much-debated ending). Dumped by his long-time lover (Valli), an anguished mechanic (Cochran) sets off with his small daughter, drifting from place to place and woman to woman along the rainy Po Valley, captured in haunting gray tones by the great cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of Kino International. (MR)
Saturday, July 21, 5:15 pm
Tuesday, July 24, 6:00 pm
EROS
2004, Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Antonioni, Hong Kong/USA/Italy, 104 min.
With Gong Li, Robert Downey Jr.
EROS is a sexually themed triptych offered as an homage to Antonioni. Wong’s “The Hand” is the dazzlingly atmospheric tale of a haughty courtesan (Gong) who enthralls a young tailor (Chang Chen) through an unforgettable act of digital eroticism. Soderbergh’s “Equilibrium” is the comic account of a gabby analysand (Downey) and his inattentive shrink (Alan Arkin). Antonioni’s “The Dangerous Thread of Things,” centered on a permissive romantic triangle, features Tuscan landscapes, enigmatic dialogue, and much nudity. In Mandarin, English, and Italian with English subtitles.
Preceded by Antonioni’s valedictory short film MICHELANGELO EYE TO EYE (2004, 17 min.), in which the venerable director contemplates another old master. Both in 35mm. (MR)
Friday, July 27, 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 29, 5:15 pm
THE PASSENGER
(PROFESSIONE: REPORTER)
1975, Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 126 min.
With Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider
This modernist variation on NORTH BY NORTHWEST stands as one of Antonioni’s greatest works, a stature confirmed by its critically acclaimed 2005 re-release. Nicholson plays a burnt-out reporter who is covering a North African civil war when he decides to switch identities with a recently deceased gunrunner. Following the dead man’s appointment book, he traces a dangerous route to Barcelona, where he hooks up with a young architecture student (Schneider) and heads for a rendezvous with destiny in the Spanish back-country. In English, Spanish, German, and French with English subtitles. 35mm.
Followed by THE LAST SEQUENCE OF THE PASSENGER (1975, 12 min.), an analysis of the famous final shot by critic André Labarthe. Beta SP video. (MR)
Saturday, July 28, 3:00 pm
Thursday, August 2, 6:30 pm
BEYOND THE CLOUDS
(AL DI LÀ DELLA NUVOLE)
1995, Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders, Italy, 115 min.
With John Malkovich, Sophie Marceau
“A shimmeringly beautiful and wise reverie on love and desire.”--Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Antonioni’s most recent (and likely final) feature is a highly personal reflection on the elusive nature of beauty. Based on Antonioni’s short-story collection That Bowling Alley on the Tiber, the film presents four vignettes on the theme of love between strangers, with a wrap-around (filmed by Wenders) about a film director (Malkovich) on the prowl for new material. The remarkable cast includes Fanny Ardant, Irène Jacob, Sophie Marceau, Vincent Perez, Jean Reno, Peter Weller, and, 40 years after LA NOTTE, Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. In English, Italian, and French with English subtitles. 35mm.
Followed, on July 30 only (after a 10-minute intermission), by MAKING A FILM FOR ME IS LIFE (1995, 52 min.), a documentary by Enrica Antonioni, the director’s wife, about the shooting of BEYOND THE CLOUDS. Beta SP video. (MR)