Customer Reviews

La Notte [VHS]

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4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A film that Jean Renoir called "Magnificent" and Orson Welles said he couldn't stand, "La Notte" is arguably Antonioni's most flawless, concentrated and deeply layered masterpiece (the late great critic William Arrowsmith has put forth the most masterful argument in favor of this high opinion in his fantastically unconventional and myth-debunking, chapter-long review of it in "Antonioni: Poet of Images"), and it certainly deserved better than the amateurish & just plain awful transfer it has gotten from the philistine cheapskates at Fox-Lorber. The film's influence on other filmmakers & especially the most famous of American directors such as Scorsese, Coppola, and De Palma is IMMENSE: for direct proof check out Scorsese's homage to the famous silent-conversation-in-the-parked-car-in-the-rain scene in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," where Ellen Burstyn is seen grieving silently in the closed capsule of her car in the pouring rain for her son who has run away. Some people also mention Kubrick's final pretentious mediocrity "Eyes Wide Shut" as being similar to this film. Well, it figures, and no real film fans are too surpried since "Barry Lyndon" and "2001" were also both practically Antonioni films in their deliberate, super-concentrated compositions and slow pacing, and also because back when he was still a great director (in 1963) Kubrick listed "La Notte" as his 7th favorite film of all-time.

The picture quality of this DVD version Fox-Lorber-Winstar has thrown on the market is maybe SLIGHTLY better than a mediocre VHS copy, but that's about it! The ONLY reason to buy the DVD is to be able to get to your favorite parts quicker. The picture is undermatted, has annoying lines and moving dots through it throughout, and the sound sometimes has weird pops and crackles in it as if it was recorded off a scratched LP! Not only that, but the English Subtitles are NOT REMOVABLE and their text in this version is BADLY TRANSLATED, making the non-Italian-speaking viewer miss quite a few conversational points that I, for one, know by heart, through having watched my old Video copy of the well-translated JANUS Collection Print (perfectly matted by the way) recorded off a TV Showing on BRAVO many years ago, many times (I truly LOVE this film and unlike some other Antonioni films which I had to 'grow into,' was instantly hypnotized by its poetry the FIRST time I saw it in a visceral way I haven't experienced with any other film except maybe Godard's "Breathless," Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player" and Scorsese's "Taxi Driver").

Needless to say, I'm a big dupe, and I bought this DVD the day it came out and was totally disappointed, and what I could only hope for, and it doesn't seem likely because, apparently, Fox-Lorber own the DVD rights to this classic film, is for a CRITERION transfer of "La Notte," "The Eclipse," and every other Antonioni film to go along with their pristine version of "L'Avventura," and maybe even with commentary as great as Gene Youngblood's on all of them! When will Fox-Lorber learn to give classic works of cinematic art the respect they deserve?

This is truly a wonderful film. Moreau, Mastroianni and Vitti are perfect in Antonioni's expression of banality and dispassion in the modern age. Those put off by Antonioni's work, due to vagueness and slow pacing, will find "La Notte" extremely approachable. Also, I was amazed to how similar "La Notte" is to Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." The portraying of the emptiness of the main characters marriage not through dialog but imagery, the story structure, the wealthy friends party (end of "La Notte," beginning of "EWS"), the personal odysseys Moreau and Mastroianni venture on to spark up passion in their lives are all reminiscent of Kubrick's last film. I haven't heard of Kubrick being influence by Antonioni or not, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Being that "La Notte" is such a visual treat, it is frustrating that the Fox Lorber DVD is so poorly put together. It skips, the audio often doesn't sync up with the actors mouths, there is a hiss that keeps on going on and off, and there are many scratches and smudges throughout. Oh well. Hopefully Criterion will pick this one up and do to "La Notte" what they did for "L'Avventura." That is the treatment this film deserves.

While "L'Avventura" was a film about mystery, and about the discovery of mystery in our lives, this follow-up is darker, stressing the loss of mystery--along with the loss of love and of value in life. Like "L'Avventura," it's supremely beautiful to look at, and it also focuses on the Italian upper-class world of the early 60s. Here, Marcello Mastroianni plays a celebrated novelist who's in the process of burning out, and Jeanne Moreau is his wife--who's burning out too, but unlike him, she's aware of it. She (and he, to a lesser extent) embarks on a sort of odyssey of self-discovery in the course of a day and night; among the many brilliant episodes is a long night party at the home of a millionaire (who, we learn, "collects" intellectuals such as the novelist, and then seeks to buy them). The millionaire's speeches are brilliantly written, as he gradually caricatures himself, and as he implicates the intelligentsia in the process of emptying that the modern world is rapidly accomplishing. Moreau herself has never been more expressive--well, maybe in "Jules and Jim"--and Mastroianni is also at his best. As if that pairing weren't enough, about two-thirds of the way through we meet the magnificent Monica Vitti, playing the 18-year-old daughter of the millionaire, and giving endless shadings to her character--as she usually does.

The DVD is good, though not as good as it might have been. The film is letterboxed, and the image is good and crisp. The subtitles are good, but often bits of dialogue aren't translated, especially bits in the party scenes. There are very few extras, but the filmographies are good. The DVD promises weblinks, but the main link is to the Internet Movie Database, which anybody likely to watch this film will probably have bookmarked long ago. Still, for anyone interested in Antonioni, or in the greatest films of the era, this is well worth the purchase price.

Several respondents here have criticized the transfer quality, citing cropping, hisses, wobbling, etc. Most of the "cropping" is attributable to television overscan, and you notice it more on this DVD because Antonioni makes such deft and unusual use of the far edges of the screen. There are DVD players available which can help compensate for overscanning, a problem originating from standard television sets and not this particular DVD. Regarding hisses, those recurring, distant industrial sounds you hear are on the original soundtrack. Undoubtedly they are meant to serve an emotional mood. One respondent reports that the image is so jumpy he couldn't watch the film; I simply didn't have the same viewing experience. A number of Criterion releases have more image wobble than this one. In fact, I'm impressed by the great sound and picture quality of this DVD. It's a huge improvement over the muddy version which Bravo used to broadcast, and notably cleaner than theatrical prints available in the US in the 1990s. While not perfect, this DVD delivers the aural and visual clarity which Antonioni deserves.

A classic. Its close but....Antonioni films are meditations which rely less on actual dialogue than on inner moods conveyed with Antonionis very original way of framing characters within a shot. A trick he uses over and over again is to show a character against a flat plane like a wall. The look of it and feel of it is like a modern painting. Isolation is the key emotion. Characters isolated within themselves, characters isolated from each other. So long passages of the film are wordless as the camera merely follows the lone footsteps of one character or another. Antonioni also calls attention over and over again to the impersonal feel of the modern city. The opening shots out the window of a glass elevator slowly descending into a world of glass and concrete are especially memorable. The characters are not fully drawn people rather they are representatives of the way modern people feel. So although you do get the stars Moreau and Mastroaianni and Vitti (and what stars) they don't do or say a whole lot. Fellini covers a lot of the same ground in La Dolca Vita. In fact the stories are very similar. Both deal with an all night party but Fellini makes the party seem a whole lot more fun. Antonionis characters are not really capable of letting loose, they are too bored with their lives to be decadent. It is a very watchable film although some shots seem a little too ripe with a too obvious symbolism as when Moreaus character walks through a bombed out building and then picks a large patch of rust off of a wall(zoom in to hand picking rust). Definitely a film to enjoy when in a serious mood. This is a study of modern angst told in a modern way. I think Monica Vitti's portrayal of the young disaffected rich girl steals the show. She out angsts her elders. Sophisticated they are when compared to most any other film style but Antonioni films are also a bit vague when looked at too closely, his characters just a little too flat. But still it is an interesting aesthetic to focus exclusively on angst. This is as good as anything Antonioni ever did so if you are already a fan of his style you won't want to miss it and this is an excellent place to start if you don't know him yet. Visual artists of any medium will find much to admire here. I think the most appealing thing about Antonioni is his knowledge and synthesis of all the art forms including the visual, the written word and music.

I love this film, however I found the DVD to be unwatchable. The image jumps up and down throughout the entire length of the film, which left my head aching after it was over. Also, as the previous reviewer observed, this image is not properly matted. And, the print used for this transfer is a dirty one.

I was hoping that this film would eventually be released on the DVD format and I bought it right away when it was. But, the job done by Fox Lorber/Winstar Video was a real disappointment to me. What a waste for a such a fine piece of cinematic art.

I guess I could always use the DVD as a rearview mirror ornament.

The camera work and direction of this film are awe-inspiring. The scenes with Mastroianni entering the psychotic woman's hospital room, shot against the completely white wall, and the overhead shot of Moreau pulling up in the car are two of the best visual shots I can think of in any movie, anywhere!

A film that held my attention from start to finish (rare for an Antonioni flick), even though not a heck of a lot really happens in this film, other than a one night study of a couple's relationship. I think the two leads helped out a lot too, as Antonioni usually used lesser known stars, but picked two top notch names for this one.

Communication is the primal source of this Antonioni's masterpiece. Are there any possibilities of understanding between people? Is it possible to establish a monogamy-based relationship in a world full of desire and curiosities? The director presents a work that shows how dangerous it can be when love twists itself into an ordinary living convenience.

With wonderful performances by Mastroiani, Moreau and Vitti (which plays the personification of desire and lost youth), Antonioni presents love as the only possible salvation with beautiful images and strong dialogues. An immortal movie based on an immortal subject.

I am a newcomer to this realm of genius film making and I corroborate the eloquent and articulate observations by the reviewer from Minnesota. I simply want to add that after seeing and studying my first two Antonioni films (l'Avventura and La Notte) I am struck by the fact that just about any frame from these movies resembles a Cartier-Bresson photograph. There are so many levels of satisfaction in these films, intellectually and artistically. They are crafted like a great literary work, as mentioned by another reviewer, in the sense that no detail is accidental or superfluous. And like reading a great book, you get back what you put into it in terms of observation.

La Notte is an apt title for the second film in Michelangelo Antonioni's trilogy, with L'Avventura being the first and L'Eclisse the last. All that symbolizes the night--darkness, melancholy, and particularly sleep and death, are referred to throughout the movie. Our difficulty communicating with one another and subsequent sense of alienation are, of course, addressed in La Notte just as they are in the other two films. The story here centers around a married couple, Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and Lidia (Jeanne Moreau). From the moment we first see these two we sense a disconnect, a kind of sickness, even a death of sorts. Lidia's demeanor is zombie-like, as though she were sleepwalking. Without giving too much away, the opening scene, which Giovanni and Lidia are not in, subtly sets the tone for the film. A hospital patient is given morphine, which renders him half-awake and half-asleep. This state of being will take many forms and appear again and again in La Notte.

Lidia seems to be the only character in the movie with any depth of feeling, which is precisely why she has gone numb. Her pain overwhelms her. She suddenly leaves a party given for her husband, a writer who has just released a new book, to wander the streets of Milan. She is dwarfed and seemingly trapped by the skyscrapers surrounding her, and further alienated by the male passers-by who turn their heads to check her out. At one point she takes a taxi out of town to a more open area where, unlike Milan, not much has changed. But even here, shortly after stepping out of the taxi, she happens upon two street toughs engaged in a brawl which she fearlessly stops. It seems Lidia is searching for a paradise, an escape to salve her wounds, but there isn't one. Evening is falling now, streetlights gradually come on, and she returns home. Later that night, at another party she attends with her husband, she will do the same thing; wander around, alone and in pain.

It is at this party, which takes place at night and will last into the wee hours, where the problems between Lidia and Giovanni rise to the surface. And this is also where those symbols of the night mentioned earlier come at you one after the other. Antonioni is clever in how he portrays these symbols. One of the most interesting is a cat staring at a statue as if waiting for it to wake up and respond. Trying to catch all these metaphors is part of the enjoyment of this party segment.

One of the similarities between L'Avventura and La Notte is the men's handling of their troubled relationships versus the women's. Giovanni, as well as Sandro in L'Avventura, takes advantage of every opportunity to lose himself in the arms of another woman in order to fill the void. Lidia, on the other hand, has the chance to be with another man whom she meets at the party, but decides not to go through with it. She seems to know that the pleasure is fleeting and no cure for her marriage problems.

In the conclusion of the film the couple finally address what is happening between them, and it is heart-wrenching to watch. The truth hurts as they say. This ending differs from L'Avventura's in that more is said between the man and woman involved. We have a better idea of the outcome for Lidia and Giovanni, but we're still not quite sure of it even though they have verbalized their feelings. In L'Avventura, Claudia and Sandro do not say a word to each other and we are left with the same uncertainty. So one can derive that in the end we are alone no matter how hard we try to connect with another human being.

Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, and Monica Vitti are amazing. In this film, as in all of Antonioni's films, so much relies on facial expressions, gestures, and choreography, and these actors make it all look easy. However, even though La Notte is a great film, L'Avventura and L'Eclisse are better as they have a complexity and quiet beauty that is missing here. It is also a shame that La Notte is not in the Criterion Collection because there are no extras, no commentaries, interviews with the actors, etc. The bonus discs included in the other movies of the trilogy are a delight for the film buff. There is no doubt, despite these criticisms, that La Notte should be on everyone's list of movies to watch.