March 28
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
7:00 – L’ECLISSE
Michelangelo Antonioni (1962) 126 mins
Antonioni’s definitive film is an uncompromising & moody exploration of alienation, ennui & the “atomic age” starring Alain Delon & Monica Vitti. An unflinching yet poetic examination of the spaces, places & temporalities of modernity, Antonioni’s actors & characters are ultimately abandoned as the vehicle for presenting his truly contemporary vision (epitomised by the remarkable depopulated final sequence).
Startling on first release even after the bold experimentation of L’avventura & La notte, this film occupies a crucial position in postwar European cinema. With Francisco Rabal. Camera operator Pasquale De Santis, produced by Raymond & Robert Hakim, & music by Giovanni Fusco.
35mm print courtesy of the British Film Institute.
CTEQ Annotation:
‘L’eclisse‘ by Christopher Sharrett
9:15 – THE PASSENGER
Michelangelo Antonioni (1975) 126 mins M
Jack Nicholson stars as a disillusioned journalist who makes the strange decision to exchange identities with a colleague he has discovered dead in his hotel room. Antonioni’s 3rd English-language feature is an evocatively subdued thriller & road movie (taking in Barcelona, London & North Africa). Luciano Tovoli’s arrestingly scenic cinematography is harnessed to express psychological tension in pure & dynamic visual terms, diffusing conventional dependence on drama & dialogue. The concluding sequence, a precisely executed 7-minute tracking shot, suspensefully delivers the film’s final, inexplicable shock. With Maria Schneider.
Script by Mark Peploe & Peter Wollen, produced by Carlo Ponti & cinematography by Luciano Tovoli
CTEQ Annotation:
‘The Passenger‘ by Jonathan Dawson
Backdrop:
L’ECLISSE
THE PASSENGER