La Notte (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Cheers! An amazing cinematic achievement that defines. Italian neo realism. A fascinating portrait of lack of communication in the marriage of a succsessful affluemt author and his neurotic wife in post. World. War. Two. Italian society. The film offers brilliant performances by the two greatest actors of the era's. European cinema. Marcello. Mastroianni and. Jeanne. Moreau. Both are at the glorious peak of their glamour and brilliance. Antonioni's masterful direction of the psychological effect of enviornment upon our psyche and his extraordinary use of the close up in his brilliantly stark cinematography make. La. Notte one of the great definitive achievements of. Italian cinema. Anyone interested in great performances and great filmmaking will be mesmerized. Bravisimi! Luv, diana

Michelangelo Antonioni was one of the best Italian directors of the 1960's, and here he investigates in minute detail the boredom at which some marriages eventually end. Moreau and Mastroianni search here and there and everywhere around the city of Milan, but the charm of their initial married life is difficult to re-seize.

Antonioni's next feature following L'Avventura was an extremely memorable piece with well turned dialogue which shows Mastroiani, Jean Moreau and Monica Vitti in a mesmerizing flux between each other with each as a possible step toward the viewer's own perspective including the character Tomassi whom they meet at the start of the film. Loneliness pervades the story as each character can only communicate through their given manner and so each is caught within his or her own particular "vacuum" as Vitti describes it during a scene in her room with Marcello M.; nobody in Antonioni's film escapes themselves and they're each looking for some sort of transcendence from their own personal venue whereby each divulges their own stress, or suffocation toward the other ex. Moreau sits in a rocking chair and confesses her doubts about life while Vitti peels the label off a whisky bottle, everybody has some place that they'd occupy according to their manner which is something remembered from earlier Antonioni. Escape and the layers of the character seem to play against each other here on a timetable through the evening that succeeds as a tour of the bourgeois Milanese psyche of that day, and during the course of the night they come together and finally bid each other "Buono Notte" after somewhere earlier prognosticating that the future will be deplorable. Death keeps everything within bounds too as the call about their friend Tomassi comes during the evening when Moreau discovers he'd passed away 10 minutes earlier, she doesn't share the news with her husband and he only finds out at the end of the film just before she attempts to suggest a divorce. She herself has had some movement toward infidelity with a mysterious male whom her friend introduces her to during the evening, he rescues her from the diving board over the pool during a rain shower and drives her off in his sport car but they can't come together. To me the overwhelming feeling about the movie was Antonioni's skepticism about the possibility for 'real' exchange, particularly during the scene when Moreau is seen through the glass of the mysterious man's car talking with him with the rain passing over. She looks out and her expression changes from one more immediate to one both very familiar but somewhat more remote, even as they get out of the car for a moment she cannot get out of the carriage of her own personality and they come back as they met, as strangers. Her distance from her husband is summarized in a piece of his writing she reads him at the end while they sit in the sand pit of a golf course in the morning at their host's and she subtly buffets him as the letter describes her waking some morning. There's a hierarchy of personhood in the movie as the viewer himself is approached by the view of the story, eventually the viewer must find themselves too and come back to whomever they were where the film began. Overall, a great story and a heady dialogue that moves your view from character to character and back with a brisk tempo. Great story.

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?

The DVD was scratched. I hate when that happens, it takes a lot of time and money to return it. The package was ok, the other 3 DVD's were ok, this one was loose inside the case and got scratched. Thinking of asking for replacement.

Although I don't think this film is as good as " L'avventura" abd "L'eclisse" it does have its good points.The acting is good as are most of Antonioni" films of this period.

A great movie, and it arrived on time.

One of the best 1960s films anyway, presented here in SPLENDID HD QUALITY. What else can I add? A MUST for (serious) film lovers.

Anything with Monica Vitti in it - or directed by Michelangelo Antonioni - is worth a look. Beautiful photography from an Italian master.

a stunning film, one of Antonioni's finest, and a great transfer. recommend to anyone a fan of 60s cinema, modernist art, or great films in general.

Interesting but fast forwardedLove the atmosphere as a piece of historyLoved the style and design