5-L'Avventura. Director:Michelangelo Antonioni. Cast: Monica Vitti,Gabriele Ferzetti and Lea Massari



"In the early 60's there was a great debate.People took sides...-passionately-.On one side there was La Dolce Vita.On the other side was Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura.Two completely unique visions of the world,that couldn't have been more different.Where La Dolce Vita was a big sprawling circus of a movie,L'Avventura was mysterious,distanced.And where Fellini's movie was all-embracing and instantly accessible,Antonioni's was initially quite puzzling and hard to decipher.L'Avventura needed to be experienced and absorbed differently from other movies.The first time I saw the Film I was intrigued.What was I not seeing?So I went to see it again...and then again.I suppose you could say that it cast a spell on the viewer.It certainly did on me.And the more I saw it,the more L'Avventura became a powerful,emotional experience.Now,first of all L'Avventura depicted a world that was very far from my own.A world of whealthy people with time on their hands.And all the time and money was nothing but a trap.A trap that they couldn't get out of.So,in a way,you felt for these people because they were yearning to escape from their own lives.And then there was the way Antonioni used the frame,so carefully and precisely.He had a way of focusing your attention on the landscapes,or the spaces around the people...echoing their sense of isolation and loss.And the way he used black & white was also something new.Everything on the frame was crisp,visually defined...and this was another important element that helped to express the emotional lack in the lives of these characters.And Antonioni did something incredibly bold.He introduced a woman named Anna,played by Lea Massari,who seemed to be the heroine of the film.And then,during a island stopover...he suddenly had her disappear...from her friends...and actually,from the rest of the film.That was astonishing.It was unthinkable.Hitchcock did something similar with Janet Leigh in "PSYCHO" the same year,but unlike Hitchcock,Antonioni never bothered to explain what happened to Anna."

-Martin Scorsese-My Voyage to Italy ~
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Michelangelo Antonioni and Jack Nicholson