Word: antonioni
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Eclipse has been criticized for lacking "life," and the criticism is justified. In his earlier films, Michelanglo Antonioni showed how frail and hard to communicate emotions can be. In Eclipse, he shows that they need not exist...
...public, in society, their love is impossible. Antonioni underlines this with virtually every shot. In the film's most intricate scene nine "friends" go to the beach. Some of them steal off in pairs; others track them down and watch. Even the pretense of love withers under this constant observation...
Near the end of the film, Clelia (Eleonora Rossi-Drago) and Momina argue fiercely and end their friendship. Antonioni makes this scene almost unbearably crude by setting it in the midst of a fashion show crowded with gawking strangers...
Such is the style of Antonioni. He presents us with men and women who cannot succeed in a private love and enter society only to find themselves under constant surveillance by great crowds of prying bystanders. In privacy, there is emptiness; in society the emptiness is exposed...
...Clearly, Antonioni chooses a milieu of wealth because the rich have more leisure for being "in public," for reducing each other's wives, and, generally, for picking at each other" psyches. Although he is conscious of class barriers, his analysis of human nature is by no means limited to the upper classes. One could apply it with less force, to any group. Antonioni doesn't do this because High Society is the clearest case for his moral insights. At any rate he is hardly a Marxist...