La Notte

I knew I'd once seen an Antonioni film that convinced me he was a great director: I just couldn't find what it was. L'Aventura was lethargic and poorly shot, Blowup a right pain, and some late soft-core porn tedious. Then I rented La Notte. Definitely the one.

Of course, that extraordinary performance from Jeanne Moreau. Beyond that, the film itself looks amazing. A master cinematographer's work in black and white, the darks rich, the lights textured, and still room for wonderful greys. (Gianni di Venanzo, who shot Fellinis's 8 ½, but died young a year or so later.) No soundtrack, just the sound of what is happening: revolutionary for 1961, and it gives a great sense of space. You listen. And an adult script in the right sense, in story and dialogue. A couple visit a friend dying of cancer. They go home. She goes out walking round the city, calls him to pick her up from a location where they first lived together. They go out to eat. They go on to a party. Mastroianni gets attracted by a younger girl, Moreau tries to have an affair and fails. She calls the hospital: their friend has died. They walk into the gardens. She tells him the friend has died, and that she no longer loves him: so this is what was going on behind the Moreau face all through the film. The camera pulls back from a couple rolling in their best clothes in a sandpit. Extraordinary.

L'Eclisse, the third in the trilogy, is yet to come.