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L'Eclisse: the third piece of the Antonioni trilogy.

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It took awhile for me to understand what he was up to and get into the pacing but once I did... Well, one must approach these films differently from typical films: they are more subjectively presented. Antonioni frames, extremely carefully, each scene and its relationship to the one which follows, creating a flowing jigsaw puzzle which takes immense concentration to construct.
For those familiar with his later, more easily enjoyed films (Blow-up, The Passenger), these early works contain many of the same elements, such as the effect of wind, i.e. blowing hair, trees, grasses, etc.
I first found these films "cold" but upon second viewings, I found I became much more drawn to the characters' inner tensions which were contrasted by the dramatic starknesss of nature or architecture: a common shot has humans dwarfed as they stand before or alongside massive or limitless buildings and vistas.
Anyhow, I'd recommend anyone who is a bit tired of conventional films to, patiently, watch the first of the films, "L'Aventurra."
I found that I now appreciate that film much more, having now the next two to enrich it.
(Since no one has responded to either of the previous two posts, I wrote this with the non-Antonioni initiated in mind; pardon the tone, please).

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Re: L'Eclisse: the third piece of the Antonioni trilogy. - Pepe Le Loco 22:05:01 09/28/05 (5)
One could easily pursue a certain cynical tact completely over the falls and say that a film like L'Eclisse can only be made by a rutheless and implacable intellect shackeled to the sentimental hot heart of a school girl. You wont hear me do that though.
I will say that its got some of what makes BlowUp great, without much at all of what makes it so bad. I allude of course, of the dreaded mimes. Lordy. But there are proto-mimemic flashes in L'Eclisse, and here in the freshness of their earlier inspiration, they are great. Accidently caught in frame from time to time, odd characters pass in the background, without remark, or in the distance through a window. Most of them are understated and flow controlled in a natural organic whole. These minor enigmas of L'Eclisse are as light as clouds and yet for that delicate balance of accident and meaning, as heavy as car wrecks. In time its true that they will explode bloated into the shamelessly mannered utterly baroque dopiness of the Blowup mimes. Here however, they work!
And I agree, just as advertised, L'Eclisse is architecture, or rather it is the articulation of space. Which is of course to say the same thing. Watch the film and feel the existance of lives in the context of the spaces they inhabit, and feel the relationships between people in the context of the spaces the relationships themselves create. Like I could have suggested above, its both beautiful and grimm.
- That would be some scary schoolgirl! Actually, how you could think - tinear 05:05:52 09/29/05 (2)
  Vitti's heart is "hot" is beyond me. Neither is it in L'Av. Moreau's character in La Notte has that same disinterested, apathetic, "drifting" persona as well.
  Now, regarding Vitti visually... yeah, that's nuclear fusion hot.
  - Re: That would be some scary schoolgirl! Actually, how you could think - Pepe Le Loco 10:23:13 09/29/05 (0)
    True indeed, but I was speaking not of Vitti's heart, but rather of Antonioni's.
    The lush sentimental transports necessary to produce the kind of elaborately bleak and disconnected heroine that Vitti embodies in L'Eclisse, can be produced only by an exquisitely sensitive teenage idealism completely stoned on its own sexual passion.
    And a certain inate sympathy for french stuff seems to help too.
    Take a look at Goth culture for another expression of this same accute sentimentallity, which perhaps by coincidence is also often afflicted with francophilic impulses.
  - Vitti created quite a few memorable roles, most of them not known here - Victor Khomenko 06:00:58 09/29/05 (0)
    One that I really love is the comedy role of Assunta Patane in La Ragazza con la Pistola, a 1968 film where she plays a Sicilian girl chasing her seducer.
    It is a completely hilarious film in the best Italian humor tradition, and if you can get it - you will have a treat.
    I have a soft spot for Monica...
- I'd rate "L'Eclipse" as Alain Delons greatest performance - grinagog 22:11:36 09/28/05 (1)
  and "The Passenger" as Jack Nicholsons
  Grins
  - Without much argument, these two are easy to agree with. - Victor Khomenko 05:55:00 09/29/05 (0)
    Nicholson of course is a more confusing case, with so many picture-perfect roles. But Profession: Reporter is special. I magine - they showed it, right after it came out, in the USSR!
That is problem with classics - Victor Khomenko 10:52:37 09/28/05 (0)
Those who loved it have probably written on it a few times already, and don't feel like doing it again.
And those who didn't see it probably don't care...
All three films are of course fantastic.

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