La notte (1961)

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (story) &
Ennio Flaiano (story) ...

Release Date:

19 February 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In Milan, after visiting dear friend Tommaso Garani that is terminal in a hospital, the writer Giovanni...

Plot Keywords:

Party | Hospital | Writer | Book Signing | Rainstorm

Awards:

6 wins

Cast

Marcello Mastroianni	...	Giovanni Pontano
Jeanne Moreau	...	Lidia
Monica Vitti	...	Valentina Gherardini
Bernhard Wicki	...	Tommaso Garani
Rosy Mazzacurati	...	Rosy
Maria Pia Luzi	...	Patient
Guido A. Marsan	...	Fanti (as Guido Ajmone Marsan)
Vittorio Bertolini
Vincenzo Corbella	...	Mr. Gherardini
Ugo Fortunati	...	Cesarino
Gitt Magrini	...	Mrs. Gherardini
Giorgio Negro	...	Roberto
Roberta Speroni	...	Beatrice (as Roberta Speroni Fortunati)
Odile Jean

Also Known As:

Dare e avere (Italy) (working title)
La nuit (France)
The Night (UK)

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Australia:PG | West Germany:16 | Singapore:PG | Italy:VM14 | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:17 (censored version) | Sweden:15 | UK:X (cut)

Filming Locations:

Milan, Lombardia, Italy

Company:

Nepi Film

Trivia:

Second part of the unofficial "Incomunicabiliy Trilogy" also including L'avventura (1960) and L'eclisse (1962).

Quotes:

Lidia: "When I awake this morning, you were still asleep. As I awoke I heard you gentle breathing. I saw you closed eyes beneath wisps of stray hair and I was deeply moved. I wanted to cry out, to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly. " "In the half light you skin gloved with life so warm and sweet. I wanted to kiss it, but I was afraid to wake you. I was afraid of you awake in my arms again. Instead, I wanted to something no one could take from me, mine alone...

Movie Connections:

Featured in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) (TV)

cold, harsh, dark, - and that's just the drinks

This is a hard film to sit through. Which is not to say it isn't worthwhile, or good, or even a masterpiece, but that the state of mind of the characters involved is hard to cope with - they are depressed, aimless, drifting, unable to make any emotional commitment in an atomised, alienating landscape that is, in the words of Henri Lefebvre, full of signs but absolutely no symbols. The symbols have been all used up, exhausted, just as the couple's love has been all used up. The truth of this film resides for me in its final scene when Moreau (Lidia) reads the old love letter out to Giovanni as a cold morning mist snakes around the golf course. It talks about waking up next to her and possessing her so completely that she is no longer herself, but part of him; utterly owned, 'an image I want to keep forever.' But now the image is tarnished, forgotten, and the woman is alone, abandoned -free of her cage, but utterly lost in the dark mean streets of modernity.