I was re-watching Antonioni's L'Eclisse, supposedly the final constellation of his trilogy (L'Avventura/La Notte/L'Eclisse). Out of the three I believe La Notte is the most accomplished, yet L'Eclisse always intrigued me. Style wise it has almost the best of Antonioni.
Some professional photographers I know had mentioned on separate occasions Antonioni's work as their favorite in Cinema, and watching L'Eclisse you can tell why. I think even architects (if Gaudi was still alive) would love Antonioni. His fetish for architectural structures is obvious and almost dominates the ending of the movie (look at these three close-ups of a white building).
While watching it, I remembered how Dan once described Antonioni's characters: we're allowed to observe them, as models, but not to explore them. Antonioni doesn't allow them to "open up", we don't know why Vittoria (Vitti) decided to end her long affair with her boyfriend Ricardo, neither we know why she's suffocated (literally) with her overwhelming despair.
I always liked Antonioni's fragmented method of presenting a space, he would introduce the space (inside of a room, a building...) with multiple weird-angled shots of elements inside that space, and doesn't allow us a comprehensive picture until later; i.e. the opposite of a classical spatial presentation. He's also always fascinated by random close-up (see still, tree leaves) something that the Japanese Teshigahara (Woman in The Dunes) used to do a lot too.
Overall why did Antonioni choose to conclude this movie without his protagonists? we are left with backgrounds we knew, places we visited during the movie, but with near-deserted streets and spaces, with a universal impending-doom feeling. Did our couple really not show up for their rendez-vous or did Antonioni lose interest in his protagonists? so he didn't really track them, since their story (irrespective if they reunite or no) is collateral and subjected to a more comprehensive ending... an ending that he hinted at by the final scenes? one shot in this bizarre ending is (see still) this random man reading a journal with the bolded title: "Race for Nuclear War, fragile world peace" and the man facing the almost empty street. Again, this ominous sensation (helped by the musical score) showing on the faces of random people shot. Did Antonioni decided to end his movie (and the trilogy of despair/malaise/alienation) by showing us that the whole world -as we know- is ending.?
On a very different note I noticed an inetersting similarity between Antonioni (especially in L'Eclisse) and a lot of Edward Hopper paintings. Something that makes sense, both dealt with alienation in the modern (mostly urban) world. Antonioni's still of the man outside the front door of a building is an example of that. Even in case of more than one person being present in a Hopper's painting, most of the time they wouldn't be communicating. Both artists were also depicting urban architectural structures in their work.
Bergman once said that Antonioni would put such emphasis on the "photographic" form of his scenes that he'd lose focus on what the scene should deliver. It's inetersting, since that is one of the major differences between the two directors (content and form), while Bergman's work is more "vertical" (trying to explore deep into his protagonists psyche) and he'd amend that by allowing his characters to revisit their past crises by lengthy monologues/dialogues (Persona/Winter Light....) or flashbacks (Wild Strawberries/Cries and Whispers/Autumn Sonata...). Antonioni is more of observing his characters, and their reactions towards their entourage.
I want to listen to the Criterion DVD commenatry once I have some time. I'm also planning to revisit La Notte, Blow Up, and Red Desert. Overall I put L'Eclisse high in a top 5 of his, maybe right under La Notte.
This is the review of the DVD by Dan, these are the last few minutes of the movie.
Wassim
