Antonioni’s 1982 film, in which a sexually restless middle-aged film-maker auditions young women, feels dated but has pleasing flourishes
Michelangelo Antonioni’s long slide from critical favour may or may not be reversed by the re-release of this late work from 1982, a midlife or latelife crisis of a movie that Antonioni made at the age of 70 and was his last serious solo directorial work. (I would much prefer to see a revival of his tremendous and neglected film The Lady Without Camelias from 1953.)
Anyway, this revives his signature themes – metaphysical mystery, existential anxiety, sexual obsession – and there are some definite, pleasing flourishes. But unfortunately, as with the later movies of Fellini, there are some softcore sex scenes and a preposterously romanticised and eroticised search for the ideal (and sexually available) woman; the concept of the sexually restless middle-aged film-maker auditioning young women to be in his movies jars a little.
Michelangelo Antonioni’s long slide from critical favour may or may not be reversed by the re-release of this late work from 1982, a midlife or latelife crisis of a movie that Antonioni made at the age of 70 and was his last serious solo directorial work. (I would much prefer to see a revival of his tremendous and neglected film The Lady Without Camelias from 1953.)
Anyway, this revives his signature themes – metaphysical mystery, existential anxiety, sexual obsession – and there are some definite, pleasing flourishes. But unfortunately, as with the later movies of Fellini, there are some softcore sex scenes and a preposterously romanticised and eroticised search for the ideal (and sexually available) woman; the concept of the sexually restless middle-aged film-maker auditioning young women to be in his movies jars a little.
- 9/8/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Italian actress Lucia Bosè has died at the age of 89. She was most known for appearing in films from acclaimed Italian directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini.
Her son, the Spanish singer Miguel Bosè, confirmed the news on social media, tweeting the below with the caption, “Dear friends … I inform you that my mother Lucía Bosé has just passed away. She is in the best of places.”
More from Deadline'Modern Family's Beloved French Bulldog Beatrice Dies After Series Finale WrapKevin Conway Dies: 'Gettysburg', 'Thirteen Days' & 'Invincible' Actor Was 77Jack Sheldon, Merv Griffin Sidekick And 'Conjunction Junction' Singer, Dead At 88
Queridos amig@s … os comunico que mi madre Lucía Bosé acaba de fallecer. Ya está en el mejor de los sitios. #Mb pic.twitter.com/H33dlay3lk
— Miguel Bosé (@BoseOfficial) March 23, 2020
According to the Italian press, she died of pneumonia.
Lucia Bosè rose to fame after...
Her son, the Spanish singer Miguel Bosè, confirmed the news on social media, tweeting the below with the caption, “Dear friends … I inform you that my mother Lucía Bosé has just passed away. She is in the best of places.”
More from Deadline'Modern Family's Beloved French Bulldog Beatrice Dies After Series Finale WrapKevin Conway Dies: 'Gettysburg', 'Thirteen Days' & 'Invincible' Actor Was 77Jack Sheldon, Merv Griffin Sidekick And 'Conjunction Junction' Singer, Dead At 88
Queridos amig@s … os comunico que mi madre Lucía Bosé acaba de fallecer. Ya está en el mejor de los sitios. #Mb pic.twitter.com/H33dlay3lk
— Miguel Bosé (@BoseOfficial) March 23, 2020
According to the Italian press, she died of pneumonia.
Lucia Bosè rose to fame after...
- 3/23/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
The Video Essay is a joint project of Mubi and Filmadrid Festival Internacional de Cine. Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the video essay, a relatively recent form that already has its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. The limits of this discipline are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this non-competitive section of the festival both Mubi and Filmadrid will offer the platform and visibility the video essay deserves. The seven selected works will be shown during the dates of Filmadrid (June 8 - 17, 2017) on Mubi’s cinema publication, the Notebook. Also there will be a free public screening of the selected works during the festival. The selection was made by the programmers of Mubi and Filmadrid.Telefoni NeriA video essay by Hannah LeißAs a reaction to the...
- 6/9/2017
- MUBI
The Italian master's challenging and difficult L'Avventura was booed at its premiere in Cannes. But nowadays the director gets something far more hurtful: indifference
This is the centenary year of Michelangelo Antonioni. He was born on 29 September 1912 and died in 2007 at the age of 94, having worked until almost the very end. As well as everything else, he gave us one of the founding myths of postwar cinema: The Booing of L'Avventura. For film historians, it's as pretty much important as the audience riots at the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
At the Cannes film festival on 15 May 1960, Antonioni presented his L'Avventura, a challenging and difficult film and a decisive break from his earlier work, replete with languorous spaces and silences. This was movie-modernism's difficult birth. The film was jeered so ferociously, so deafeningly, that poor Antonioni and his beautiful star Monica Vitti burst into tears where they sat. There...
This is the centenary year of Michelangelo Antonioni. He was born on 29 September 1912 and died in 2007 at the age of 94, having worked until almost the very end. As well as everything else, he gave us one of the founding myths of postwar cinema: The Booing of L'Avventura. For film historians, it's as pretty much important as the audience riots at the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
At the Cannes film festival on 15 May 1960, Antonioni presented his L'Avventura, a challenging and difficult film and a decisive break from his earlier work, replete with languorous spaces and silences. This was movie-modernism's difficult birth. The film was jeered so ferociously, so deafeningly, that poor Antonioni and his beautiful star Monica Vitti burst into tears where they sat. There...
- 9/27/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
In conjunction with La Furia Umana, Notebook is very happy to present Ted Fendt's original English translation of Luc Moullet's "Rockefeller's Melancholy," on Michelangelo Antonioni. Moullet's original French version can be found at La Furia Umana. Our special thanks to Mr. Moullet, La Furia Umana and Ted Fendt for making this possible.
Above: "John D. Rockefeller" (1917) by John Singer Sargent.
Drifting is the fundamental subject of Antonioni’s films. They are about beings who don’t know where they are going, who constantly contradict themselves, and are guided by their momentary impulses. We don’t understand what they feel or why they act as they do.
Psychological cinema could be defined in this way: it is psychological when you don’t understand the motivation of emotions and behaviors. If you understand, it means it’s easy, immediately, at a very superficial level... The filmmaker must therefore let it be...
Above: "John D. Rockefeller" (1917) by John Singer Sargent.
Drifting is the fundamental subject of Antonioni’s films. They are about beings who don’t know where they are going, who constantly contradict themselves, and are guided by their momentary impulses. We don’t understand what they feel or why they act as they do.
Psychological cinema could be defined in this way: it is psychological when you don’t understand the motivation of emotions and behaviors. If you understand, it means it’s easy, immediately, at a very superficial level... The filmmaker must therefore let it be...
- 4/2/2012
- MUBI
Le Signora Senza Camelie (aka The Lady Without Camelias) is about Clara Manni (Lucia Bose), a young woman form Milan who has come to Rome to become a movie star. Already appearing in a smaller film, film patrons have already been impressed with her good looks and elegant style but when it comes to the film industry itself, they don’t think she has the chops to truly be one of the greats. Ercole (Gino Cervi), a director, has hired Clara for his newest film, one that has many lovemaking scenes and she is to be in the middle of them. Enter the producer, Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), who isn’t too happy with that because he has planned to marry her and doesn’t want her on the big screen bedding men left and right.
The filming ultimately stops because Clara moves in with Gianni and doesn’t want...
The filming ultimately stops because Clara moves in with Gianni and doesn’t want...
- 6/18/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
A pair of recent releases from the always dependable Eureka imprint Masters of Cinema (re)introduce us to the 50s work of Michelangelo Antonioni, a filmmaker usually most closely associated with the 60s. The first is La Signora Senza Camelie, the behind the scenes tale of the rise and fall of an Italian actress, and the second is Le Amiche, an ensemble drama centred on a group of female friends in Turin.
La Signora Senza Camelie opens at night in Rome and Clara, played by the intoxicating Lucia Bose, is walking away, framed as a distant figure moving through the streets. She pauses before slowly entering a cinema which is playing host to the première of a musical melodrama of which she is the star. The screen is filled with Clara’s face, the close up on screen directly contrasting the lone figure we have just seen wandering towards the première.
La Signora Senza Camelie opens at night in Rome and Clara, played by the intoxicating Lucia Bose, is walking away, framed as a distant figure moving through the streets. She pauses before slowly entering a cinema which is playing host to the première of a musical melodrama of which she is the star. The screen is filled with Clara’s face, the close up on screen directly contrasting the lone figure we have just seen wandering towards the première.
- 4/15/2011
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
I can get everything Martin Lawrence has done and little Kubrick. The format of the home-cinema revolution seems lost
"Should I see it in the cinema or wait for the DVD?" That fairly loaded question is easily the most popular one people ask me about new films. I used to unequivocally answer that cinema was the best way to see any film, but these days, factoring in the high ticket cost, generally inconsiderate behaviour of audiences and the impressive quality of home cinema setups, I'm more than likely to amend it to "or possibly the Blu-ray".
When Blu-ray Discs (BDs for short) hit the market a few years back, it looked as if the format was intended to replace DVDs. I liked the unknown, frontier-territory aspect of releases, how random the titles were, as if they were at the beginning of the DVD revolution. For instance, you could get almost...
"Should I see it in the cinema or wait for the DVD?" That fairly loaded question is easily the most popular one people ask me about new films. I used to unequivocally answer that cinema was the best way to see any film, but these days, factoring in the high ticket cost, generally inconsiderate behaviour of audiences and the impressive quality of home cinema setups, I'm more than likely to amend it to "or possibly the Blu-ray".
When Blu-ray Discs (BDs for short) hit the market a few years back, it looked as if the format was intended to replace DVDs. I liked the unknown, frontier-territory aspect of releases, how random the titles were, as if they were at the beginning of the DVD revolution. For instance, you could get almost...
- 4/13/2011
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
(Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953; 1955, PG, Eureka!)
These invaluable additions to Eureka!'s admirable Masters of Cinema series help us understand the continuity between Michelangelo Antonioni's early work and what followed the controversial 1960 breakthrough of L'Avventura at Cannes. La signore senze camelie (The Lady Without Camelias) belongs in an important tradition of movies about the film industry (it was preceded and followed in Italy by Visconti's Bellissima and Fellini's Otto e mezzo) and stars Lucia Bosè as a movie star trapped between her culturally ambitious husband and her exploitative producers.
In Le Amiche (aka The Girlfriends), his first fully achieved masterpiece, the empathy for and attraction to women join a socialist critique of modern society as the dominant elements in Antonioni's work. Eleonora Rossi Drago plays a working-class beauty returning to her native Turin to open a branch of a Rome couturier. She becomes involved with four local women from the city's haute bourgeoisie and four weak,...
These invaluable additions to Eureka!'s admirable Masters of Cinema series help us understand the continuity between Michelangelo Antonioni's early work and what followed the controversial 1960 breakthrough of L'Avventura at Cannes. La signore senze camelie (The Lady Without Camelias) belongs in an important tradition of movies about the film industry (it was preceded and followed in Italy by Visconti's Bellissima and Fellini's Otto e mezzo) and stars Lucia Bosè as a movie star trapped between her culturally ambitious husband and her exploitative producers.
In Le Amiche (aka The Girlfriends), his first fully achieved masterpiece, the empathy for and attraction to women join a socialist critique of modern society as the dominant elements in Antonioni's work. Eleonora Rossi Drago plays a working-class beauty returning to her native Turin to open a branch of a Rome couturier. She becomes involved with four local women from the city's haute bourgeoisie and four weak,...
- 3/27/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1953 film, La Signora Senza Camelie (The Woman Without Camelias), tells the tale of a young actress who struggles against the overbearing men in her life and the confusion that arises from the direction her career takes.
Clara Manni (Lucia Bosè) is a young Milanese shop worker plucked from obscurity to work in pictures by an impulsive producer who also asks her to marry him when she’s at her most vulnerable. Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), her svengali-husband, suddenly turns into a control freak and only wants his wife to make classy movies. At the Venice Film Festival, where her latest film is screened, she meets a diplomat (Ivan Desny) and embarks on an affair believing she has sacrificed everything for “true love”.
Along with Antonioni’s 1955 Le Amiche (read the review here) La Signora Senza Camilie gets a digital polish and transfer on Blu-ray and DVD (both...
Clara Manni (Lucia Bosè) is a young Milanese shop worker plucked from obscurity to work in pictures by an impulsive producer who also asks her to marry him when she’s at her most vulnerable. Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), her svengali-husband, suddenly turns into a control freak and only wants his wife to make classy movies. At the Venice Film Festival, where her latest film is screened, she meets a diplomat (Ivan Desny) and embarks on an affair believing she has sacrificed everything for “true love”.
Along with Antonioni’s 1955 Le Amiche (read the review here) La Signora Senza Camilie gets a digital polish and transfer on Blu-ray and DVD (both...
- 3/20/2011
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
Eureka! are launching two Michelangelo Antonioni classics on dual playing Blu-ray and DVD through their Masters of Cinema label. The Italian director’s second feature film La Signora Senza Camelie and the later work, Le Amiche, will be released to buy from 21st March.
As with most Masters of Cinema titles they come with an excellent array of extra features for film lovers and students to pore over. Below are disc details for both pictures.
Synopsis La Signora Senza Camelie:
The second feature film by cinema master Michelangelo Antonioni, La signora senza camelie [The Lady Without Camelias], expanded the expressive palette of contemporary Italian movies, demonstrating that a personal vision could take an explicitly poetic tack; that “seriousness = neo-realism” was perhaps already turning into something of a truism; and that Antonioni would answer to no-one but himself.
It’s the story of a shopclerk named Clara (played by the captivating Lucia Bosé, also...
As with most Masters of Cinema titles they come with an excellent array of extra features for film lovers and students to pore over. Below are disc details for both pictures.
Synopsis La Signora Senza Camelie:
The second feature film by cinema master Michelangelo Antonioni, La signora senza camelie [The Lady Without Camelias], expanded the expressive palette of contemporary Italian movies, demonstrating that a personal vision could take an explicitly poetic tack; that “seriousness = neo-realism” was perhaps already turning into something of a truism; and that Antonioni would answer to no-one but himself.
It’s the story of a shopclerk named Clara (played by the captivating Lucia Bosé, also...
- 2/4/2011
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
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