La Notte

In the opening scenes Giovanni Pontano, played by the young and brilliant Marcello Mastroianni, and his wife Lidia, portrayed by the great french actress Jeanne Moreau, visit a friend in the hospital and learn that he is dying. Lidia's discomfort is palpable as she moves about the room restlessly and hardly says anything. At last, she excuses herself and leaves the room and the hospital. The patient, a writer as is Giovanni, discusses Giovanni's new book. The patient has read fifty pages and hopes to finish the book before he dies. We sense that Giovanni is more interested in his friend's critical appreciation of his book than he is concerned about the health of the dying man.

This self-centeredness of Giovanni is confirmed when he leaves his friend to join Lidia. A disturbed young and attractive woman patient at the hospital, whom Giovanni had met briefly before visiting his friend, approaches Giovanni again and makes sexual advances toward him. The pair move quickly to the young woman's hospital room where they squirm about briefly on her bed before being interrupted by two nurses who are aware of the young woman's habits and tendencies.

When Giovanni meets Lidia outside the hospital he confesses to her, as they drive away in their car, what has happened. In this scene we get a sense of the history of this troubled couple. Giovanni is the worst sort of womanizer; that is, he is the kind who feels compelled to tell his wife of his various sexual escapades. She knows him better than he knows himself and passes off lightly what she has been told. Much of what happens later in the film is foreshadowed by the hospital visit and discussion in the car.

From the hospital Giovanni and Lidia return to their apartment and seem restless. They have been invited to the party of a rich industrialist, they decide not to go, and then change their minds while having drinks at a nightclub.

At the party Giovanni immediately is attracted to the industrialist's eighteen year old daughter Valentina, played well by Monica Vitti. Valentina is not only beautiful, but also provocative. She exudes energy and excitement and Giovanni is drawn irrestibly to her even though his actions can be seen by Lidia, who has finally arrived at her breaking point. She is used up and burned out. It appears as if her marriage is over, but La Notte only leaves us with appearances. The film may be over, but the troubled marriage may struggle on.

La Notte is not a story in a traditional sense, but more a series of episodes that take us deeper into the lives of Giovanni and Lidia. Mastroianni and Moreau are talented actors, as is Vitti, and Antonioni's direction is superb, down to the last small detail. Taking our eyes off the screen even for a minute is a mistake. Of course, having the DVD gives us the advantage of being able to go back and pick up some of the details we might have missed.

Those viewers who enjoy La Notte are almost certain to want to see Antonioni's masterpiece, L'Aventura, filmed a year earlier in 1960. Both of these early films of the master demonstrate Antonioni's immense skill as a filmmaker. The art and craft of moviemaking has been advanced under Antonioni's capable direction.