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Features: DVD, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Mono Audio, Black & White
The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni's informal trilogy on modern malaise, which began with L'avventura, L'eclisse (The Eclipse) tells the story of a young woman (Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal) only to drift into a relationship with another (Alain Delon). Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the couple's doomed affair, Antonioni reaches the apotheosis of his modernist style, returning to his favorite themes: alienation and the difficulty of finding connections in an increasingly mechanized world.
Editor's Note
Michaelangelo Antonioni's L'ECLISSE (ECLIPSE) is a visually stunning film with a strange, abstract plotline. Monica Vitti stars as Vittoria, a beautiful woman who, in the opening scene of the movie, dumps her boring boyfriend Riccardo (Francisco Rabal). Vittoria's mother (Lilla Brignone) passes her time at the stock exchange, watching the numbers rise and fall as if her whole life depends on the next high or low. In contrast, Vittoria wanders the streets of the city unhindered, dreaming, floating independently and waiting for whatever fate befalls her. She begins an affair with a powerful, handsome, emotionally vacant stockbroker, Piero (Alain Delon). Their relationship is fun, flirtatious, risky, and dangerous all at once--but mostly, it is an expression of true human affection, which the other characters in L'ECLISSE seem to lack. However, the plot of L'ECLISSE is hardly Antonioni's focus. As sweeping pans of the calm, dusty streets mix with the intense cacophony of the stock exchange, the director compares and contrasts the structure of city life with the still, silent aspects of a more natural environment, observing society's evolution into a technological monolith. L'ECLISSE is part of a trilogy of Antonioni films, along with LA NOTTE and L'AVVENTURA.
| Features | Audio Commentary | | Audio: Italian Dolby Digital Mono | | Interactive Menus | | Michelangelo Antonioni: The Eye That Changed Cinema Documentary | | New Essays By Film Critics Jonathan Rosenbaum And Gilberto Perez | | Newly Restored High-Definition Transfer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English | | The Sickness Of Eros, A New Video Piece About Antonioni And L'eclisse |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Home Vision/Public Media |
| Release Date: 3/15/2005 |
| Running Time: 125 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1962 | | Catalog ID: 020 | | UPC: 00037429202623 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Italian | | Available Audio Tracks: Italian | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Cannes (1962) |  | Winner, Jury Prize | | Michelangelo Antonioni, Winner, Jury Prize |
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| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"[I]t's Vitti's and Delon's performances that make it possible to keep watching as the film paints an increasingly bleak but beautiful picture of modern life." 03/18/2005 p.50-51Film Comment
"[A] touching artifact, capturing the last gasp of modernism before contemporary malaise would be swept up into the great postmodern maelstrom known as the society of the spectacle." 03/01/2005 p.78 Premiere
"[A]bsolutely breathtaking..." 05/01/2005 p.110 Sight and Sound
"[A]rguably Antonioni's best....It's the film's stillness and precision that lingers in the memory..." 05/01/2005 p.83 Uncut
"At the very least as influential as LA DOLCE VITA. Mind-blowing." 07/01/2005 p.132 |
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