It’s hard to watch Michelangelo Antonioni’s fifties films without
looking for clues based on familiarity with his iconic sixties’ quintet. Sure
enough, there are plenty of long takes, designed in part to prevent studio
cuts, and a focus on identity as post-war humanity struggles to assert itself
among clinical modernity.
The opening sees a young woman walking hesitatingly
towards a cinema down a darkened Roman street in order to see the reaction to
her first film, a former shop girl she has been talent spotted and placed in a
crowd-pleasing film for which she will be the main attraction.
The story is a lot more narratively specific and
conventional than his later work but still devastates at the end with Lucia
Bosé’s character, Clara Manni, caught in the trap of being defined only by her looks
and limited expectations both as an actress and a woman. It’s a
thought-provoking and painful with the film a carefully-structured space in
which our expectations meet in discomforting collision – an end result that
makes for a highly watchable experience in an age when these issues are still
to the fore.
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| Clara edges towards the cinema to see her success... |
At one point Clara’s husband, Gianni Franchi (Andrea
Checchi), decides she should stop making popular entertainment and star in his
film about Joan of Arc… she hasn’t the skill and one audience member decries, “…how could she, after Falconetti and
Bergman…?” – good to see the reference to one of the great silent
performances of the former in Dreyer’s Passion
of Joan... But Clara’s Joan is hollow without the guile or skill to
resonate beyond situation and she’s trapped between being an unwilling wife to
a controlling husband and the freedom she deserves.
Their house is a cage, a claustrophobic matrix of
undulating angles that frame Clara’s conversations with Gianni as much as it
defines his rigid view of their marriage and his wife. He set his sights on the
young actress shortly after she shot to fame and his single-minded pursuit ends
with him ambushing Clara with a proposal in front of her parents.
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| Not for the last time a man and a woman fail to connect for Antonioni |
But it’s hard to know where the hollow objectification of
Clara ends and her own vacuity begins which is exactly on point for
Michelangelo in his pomp. This doesn’t make Clara an unlikable character just
one who is part of the director’s design as much as her home and nor does it
indicate any lack of sympathy on his part; after all, no one has really
encouraged her to think deeply about anything. Even that sounds harsh but it’s
not meant to be and she’s not alone in a film in which everyone is concerned
with the surface. That ending does indicate Clara’s awakening and in that there’s
hope.
Clara’s lack of camelias is a period reference to
Alexandre Dumas’ much-filmed novel The
Lady of the Camellias in which a beautiful courtesan has an affair with a
penniless writer who is persuaded to leave her in order to marry a more
suitable woman. The camelias originally referred to flowers worn to indicate
the lady’s availability to lovers (broadly speaking….) and so a lack of them
presumably means that Clara’s signalling is obscured and she certainly lacks the
clear signalling she needs to define herself. But Antonioni always leaves work
for his audience to do and makes sure there is an engaging amount of evidence
on screen.
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| Clara imprissoned by Gianni's desire and ambition |
Lucia Bosé is excellent and had already proved herself to
the director in his first feature, Story
of a Love Affair and here the story mirrors her own rise from bakery to film
stardom. She has the looks but also the acting style required to give us
exactly what her director expects – restrained naturalism that merely presents more
clues in the bigger picture encompassing mise en scène, camerawork and
architecture. With Antonioni the sum is always greater than the parts,
literally, which might give some grounds for those who might see it as lacking in
passion but you can't have everything.
There is so much to see and the search for meaning is
usually worth it. As Gianni pulls her from the film she is making on the
grounds of its sexual content, their friend, the director Ercole (Gino Cervi),
sweeps into their labyrinthine and pretentious house to confront her
recalcitrant husband, almost hidden within, secure of his position and prize.
As the director leaves in frustration Clara is framed by the diagonal lines of
the glass and steel stairs.
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| Joan lacks passion, Clara walks away from the truth... |
After their Joan film fails at Venice, Clara’s actions are
the reverse of the opening sequence as she runs away from the cinema in despair as the jeers and laughter follow
her. She is “rescued” by a diplomat, Bernardo Rusconi (Ivan Desny), and he
sweet talks her on a trip from the Lido to the main city. At first resistant
Clara accepts his offer of escape and leaves Gianni only to find he’s only really interested in one thing and it’s
not commitment. There’s another fantastic single take in the apartment when he
rings just as Gianni and Ercole walk off behind her, by the time they have
rounded the balcony and descended the stairs, she’s slumped in her chair, for
all the world suspended in mid-air, paralysed by conflicted opportunity.
Clara seeks advice from the veteran actor on her first
film, Lodi (Alain Cuny), who speaks the most honestly of any of the men when
she asks should she try to become a proper actress and study. It’s the only
route forwards in a world were patronage and box office drive friendship… and one
where whatever doors are opened by a pretty face slam shut soon after entry.
The film was screened as part of the BFI’s Antonioni
season which includes all the director’s major works as well as his debut –
full details on the institute’s website. I’ve just watched La Notte on the big screen for the first time and it was so full of
the promises made in this earlier film – Marcello Mastroianni writer in crisis
is every bit the nephew of the misunderstanding Gianni and Jeanne Moreau’s
thoughts fill the screen always within Antonioni’s surprising angles and all-consuming
architecture.
Geoff Andrew who programmed the Antonioni season and who
presented an overview of his work in a fascinating talk this week, admires the
director’s work for its formal innovation and intellectual engagement even if
he does not have for him the emotional resonance of Bergman, for whom Andrew
programmed last year’s season. Of this film he observed that whilst it was a deft
and gently satirical portrait of the Italian film industry the story contains
what would become common themes with men who are often arrogant and feckless and
women who are understandably bored and frustrated by the lack of sincere
connection.
There’s a lot more of this to come so please check out the BFI website and watch these films in their proper context.
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| Drama in the spaces between the characters |
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| Clara is left floating between possibilities |
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