L' Avventura [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs]

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Michelangelo Antonioni

Overview

The recipient of a special jury prize after being booed and mocked at the Cannes Film Festival, L'avventura quickly became one of the most significant yet polarizing European movies of the 1960s. Director Michelangelo Antonioni explores the emptiness and alienation of modern life as both the subject and the langorous style of his movies. In this film, a dissipated group of Italian aristocrats vacations on a remote island, where one of them, Anna (Lea Massari), disappears. Her lover Sandro (Gabrielle Ferzetti) conducts a search, together with her best friend Claudia (frequent Antonioni lead Monica Vitti). Eventually they give up the search, and we never discover why or how she disappeared. Meanwhile, Sandro and Claudia have fallen in love, but even this ardor proves desultory: by film's end, the lovers stand on opposite sides of the beach, staring blankly into the horizon. The recipient of a special jury prize after being booed and mocked at the Cannes Film Festival, L'avventura quickly became one of the most significant yet polarizing European movies of the 1960s. Director Michelangelo Antonioni explores the emptiness and alienation of modern life as both the subject and the langorous style of his movies. Here, as in La notte and L'eclisse, Antonioni is interested less in developing a logical story than in exploring states of feeling and breakdowns in human connection. Long a fixture of "ten best film" lists, L'avventura is also a must-see for viewers interested in artistic compositions that fully exploit a movie's space, color, and movement.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/04/2014
UPC:	0715515123815
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:23:00
Sales rank:	734

Special Features

Audio commentary featuring film historian Gene Youngblood; Olivier Assayas on "L'avventura," an analysis of the film in three parts; Antonioni: Documents and testimonials, a fifty-eight-minute documentary by Gianfranco Mingozzi from 1966; Writings by Director Michelangelo Antonioni, read by actor Jack Nicholson, plus Nicholson's personal recollections of the director; Trailer; Plus: an essay by critic Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Antonioni's statements about the film after its 1960 Cannes film festival premiere, an an open letter distributed at the festival

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Monica Vitti	Claudia
Gabriele Ferzetti	Sandro
Lea Massari	Anna
Dominique Blanchar	Giulia
James Addams	Corrado
Renzo Ricci	Anna's Father
Esmeralda Ruspoli	Princess Patrizia
Lelio Luttazzi	Raimondo
Dorothy De Poliolo	Gloria Perkins
Giovanni Petrucci	Young Prince Geoffredo
Angela Tommasi di Lampedusa	Actor
Enrico Bologna	Actor
Giovanni Danesi	Actor
Renato Pinciroli	Actor
Vincenzo Tranchina	Actor
Franco Cimino	Actor
Rita Mole	Actor
Giovanni Fusco	Composer

Technical Credits

Michelangelo Antonioni

Elio Bartolini

Tonino Guerra

Michelangelo Antonioni	Director,Screenwriter
Amato Pennasilico	Producer
Elio Bartolini	Screenwriter
Luciano Perugia	Producer
Tonino Guerra	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Avventura
1. Opening Credits [2:18]
2. The Old and The New World [2:09]
3. "Good-Bye Cruise" [1:34]
4. "Let Her Wait" [4:14]
5. "Shall We Swim?" [4:39]
6. "Shark!" [3:07]
7. "Which Shall I Wear?" [2:33]
8. "There's No Spark" [2:03]
9. "I Don't Feel You Anymore" [3:18]
10. "And Anna?" [11:50]
11. The Storm [4:16]
12. "You Love Anna" [6:48]
13. "An Ancient Vase" [4:05]
14. "Here's Anna's Father" [3:40]
15. "I'll Join You At The Montaldos" [3:03]
16. "And The Other Boat?" [2:59]
17. "When Will We See Each Other, Then?" [3:15]
18. "Come Away With Me" [5:15]
19. "My Name Is Gloria Perkins" [4:11]
20. "A Lovely Clinic For Nervous Disorders" [2:05]
21. "How Does It Look?" [2:38]
22. "I'd Make You a Beautiful Portrait" [4:51]
23. "I'm Not Coming" [2:09]
24. "Picture Of Marital Bliss" [4:14]
25. "It's Not a Town, It's A Cemetery" [6:33]
26. "A Can of Paint" [4:25]
27. "Shall We Get Married?" [4:22]
28. "I Was Twenty-Three Once" [6:17]
29. "I Feel As Though I Don't Know You" [3:41]
30. "A Sensible Childhood" [4:15]
31. "I'm Too Sleepy" [5:45]
32. "One...Two...Three..." [5:59]
33. "I'm Afraid Anna's Back" [3:07]
34. "A Small Souvenir" [2:24]
35. Conclusion [4:36]
1. Intros [2:18]
2. Imagery [2:09]
3. Interior Monologues [1:34]
4. Lady Montague's Apartment [4:14]
5. Cameo Roles [4:39]
6. Staying Afloat [3:07]
7. Exchanging Identities [2:33]
8. Caricature And Pathos [2:03]
9. Noncommunication [3:18]
10. Dead Times/Music [11:50]
11. Romance as Delusion [4:16]
12. Camera Work [6:48]
13. Antonioni's Background [4:05]
14. Interior Realism [3:40]
15. An Almost Silent Cinema [3:03]
16. Traditional Expectations [2:59]
17. Vitti and Antonioni [3:15]
18. Fall From Grace [5:15]
19. Caricature Scenes [4:11]
20. Princess Lampedusa [2:05]
21. The Question Of Identity [2:38]
22. Claudia's Witness Role [4:51]
23. Emotional Withdrawal [2:09]
24. Film Novel [4:14]
25. Composition [6:33]
26. Theatrical Device [4:25]
27. Exteriors and Characters [4:22]
28. Architectural Subtext [6:17]
29. Objective Correlative [3:41]
30. Women in Film [4:15]
31. The Trilogy [5:45]
32. Internal Deliberations [5:59]
33. The Mystery [3:07]
34. Empty Spaces [2:24]
35. A Dormant Volcano [4:36]
Disc #2 -- Avventura
1. Introduction/Titles [5:49]
2. Frieds from Ferrara [3:44]
3. Story of a Love Affair [4:50]
4. Francesco Rosi and I vinti [1:38]
5. The Lady Without Camelias [4:18]
6. Cesare Zavattini [3:36]
7. Le Amiche, Valentina Cortese [3:08]
8. Fellini [1:59]
9. Music [3:11]
10. L'avventura with Monica [6:44]
11. Cannes [2:01]
12. La notte [2:22]
13. The Color of Emotions [4:04]
14. Hiding Behind the Camera [5:32]
15. Antonioni and the Actor [2:00]
16. L'eclisse [3:08]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Avventura
   Play The Movie
   Chapters
      Color Bars
   Commentary
      Commentary: On/Off
         Commentary: On
         Commentary: Off
      Index
         Color Bars
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On/Off
         Subtitles: On
         Subtitles: Off
Disc #2 -- Avventura
   Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials
      Play
      Index
   Jack Nicholson Reads Essays by Antonioni
      "L'avventura: A Moral Adventure"
      "Reflections on the Film Actor"
      Working With Antonioni
   Olivier Assayas On L'avventura
      Play All
         The Empty Center
         Point Zero
         The Resolution
   Trailer
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On/Off
         Subtitles: On
         Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

Catcalls greeted its Cannes Film Festival premiere, but filmmakers and critics recognized the artistic importance of Michelangelo Antonioni's experiments with psychologizing film narrative, and L'avventura (1960) was awarded a special Jury Prize. Abandoning the kind of cause-and-effect plot line that might be expected in a film about the search for a missing woman, Antonioni instead sought to examine the barren inner lives of the postwar rich; the "adventure" is in the encounters between characters as they attempt and fail to make emotional connections. Limiting the audience's knowledge of Anna's disappearance to what Sandro and Claudia learn, and depicting screen actions in real time, Antonioni turns viewing the film into a direct experience of the initial excitement over the search and the waning of involvement as the effort becomes fruitless. Antonioni's carefully controlled deep focus widescreen compositions further communicate the characters' existential ennui and psychic disconnection from each other in evocatively barren environments. Bolstered by the Cannes experience, L'avventura became Antonioni's first worldwide success; released within a year of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1959), L'avventura helped announce a vital new era in international art cinema.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola