278 L'eclisse
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278 L'eclisse
L'eclisse
The concluding chapter of Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal trilogy on contemporary malaise (following L’avventura and La notte), L’eclisse (The Eclipse) tells the story of a young woman (Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal) and drifts into a relationship with another (Alain Delon). Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the doomed affair, Antonioni achieves the apotheosis of his style in this return to the theme that preoccupied him the most: the difficulty of connection in an alienating modern world.
Disc Features
• New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary by film scholar Richard Peña, former program director of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center
• Michelangelo Antonioni: The Eye That Changed Cinema (2001), a fifty-six-minute documentary exploring the director’s life and career
• Elements of Landscape, a twenty-two-minute piece from 2005 about Antonioni and L’eclisse, featuring Italian film critic Adriano Aprà and longtime Antonioni friend Carlo di Carlo
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum and Gilberto Perez, as well as excerpts from Antonioni’s writing about his work
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The concluding chapter of Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal trilogy on contemporary malaise (following L’avventura and La notte), L’eclisse (The Eclipse) tells the story of a young woman (Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal) and drifts into a relationship with another (Alain Delon). Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the doomed affair, Antonioni achieves the apotheosis of his style in this return to the theme that preoccupied him the most: the difficulty of connection in an alienating modern world.
Disc Features
• New, restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary by film scholar Richard Peña, former program director of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center
• Michelangelo Antonioni: The Eye That Changed Cinema (2001), a fifty-six-minute documentary exploring the director’s life and career
• Elements of Landscape, a twenty-two-minute piece from 2005 about Antonioni and L’eclisse, featuring Italian film critic Adriano Aprà and longtime Antonioni friend Carlo di Carlo
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum and Gilberto Perez, as well as excerpts from Antonioni’s writing about his work
Dual-Format
Criterionforum.org user rating averages
Feature currently disabled
DVD
Criterionforum.org user rating averages
Feature currently disabled
Last edited by Martha on Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.
- ellipsis7
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
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I've been waiting for this one for a long time... The blurb seems to imply that the 'informal trilogy on modern malaise' might be completed with a future CC release of LA NOTTE... Let's keep fingers crossed...
MA: THE EYE THAT CHANGED CINEMA docu - I wonder where this comes from?
And I answer my own question...
MA: THE EYE THAT CHANGED CINEMA docu - I wonder where this comes from?
And I answer my own question...
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI - A VISION THAT CHANGED CINEMA (2001)
ITALY
A tribute to film maker Michelangelo Antonioni and his films as from vast material on file preserved by the RAI library, gathered from television and radio. The film is structured in chronological order and follows the steps of the director in the most important times of his life, from his first neo-realistic documentaries to the Oscar for his contribution to the history of cinema in 1993. Between these two extremes, we see him making his celebrated films, his encounter with censorship in The Vanquished, his disillusion after the preview of The Adventure, the Gold Palm for Blow-up, the American experience in Zabriskie Point, the stroke that made it impossible for him to work for many years and, finally, the long-awaited return in Beyond the Clouds. His film biography includes statements by Tonino Guerra, Monica Vitti, and Enrica Antonioni.
director
SANDRO LAI
production company
RAI CINEMA - Piazza Adriana 12 00193 Roma, Italy - Tel: 39 06 684 701 Fax: 39 06 687 2015.
world sales
RAI TRADE - Via Umberto Novaro, 18 - 00195 Rome -Italy - Tel:0039 06 37 498473 - sottile@raitrade.it
55 minutos minutos
Col, Black and white
- GringoTex
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- ellipsis7
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Not so hot - it's early Fox Lorber - non anamorphic widescreen, with not fantastic resolution, flatness and a pretty poor transfer and ragged source print. There are no extras either.
L'AVVENTURA was a classically great picture quality CC release, and I agree that the glimpses of L'ECLISSE on Scorsese's MY VOYAGE ITALY give an idea of the kind of luminous quality and detailed resolution that we can expect on the upcoming CC release...
The Fox Lorber LA NOTTE DVD is better than nothing at all, but a CC release for it would be a million times better... It would do justice to the film, which Fox Lorber does not!
RED DESERT, also OOP and originally on Image DVD, would also benefit greatly from the CC treatment to give a proper presentation of Antonioni's first colour film, and the incredible way in which he manipulates it...
Footnote: most bizarre is watching the what MA did with the colour grading of the video MYSTERY OF OBERWALD on NTSC VHS being coverted into PAL...
L'AVVENTURA was a classically great picture quality CC release, and I agree that the glimpses of L'ECLISSE on Scorsese's MY VOYAGE ITALY give an idea of the kind of luminous quality and detailed resolution that we can expect on the upcoming CC release...
The Fox Lorber LA NOTTE DVD is better than nothing at all, but a CC release for it would be a million times better... It would do justice to the film, which Fox Lorber does not!
RED DESERT, also OOP and originally on Image DVD, would also benefit greatly from the CC treatment to give a proper presentation of Antonioni's first colour film, and the incredible way in which he manipulates it...
Footnote: most bizarre is watching the what MA did with the colour grading of the video MYSTERY OF OBERWALD on NTSC VHS being coverted into PAL...
- Lino
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- David
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 6:05 am
I've always had a really hard time with the male characters in Antonioni's films, especially L'Eclisse. I sat through the whole movie hoping nothing would develop between Delon and Monica Vitti.
In my eyes many of the female characters in Antonioni's movies is trapped in a patriachal society and is trying to escape from the men ( perfectly illustrated both on the cover and also the opening scene in the film).
I've never read anything about this aspect anywhere, which seems very odd to me.
EDIT:
Reading through this post now, I'm really ashmed how over-simplified this was. What I was trying to say had to do more with the main problems often discussed about Antonioni’s films – the shallowness of society, of relationships and lack of communication etc... In this he often uses women as protagonists, because I think he personally feels they are closer to their feelings and are more aware of the problems the suffer from. While men, on the other side, easier take refuge in sex, shallow relationships etc...Not that this behavior is decided by nature, but because they are trapped in constructed roles, given by their culture
In my eyes many of the female characters in Antonioni's movies is trapped in a patriachal society and is trying to escape from the men ( perfectly illustrated both on the cover and also the opening scene in the film).
I've never read anything about this aspect anywhere, which seems very odd to me.
EDIT:
Reading through this post now, I'm really ashmed how over-simplified this was. What I was trying to say had to do more with the main problems often discussed about Antonioni’s films – the shallowness of society, of relationships and lack of communication etc... In this he often uses women as protagonists, because I think he personally feels they are closer to their feelings and are more aware of the problems the suffer from. While men, on the other side, easier take refuge in sex, shallow relationships etc...Not that this behavior is decided by nature, but because they are trapped in constructed roles, given by their culture
Last edited by David on Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:47 am, edited 5 times in total.
- ellipsis7
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Everything about this set looks awesome. It looks like one of Criterion's finest hours.
I love Antonioni's films and have been checking out a lot of Alain Delon recently (managed to get the French edition of Le Samourai) so this one was a no-brainer.
I doesn't look like we're going to see The Passenger any time soon, so I picked up a DVD-r of it recently that is from the Japanese letterboxed Laserdisc and looks pretty good.
Is the R1 of The Red Desert really as bad as people say it is or should I wait for a better edition?
I love Antonioni's films and have been checking out a lot of Alain Delon recently (managed to get the French edition of Le Samourai) so this one was a no-brainer.
I doesn't look like we're going to see The Passenger any time soon, so I picked up a DVD-r of it recently that is from the Japanese letterboxed Laserdisc and looks pretty good.
Is the R1 of The Red Desert really as bad as people say it is or should I wait for a better edition?