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Information
- A.k.a.
- The Night
- Year
- 1961
- Runtime
- 122 min.
- Director
- Michelangelo Antonioni
- Genre
- Drama
- Rating *
- 8.0
- Votes *
- 11,106
- Checks
- 3,139
- Favs
- 384
- Dislikes
- 23
- Favs/checks
- 12.2% (1:8)
- Favs/dislikes
- 17:1
Top comments
-
Dieguito
Brilliant!! What a night! Great performance of Marcello Mastroianni, good speeches and the goddess Monica Vitti!! 9 years 2 months ago -
K.
Michelangelo Antonioni - "La notte is a story that goes back two years. Long ago, I had approached a producer about doing a film called Party. It was about what happened during a reception at a bourgeois home. I had been to a party of that type a short time earlier and had been struck by certain episodes, certain small incidents I had noted. Or, more specifically, apparently small, but not if you considered the significance they held for those who were their protagonists.
The film was not made. Perhaps that was for the best. I returned to the idea two years ago, but several successive drafts left me unsatisfied. Something was missing that I could not find.
Meanwhile, the idea for L’avventura came to me, and I threw myself into that film, body and soul.
Yet I was still obsessed by the other story, and I got back to work on it. I was unable to get enough distance from certain autobiographical aspects; I could not reinvent them.
The protagonist was a woman who could not be beautiful; I offered the part to Giulietta Masina. I went to meet her and told her my idea for the film. Fellini was there; he told me the film could be very beautiful. But I still wasn’t convinced. I got back to work.
One day, I finally understood what I had to do. A woman who wasn’t beautiful was a mistake because it limited the film’s meaning.
One could think that her lack of beauty might be the only reason her husband’s feelings for her came to an end. So I changed the character once again, while simultaneously giving the man’s role more weight. I also eliminated the characters that surrounded them. It was to be the story of a couple, more in depth, more precise psychologically. Finally, I liked the film, and I went to work to direct it.
One question I am often asked is why the women in my films are more lucid than the men. I was raised among women: my mother, my aunt, and lots of cousins. Then I got married, and my wife had five sisters. I have always lived among women; I know them very well.
Yet this is only the anecdotal aspect of my answer. Speaking for myself, I find that the feminine sensibility is a far more precise filter than any other to express what I have to say. In the realm of emotions, man is nearly always unable to feel reality as it exists. Having a tendency to dominate woman, he is tempted to hide some of her aspects from himself and see her as he wants her to be. There is nothing absolute in this area, but it seems to me that is at the heart of it.
I was already busy shooting La notte when I started rereading Thomas Mann’s On Marriage, in which the author of Death in Venice pays such a beautiful tribute to the love and steadfast devotion his wife surrounded him with throughout his life. It was then that I became convinced, once and for all, that I was on the right path, by thinking of the weight of masculine egotism implied by such a total abstraction of his wife’s personality to his own benefit.
Five or six years ago, the audience would have had difficulty tolerating a film like La notte. I am happy about the reception La notte has received, not only for me but for cinema in general. It means that something has changed. For the better." 3 years 1 month ago -
akuma587
Not as good as L'Eclisse, L'Avventura, or Red Desert, but certainly not a bad film. 9 years 3 months ago
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In 13 official lists
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This movie ranks #10 in Berlin International Film Festival - Golden Bear
Berlin International Fil…
10 -
This movie ranks #29 in Stanley Kubrick, Cinephile
Stanley Kubrick, Cinephi…
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This movie ranks #36 in IMDb's 1960s Top 50
IMDb's 1960s Top 50
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This movie ranks #47 in FilmTV's The Best Italian Films
FilmTV's The Best Italia…
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This movie ranks #92 in Eureka!'s The Masters of Cinema Series
Eureka!'s The Masters of…
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This movie ranks #153 in Roy Menarini's Il Grande Cinema Italiano
Roy Menarini's Il Grande…
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This movie ranks #239 in Sight & Sound's The Greatest Films of All Time
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This movie ranks #244 in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films
TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest F…
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This movie ranks #364 in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
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This movie ranks #382 in Amos Vogel's Film as a Subversive Art
Amos Vogel's Film as a S…
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This movie ranks #497 in Cahiers du Cinéma's Annual Top 10 Lists
Cahiers du Cinéma's Annu…
497 -
This movie ranks #588 in David Thomson's Have You Seen?
David Thomson's Have You…
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This movie ranks #785 in The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
785