I’m toying with an idea of seeing Michelangelo Antonioni‘s L’Eclisse at the Walter Reade this coming Saturday (6.6) at 8:30 pm. I’ve seen it on Bluray three or four times, but never in a theatre. I know that the projected Walter Reade version can’t hope to match the Bluray quality, but I’m thinking it might be….I don’t know, haunting in a way I’ve never quite experienced.
There’s a social distancing element in this 1962 film that gets me every time. We’re all living in an L’Eclisse-like world…a numbing, vaguely gnawing sense of isolation…an atmosphere of existential stillness and solitude…a portrait of angst and alienation. The 1962 classic is the climax of Antonioni’s alienation trilogy, the first two films being L’Avventura and La Notte.
Consider this excellent assessment of the film and the Bluray by The Dissolve‘s Scott Tobias.
In his My Voyage to Italy documentary, Martin Scorsese describes how this film haunted and inspired him as a young moviegoer, noting it seemed to him a “step forward in storytelling” and “felt less like a story and more like a poem”. He adds that the ending is “a frightening way to end a film…but at the time it also felt liberating. The final seven minutes of Eclipse suggested to us that the possibilities in cinema were absolutely limitless”.
1962 was a great movie year…as vital and nourishing as 1939, 1971 and 1999, if not more so.
Here’s HE’s rundown of 1962 worthies: David Lean‘s Lawrence of Arabia, John Ford‘s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sam Peckinpah‘s Ride The High Country, Robert Aldrich‘s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bryan Forbes‘ The L-Shaped Room, Howard Hawks‘ Hatari, Francois Truffaut‘s Shoot The Piano Player, Francois Truffaut‘s Jules and Jim, Agnes Varda‘s Cleo From 5 to 7, Luis Bunuel‘s The Exterminating Angel (10)
Peter Ustinov‘s Billy Budd, the John Frankenheimer trio of Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate and All Fall Down, J. Lee Thompson‘s Cape Fear, George Seaton‘s The Counterfeit Traitor, Frank Perry‘s David and Lisa, the Blake Edwards‘ duo of Experiment in Terror and Days of Wine and Roses, Pietro Germi‘s Divorce, Italian Style. (10)
Stanley Kubrick‘s Lolita, the great Kirk Douglas western Lonely are the Brave, John Schlesinger‘s A Kind of Loving, Roman Polanski‘s Knife in the Water (released in the U.S. in ’63), Alain Resnais‘ Last Year at Marienbad, Michelangelo Antonioni‘s L’eclisse, Sidney Lumet‘s version of Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Otto Preminger‘s Advise and Consent, Terence Young‘s Dr. No, John Huston‘s Freud. (10)
Robert Mulligan‘s To Kill a Mockingbird, the internationally-directed The Longest Day, Arthur Penn‘s The Miracle Worker, Lewis Milestone‘s Mutiny on the Bounty, Jules Dassin‘s Phaedra, Don Siegel‘s Hell Is For Heroes, Ralph Nelson and Rod Serling‘s Requiem for a Heavyweight, Serge Bourguignon‘s Sundays and Cybele (a.k.a., Les dimanches de ville d’Avray), Richard Brooks‘ Sweet Bird of Youth, Samuel Fuller‘s Merrill’s Marauders. (10)
Orson Welles‘ The Trial, Vincente Minnelli‘s Two Weeks in Another Town, Denis Sanders‘ War Hunt (which costarred Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack), Philip Leacock‘s The War Lover, Masaki Kobayashi‘s Harikiri, Andre Konchalovsky Ivan’s Childhood, Gene Kelly‘s Gigot, Robert Wise‘s Two for the Seesaw, Herk Harvey‘s Carnival of Souls. (9)