February 19, 1962
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, a key player in the European New Wave, follows up his international breakthrough film L’Avventura (1960), with LA NOTTE, opening in New York City on this date. This study of a married couple (Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau) coping with the death of love and modern despair, divided critics at the time. Emerging critic Pauline Kael found the film, costarring Monica Vitti, wearying and full of arty pretensions, and disconnected with Antonioni’s fracturing of time and space.
Kael probably would not have liked a 2015 homage, By the Sea, either. Directed by Angelina Jolie, and costarring with then-husband Brad Pitt as a married couple trying to repair their marriage, that film was box-office flop. La Notte, which was a ’62 art-house hit for Antonioni, would also find 21st century critical admirers. In a 2017 revival, the Los Angeles Times touted him as a master filmmaker who “created a potent new language for storytelling.”
