La Notte

 La Notte is the story of Giovanni and Lidia, a couple whose marriage rapidly disintegrates over the course of 24 hours. Giovanni is a handsome, intelligent, successful author played by Marcello Mastroianni, and, just like in Fellini’s 8 ½, represents “the Latin Lover.” Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) is the typical Latin Lover wife, a woman who tries to “rebel against, but ultimately succumbs to, his whip.” (page 334). Meanwhile, Valentina (Monica Vitti) is the beauty that catches Giovanni’s eye and forces him into his usual pattern of infidelity. In keeping with L’Avventura, Antonioni’s previous film, Monica Vitti, is not a main character at the beginning of the film, but by the end is clearly dominant. Though Giovanni tries to convince Lidia that he still loves her, she has already fallen out of love with him and so the marriage dies in a dusty sand dune.

One of the main themes in Antonioni's, La Notte, is mirror images. One of the very first images we are presented with is a reflection of Milan. The fact that the camera is descending down a skyscraper rather than ascending up it, suggests decay, as if the building is being deconstructed. This reflects the decaying marriage of Giovanni and Lidia. Furthermore, Antonioni may be implying his views on modernism since Milan represents a fast paced, industrial city. He may feel that the city reflects a cultural need to create progress and yet the deconstructed skyscraper may be interpreted as a loss of progress. Therefore, perhaps modernism is a forward movement with a backwards outcome; a movement towards destruction. The more we try to innovate, improve, and advance, the more we devastate.

Milan as the reflection of  modernism

A second example of the mirror image theme is the relationship between Giovanni and his good friend Tomaso. Tomaso may be Gioavanni’s alter ego: a physical reflection of Giovanni’s psychological struggle. Lying in the hospital, Tomaso is struggling with death, while Giovanni is struggling to live. He seems out of touch with his writing (similar to his directing in 8 ½) and he is also out of touch with his wife Lidia. So, while Tomaso is deteriorating physically, Giovanni is weakening mentally as an individual, and as one half of a marriage.

Tomaso as the reflection of Giovanni's struggle

A third example is Valentina, who Antonioni introduces with mirror play as seen in the image below. Not only is there a reflection in the window, but as Giovanni pursues her, we discover she may actually be his mirror image. She is the mirror image of Giovanni in a way a wife never could be; The closer he gets to obtaining her, the closer he gets to his own reflection in the mirror, which requires a closer reflection of himself and his choices. It seems he will never actually be with Valentina because winning her would reflect his success as a man but his failure as a husband and this creates some sort of cognitive dissonance that he is unable to live with. Therefore, he is reduced to neither being truly in love with Lidia, nor truly in love with Valentina.

Valentina as the reflection of Giovanni's downfall

Reference

Italian Film by Marcia Landy