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The groundwork is mainly from Ophüls (La Signora di Tutti), promptly Michelangelo Antonioni makes the terrain his own: The starlet (Lucia Bosé) strolls down a rain-slicked sidewalk and slips into a theater to catch the end of her own premiere, in the dark the project image floats above her like a soul about to leave a body. "What can I say, I like films full of passion." The shopgirl out of Milan and into Cinecittà, the placid center in a set swarming with harried technicians and garrulous producers and last-minute rewrites. Love scenes are verboten ever since her marriage to the filmmaker (Andrea Checchi), only serious roles from then on, their version of Joan of Arc is a pricey flop. Cold comfort comes from the diplomat too weak to prove his love (Ivan Desny), her vision of a great romance is to him just a fling with an actress. The mirage of "un filme artistico," an elusive sense of place. "Now with neorealism they shoot everywhere." Antonioni just about defines mise en scène in an impeccable early scene: A torrid kiss rehearsed on a bed in a corner of the studio, with off-screen murmurs ("La censura. La censura!") as the camera dollies in and turns the sketch into a fresco. Dream worlds created, dream worlds mocked. (The heroine and her lover discuss a future together amid ersatz columns and unfinished walls.) There's a difference between photographing surfaces and burrowing emotionally, says the veteran matinee idol (Alain Cuny), acting classes are recommended. Minnellian cocktail-party jokes amid somber shadows, a foretaste of Kazan's The Last Tycoon. "The world of cinema doesn't end here!" She reads Pirandello but must settle for Slave of the Pyramids, her first good performance is a teary smile for the publicity snapshot. With Gino Cervi, Monica Clay, and Anna Carena. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |