Cinema: The Body of This Death

The Night (Lopert) begins at noon. In brilliant sunshine, silently, from the summit of a glittering skyscraper, from the zenith of man's pride and material achievement, the camera descends relentlessly into the convenient hell of a meaningless marriage, into a dark and joyless night of the contemporary soul imagined with monstrous art by Michelangelo Antonioni, the somber master of cinema who made L'Avventura (TIME, April 7).

In the first scene of the movie, a well-known Italian writer (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife (Jeanne Moreau) arrive at a hospital in Milan to visit a...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!