La Notte at Night

As I mentioned the other day, I watched Antonioni's La Notte for the first time.  I was struck how the first half of the film really focuses on exterior shots of the city.  There are a few shots of Mastroianni looking out at other apartment dwellers that could almost have been lifted from Rear Window, though the film has far more similarities to La Dolce Vita (and apparently Antonioni did refine the concept of La Notte, specifically some aspects of Moreau's character, after talking with Fellini).  It just happens to be set in Milan rather than Rome.

I did think there were even some flashes of Tati's Playtime in the early hospital sequence and then the way glass reflected things differently at different times and Mastroianni being surrounded by copies of his own book at the book launch party (though since Playtime came out in 1967 the influence ran the other way...).

While the film isn't exactly uplifting, I found it visually gripping.  The Criterion DVD (and later Blu-Ray) has an overview of the film, which I didn't watch, and a visual essay on the role of architecture in the film, which I did watch, though I was probably half asleep.

I was hoping to see if there were any notes on interior design, specifically if this painting from the couple's apartment is a reproduction or a painting created for this film.

It's not an amazing painting, but it is an interesting one, and I would like to at least track down the artist who painted it.  I believe it is supposed to be a dead woman fallen out of her tomb, but it is hard to tell between the image quality and the fact it is black and white rather than in color.  I did a Google image search, but it wasn't able to find a reasonable match (one of the few times Google has come up completely short).  If I have the time, I'll see if I can do a more thorough search on Antonioni and artists when I am at the library.  (I suppose I could try to throw it up on Reddit, but I don't want to make an account just for this.)  If you do have any insights or ideas, do let me know in the chat.

As I also mentioned earlier, I have finally made it most of the way through his films (and certainly the more important ones).  I saw Blow-Up at the Paradise (and thought it was interesting though I found the ending a huge let down in its refusal to resolve any aspect of the central mystery).  I'm seeing L'Avventura in about a week over at the Revue, and I did track down proof that I saw Red Desert in Vancouver.  I'm pretty sure I saw L'Eclisse in the theatre somewhere, most likely Vancouver or possibly Chicago, but I did borrow a copy from Robarts, so I can be sure.  I'll get around to watching The Passenger and Zabreski Point one of these days, but they don't seem like something I would watch more than once.

There was a reasonably inexpensive Region B Blu-ray, and I decided to take the plunge.  I'll wait a few months and then see how it holds up on a second viewing.  I do hope at some point it turns up at the Paradise or the Revue (the two most likely places that would show it).