L'eclisse

Although not well-received by many critics upon its initial release in 1962, Michelangelo Antonioni's L'eclisse (Eclipse) has grown in reputation over the ensuing decades, and is now ranked among the director's most challenging masterworks. Completing a loose "trilogy of alienation" that began with L'avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961) and cemented Antonioni's status among the vanguard of European art-film directors in the early 1960s, L'eclisse is not easily described, as it defies all conventions of traditional plotting. As critic Jonathan Rosenbaum observes in his excellent mini-essay (one of several included in an accompanying booklet), the film consists almost entirely of "narrative drift" in its existential portrait of a young woman (played by Monica Vitti, the director's glamorous discovery and closest collaborator) who breaks off her engagement to pursue an affair with a Roman stock trader (Alain Delon). The lasting importance of L'eclisse lies not in the particulars of this ill-fated romance but rather in Antonioni's way of composing the story within a boldly modern landscape, presenting black-and-white images so photographically beautiful they could be framed and hung in a museum. Lending itself to endless analysis and scholarly interpretation, L'eclisse demands and receives in-depth examination in this two-disc Criterion set. Richard Peña (program director of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center) provides an astute and engaging audio commentary to back the beautifully-transferred film on the first disc, while the second disc offers a 56-minute Italian TV documentary about Antonioni's work and career (including many valuable comments from Antonioni himself), and a new 22-minute video featurette in which two noted Italian critics discuss L'eclisse and its ongoing importance. Highly recommended. (J. Shannon)