Michelangelo Antonioni - La signora senza camelie aka The Lady Without Camelias (1953)

Michelangelo Antonioni’s third full-length film is this cleverly updated version of Alexandre Dumas (fils)’s novel La Dame aux caméllias, with the central role of the prostitute replaced, tellingly, with that of an actress. Although somewhat lacking in emotional power (mainly on account of the generally subdued acting performances), the film’s beautiful black and white photography makes it a strangely mesmerising film. Along with his contemporaries, Fellini and Visconti, Antonioni sets new standards in filmmaking which would herald a major revival in Italian cinemas in the 1950s and 1960s, combining the visual power of the neo-realists with a classy modernity, tinged with a hint of cynicism.







If it lacks the final fusion of purposes characterizing a masterwork, La signora senza camelie is nevertheless so unmistakably and remarkably that work of a master that one is shocked to discover the rather cursory critical treatment is has generally been accorded. A frequent bone of contention is Lucia Bosè’s performance as the starlet in search of an identity –- recalling that the part was first offered, in turn, to Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren, and usually implying some difficulty in accepting Bosè as a persuasive Milanese-shopgirl-turned-sex-symbol [which, in fact, she was, after working in a bakery in her native city for a number of years, then winning the Miss Italia beauty contest in 1947]. Yet what strikes one at once today is how totally her cold, somewhat remote beauty establishes and “places” the tone of the film, clarifying her cosmic distance from the brassy world of popular filmmaking as well as the natural way in which she might become the goddess of such a realm. In anticipation of Godard’s Vivre sa vie, Antonioni brilliantly opens the film with an image of Clara seen from behind, as an anonymous pedestrian -– tracing her fingers across a move poster and then strolling down the street, the camera gliding slowly after her until she turns into the cinema entrance. When we cut to the auditorium as she joins the crowd inside, the first clear image that we have of any face in the film is the large one looming on the movie screen, which subsequently proves to be her own -– a succinct introduction to that discontinuity that registers with such cumulative force in the film’s final shot, when the capacity to smile for publicity photographs becomes the very token of her alienation and despair. Tracking back along the same street after the preview, Antonioni literally shows us the other side of the coin –- the bustling, fluctuating world of the movie-makers that contrasts so sharply with Clara’s static, lonely stance in relation to it. This fundamental dichotomy (and formal symmetry) permeates the entire film, which oscillates between the shifting centers of public events (filmmaking, premieres, “scandals”), where Wellesian permutations of stresses between foreground and background details continually redefine the space, and the relatively shallow stasis of more private moods and events, where figures and settings seem locked together (even if estranged and isolated) in the desolation of frozen space. Antonioni’s genius for composing a scene manifests itself most strikingly here in his choreography of crowds and mobile camera; as instructive and hilarious satire, the movie-making sequences compare quite favorably to those in La Nuit Américaine (which depends more for its effects on isolated gags and various kinds of borrowed rhetoric, such as the use of Baroque music), while the more attenuated “intimate” scenes –- characteristically matched with the mulish plaintiveness of the Marcel Mule Saxophone Quintet, and closer to the style of Antonioni’s subsequent films -– tend to veer more towards the mannerist trappings of “tone poems”. But all the best scenes combine both sides of this dialectic: the return of Clara (imperious and passive) and Gianni (angry and volatile) from their honeymoon plays against both the spirited, interlocking frenzy of the waiting producer and film crew and the solitary distress of Clara’s stand-in, weeping and forgotten in a corner at the scene’s close; the long conversations between Clara and Nardo in the wintry wastes of exterior sets at the studio is effectively counterpointed throughout by the evidence of activity around them. Handicapped somewhat by its episodic structure, which requires some top-heavy narrative exposition at the outset of each segment, The Lady Without Camelias still impresses through its annexation of an all-too-familiar theme to the personal and singular style of its director, with Bosè figuring grandly and mysteriously as both the pivotal point and the troubled center of a densely created universe. (Jonathan Rosenbaum)







La señora sin camelias
La película centra su radio de acción en el repentino lanzamiento cinematográfico que vive una joven empleada de una tienda de telas –Clara Manni (Lucia Bosé)-, a partir de su breve presencia en un film que le llevará a protagonizar una posterior película de consumo, que finalmente abandonará al casarse con uno de los productores del film –Gianni (Andrea Checchi)-. Este es un hombre maduro y al mismo tiempo bastante posesivo, que desea que la joven abandone el mundillo cinematográfico, dominado por los celos que le produce tener compartir un ser tan hermoso. Hasta tal punto llega esta obsesión, que llega a dirigir una película protagonizada por ella, basada en la vida de Juana de Arco, que se convierte en un enorme fracaso tras su presentación en el Festival de Venecia. Mortificada al conocer el alcance de este batacazo, Clara huirá del dominio de su esposo y mantendrá un romance con Nardo (Ivan Desny), un hombre bastante extraño que ejerce como cónsul, y que en el fondo y con maneras más sibilinas, no es más que la reedición de esa utilización que su mismo marido pretende con ella... (thecinema.blogia.com)





Clara Manni, ex commessa diventata una divetta del cinema commerciale, sposa con riluttanza un produttore al quale chiede di poter interpretare un film su Giovanna d'Arco. Il film è un fiasco che mette in difficoltà finanziarie il marito. Allora, per aiutarlo a risollevarsi, prende parte a un film mediocre ma redditizio, e divorzia. 2° lungometraggio di M. Antonioni che riesce soltanto in parte a descrivere il mondo del cinema, analizzandone la mercificazione, la precarietà, il mediocre cinismo. Lo schema narrativo è ancora melodrammatico, ma sono le decantazioni, le diramazioni, i prolungamenti, i modi di costruzione dell'inquadratura, gli sfondi figurativi che contano. È una tipica opera di transizione tra il vecchio e il nuovo.





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