Criterion have long ensured that L’Eclisse remains in a good, accessible condition, but that certainly isn’t applicable for the big-screen experience. Excepting the chance that you live in an area housing a theater that just so happens to screen a print of the final, possibly greatest installment of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Rich People Can Be Existentially Broken, Too trilogy, almost all recent viewings have left fans to wallow in the barrenness of the Roman Stock Exchange by themselves.
That… is still the case for almost everywhere in the world, but Studio Canal are soon unveiling a sparkling (digital) restoration of the woozy masterpiece for U.K. audiences. Here, now, is a trailer for that release, and the film — radiant stars Monica Vitti and Alain Delon certainly included — look so good that I’m inclined to pick up the Blu-ray right now and drop all my afternoon plans. But there’s content to produce, so I leave it for you to view and, after, to read our essay on L’Eclisse‘s inimitable greatness.
Watch the preview below:
Synopsis:
Filmed in sumptuous black and white, and full of scenes of lush, strange beauty, it tells the story of Vittoria (the beautiful Monica Vitti – L’Avventura, La Notte, Red Desert – Antonioni’s partner at the time), a young woman who leaves her older lover (Francisco Rabal – Viridiana, The Holy Innocents, Goya in Bordeaux), then drifts into a relationship with a confident, ambitious young stockbroker (Alain Delon – Le Samourai, Rocco and his Brothers, Le Cercle Rouge). But this base narrative is the starting point for much, much more, including an analysis of the city as a place of estrangement and alienation and an implicit critique of colonialism.
Using the architecture of Rome – old and new – as a backdrop for this doomed affair, Antonioni achieves the apotheosis of his style in this return to the theme that preoccupied him the most: the difficulty of forming true connections amidst the meaninglessness of the modern world. The final shot remains one of the greatest endings in cinema. The film features stunning performances from two icons of 60s cinema: the seductive Monica Vitti and the elegant, chiseled Alain Delon.
L’Eclisse will return to U.K. theaters on August 28.