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Monica Vitti
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The high priestess of frosty sensuality, Italian actress Monica Vitti was trained at Rome's National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upon her graduation, she immediately launched her professional stage career; in 1954, she made her first film, Ettore Scola's Ridere Ridere Ridere. Most of Vitti's late-'50s film appearances were inconsequential compared to her portrayal of the remote, uninvolved leading lady in Michelangelo Antonioni's prize-winning L'Avventura (1960).
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The high priestess of frosty sensuality, Italian actress Monica Vitti was trained at Rome's National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upon her graduation, she immediately launched her professional stage career; in 1954, she made her first film, Ettore Scola's Ridere Ridere Ridere. Most of Vitti's...Read More
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Monica Vitti is best known for her representation of the macho Italian version of woman in many of director Antonioni's films, but it must be said that he manipulated her performances with a callow disregard for human integrity. In the director's great trilogy, Vitti appears as the molded woman, not only in the cinematography but ... in the narrative. In L'avventura she replaces the first woman of Sandro, the male lead. For all his intellectual Weltschmerz, Sandro has the same attitude toward women as that of any bravo hanging out in the square of any Italian village. He, not she, has the luxury of promiscuity and its subsequent guilt. In the last scene, the Vitti persona forgives the repentant lover like some Florentine Madonna—wistful and melancholy, yet always accepting.
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A young, mentally distressed woman, Giuliana (Monica Vitti), has attempted to take her life. Although she is married to Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), a plant director, and has a young son, she feels estranged from her relatives and disconnected from the world that surrounds her. She does not know how to connect to it and feels that something is terribly wrong. Ugo's friend Zeller (Richard Harris), who came to Ravenna to make a business deal, pursues her attracted by her beauty and enigma. He begins to understand her troubles better than her preoccupied husband, but it is still not enough.
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Slow, languid shots of blonde Monica Vitti as she strolls through an empty Italian marketplace. Remarkable closeups of the stunning Alain Delon. Breathtaking black and white overheads of the mesmerising Italian landscapes and Roman architecture.
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Monica Vitti is badly miscast. The role of Modesty Blaise requires someone who can move with a lithe, dangerous grace while ... suggesting an eminent desirability. Unfortunately Monica Vitti is blonde (for the most part) and comes with a thick Italian accent. She seems to spend almost the entire film lounging about and languidly pouting, giving the impression that she would rather be eating chocolates while being groomed. She suggests nothing of a bright thief who is two steps ahead of the game. And most of all she is utterly useless when it comes to the action scenes, which Joseph Losey appearsto have directed without any interest in using stunt doubles.
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Monica Vitti