La notte

“La notte. I actually only saw this film recently. I was in Italy. I got married there, and then I took a honeymoon around some islands in Sicily, and I was like, “Okay, we have to watch something Italian.” So we watched this. And I think the thing that struck me the most about this film was how unafraid of beauty it is. I think this film is so sumptuous and that is something that I feel people are a little bit afraid of these days, to really film something that is just so fucking gorgeous. I...”

“La notte by Antonioni. So, Antonioni is, in fact, the filmmaker that brought me to cinema, the director that captured the best the senselessness of society, of the industrial society and, at the same time, the loss of identity that ensued, you know, after that. And La notte has the seeds of what was going to be later Blow-Up and The Passenger. The pillars of an extraordinary director.”

“Lot of Michelangelo Antonioni., it was one of my favorite of his film actually and I remember watching it on the screen on the big screen last time in '90s again in San Francisco Cinema Tech and he was visiting that, he was there and he was sitting in the back of the screening room and I was like passing next to him and he was watching his films and he was crying. So that image will stay with me. So La notte.”

“Antonioni’s La notte. This is all in one night, is just… even the actors don’t know what’s going to happen next. And rain pours out of the sky. And it’s just mood. Mood. And it’s set in Milan, and parties that are just sort of empty, and the relationship of this marriage at the core of it is empty, and it’s desperately sad, but also quite beautiful, and has an incredible ending that is very controversial and very true.”

“Another sudden one by Antonioni. It's the kind of movie I definitely want to make someday.”

“Okay, La notte is the best thing to see when you want to break up with somebody, to split. And the last letter that he read to her is so—I don't want to spoil—but he succeeded to summarize exactly the feeling when it's over with somebody.”

“[Translated] Michelangelo Antonioni's La notte. I remember a line in it: 'Acquaintances are more and more, friends are fewer and fewer.' It should be from this film. In the night, a woman's very complex emotions. I like this kind of wandering.”