Overview
L'Eclisse is a 1962 Italian romance film written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Rome and Verona, the story follows a young woman (Vitti) who pursues an affair with a confident young stockbroker (Delon). Antonioni attributed some of his inspiration for L'Eclisse to when he filmed a solar eclipse in Florence. The film is considered the last part of a trilogy and is preceded by L'Avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961).
L'Eclisse won the Special Jury Prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Described by Martin Scorsese as the boldest film in the trilogy, it is one of the director's more acclaimed works. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."
Plot
On a Monday of July 1961, at dawn, Vittoria, a young literary translator, ends her relationship with Riccardo in his apartment in the EUR residential district of Rome, following a long night of conversation. Riccardo tries to persuade her to stay, but she tells him she no longer loves him and leaves. As she walks the deserted early-morning streets past the EUR tower, Riccardo catches up and walks with her through a wooded area to her apartment building, where they say their final goodbyes.
Sometime later, Vittoria visits her mother at the frantic Rome Stock Exchange, which is very busy upon Vittoria's entrance. A young stockbroker, Piero, overhears an inside tip, rushes to purchase the stocks, and then sells them at a large profit. He introduces himself to Vittoria; he is her mother's stock broker. Following the announcement of a colleague's fatal heart attack and a moment of silence, the room erupts back into frenzied activity. Outside the building, Vittoria and her mother walk to an open market nearby. Vittoria attempts to discuss her own recent breakup, but her mother is preoccupied with her earned profits.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
