#18
Italy | 106 min.
1.37:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
DUAL FORMAT RELEASE INCLUDING BLU-RAY AND DVD VERSIONS OF THE FILM
• Beautiful new transfer of the film in its recent restoration by Cineteca di Bologna, L’Immagine Ritrovata, and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio, and presented in a 1080p AVC encode on the Blu-ray
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• A new and exclusive video introduction to the film with critic and teacher Gabe Klinger
• A new and exclusive video featuring Gabe Klinger discussing the arc of Antonioni’s entire career
• 28-page booklet containing newly translated vintage critical pieces about the film, excerpts of interviews with Antonioni, and a 1956 letter written by Antonioni to Italo Calvino
Le amiche
Michelangelo Antonioni, 1955
A key film of Antonioni’s middle-period, Le amiche [The Girlfriends] finds the Italian master expanding his palette in the realm of traditional narrative cinema by way of his powerhouse direction of an ensemble cast, while entrenching his devotion to expressing the emotional makeup of the modern woman.
Clelia (Eleonora Rossi-Drago) embarks from Rome to set up a fashion-salon in Torino. Shortly after arrival, she finds herself caught up in the (melo)dramas of a bourgeoise circle of acquaintances (including the iconic Valentina Cortese), and their attendant attempts at suicide, their class prejudices, and the romantic alliances that threaten to transform the social clique into an emotional tar-pit.
Le amiche represents the epitome of Antonioni’s ’50s period, and although it lays the groundwork for such ’60s breakthroughs as L’avventura and La notte, it proves itself no less brilliant than those later works. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Le amiche for the first time in the UK — in a Dual Format release containing both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film.
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