L’Avventura – Antonioni asks Cannes if they can imagine a revolution

Antonioni’s defence and partial explanation of L’Avventura at Cannes is a surprising and thought provoking statement which encourages viewers to take his deconstruction of modern ills to radical conclusions.

Below is a guide to the sources I used in this video:

The private footage of L’Avventura’s filming and the interview with Monica Vitti are both from the excellent documentary Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials (1966), which is available on the Criterion Collection L’Avventura Blu-ray and on the streaming channel.

The French news footage of Cannes in 1960 can be found here: https://fresques.ina.fr/festival-de-cannes-en/liste/recherche/Theme.id/15/df/#sort/DateAffichage/direction/DESC/page/1/size/10

The translation of Antonioni’s statement can be found here: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/100-l-avventura-cannes-statement

However this translation was criticised in a film quarterly article I read from the time and so I actually transcribed it from a reading by Jack Nicholson which used a seemingly better translation as far as I am able to tell when comparing the two side by side. This recording is also on the Blu-ray and streaming channel but puts a few different writings by Antonioni into one video back to back so to understand where his Cannes statement starts and ends you have to cross reference it with the other translation.

The account of L’Avventura’s chaotic filming was taken from the collection of writings on and by Antonioni, The Architecture of Vision (1996). The section used being: The Adventures of L’Avventura (Antonioni 1976 Pg.78, trans Cooper).

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