Blogical Conclusion

THE MEN THAT GOT AWAY

NOV 28, 2009 – BY THE END OF THE SINGLE DAY whose bleak course is charted in black-and-white, Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) loses two men – one from the past, one from her present. The man from long ago is Tommaso (Bernhard Wicki), the friend whose deathbed she visited earlier that day, along with her husband Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni). Tommaso is now dead, and this revelation comes when Lidia and Giovanni stroll through the gardens of Mr. Gherardini (Vincenzo Corbella), whose party is beginning to wind down. It’s been a long night, where they’ve struggled with their attraction to others. Now, they’re back together – at least, for the time being – and they decide to take a walk. They move past a jazz ensemble, past a woman weeping and exclaiming, “Take no notice. I’m just crying because I’m silly.” Giovanni breaks the silence. “Want to hear a good one? Gherardini offered me a job.”

Lidia asks if he’ll accept it. Giovanni says, “I don’t think so.” Lidia replies, “Why not? It’s a good opportunity. Your life would be your own at last.” When he doesn’t say anything, she starts afresh, “I phoned the clinic. Tommaso is dead.” Giovanni is upset. He asks, “When? Why didn’t you tell me?” Referring to his dalliance with Gherardini’s daughter, Lidia says, “You were playing. Was he really your good friend?” He thinks. Lidia continues, “He was much more to me. He convinced me, despite myself, that I was more clever than I am. He spent days trying to make me study, even though I wasn’t interested; I was concerned with my problems. His persistence nearly drove me mad. I began to hate him for it. He never talked about himself. Only me… me… And I never understood. I thought so little of myself. When we’re young, we’re so stupid, we can’t imagine things coming to an end.”

Lidia turns to Giovanni and says, “You talked only about yourself. That was something new for me, I was so happy with it, that nothing in the world was more beautiful. Because I loved you. You, not him. That’s why his affection irritated me and flattered you. Isn’t that true?” Lidia accomplishes two things here – first, she compliments her husband, telling him that she chose him over a former suitor, and yet, there’s a sting attached. She says the suitor cared about her while Giovanni cared only about himself, and it wasn’t so much love as low self-esteem that made Lidia choose Giovanni over Tommaso. And now, Tommaso’s death appears to have made Lidia question her choice. She tells Giovanni, “I feel like dying because I no longer love you. That’s why I’m desperate. I wish I were old, my life’s dedication to you over. I wish I no longer existed, because I can’t love you.”

Giovanni says, “But if this is true, if you feel like dying, it means you still love me.” Lidia says it’s only pity. He begins to understand. “I never gave you anything. I was completely unaware. I go on wasting my life, like a fool, taking without giving, or giving too little. If you mean I haven’t much to give, you may be right.” She begins to talk about Tommaso again, either to hurt Giovanni or reproach herself (or, in all likelihood, both). “I used to spend afternoons reading in bed. Tommaso would call and find me there. He could have taken me; I wouldn’t have resisted, out of boredom. But he was satisfied to watch me as I read. All those purposeless books. Two hundred pages a day; I read so quickly.” Lidia’s crisis appears to affect Giovanni, who, at this late stage, might actually have begun to think of others. “I’ve been selfish,” he admits. “Now I realise that what we give others comes back to us.”

Lidia doesn’t seem to have heard this confession, or if she has, she ignores it as too little, too late in the day. She looks towards the jazz ensemble in the distance. “Do they think their music will improve the day?” Giovanni guides her back to the subject at hand. “Lidia, let’s settle this. Let’s try to hang on to something we’re sure of. I love you. I’m sure I’m still in love with you. What more can I say? Let’s go home.” But Lidia isn’t ready to go home. She opens her purse, extracts a letter and begins to read. “When I awoke this morning you were still asleep. As I awoke I heard your gentle breathing. I saw your closed eyes, beneath wisps of stray hair and I was deeply moved. I wanted to cry out, to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly.”

“In the half light your skin glowed with life, so warm and sweet I wanted to kiss it, but I was afraid to wake you. I was afraid of you awake in my arms again. Instead, I wanted something no one could take from me, mine alone, this eternal image of you. Beyond your face I saw a pure, beautiful vision showing us in the perspective of my whole life, all the years to come, even all the years past. That was the most miraculous thing: to feel, for the first time, that you had always been mine. That this night would go on forever, united with your warmth, your thought, your will. At that moment I realised how much I loved you, Lidia. I wept with the intensity of the emotion. For I felt that this must never end, we would remain like this all our lives, not only close, but belonging to each other in a way that nothing could ever destroy except the apathy of habit, the only threat.”

“Then you wakened and, smiling, put your arms around me, kissed me and I felt there was nothing to fear. We would always be as we were of that moment bound by stronger ties than time and habit.” Lidia finishes reading and wipes a tear from the corner of an eye. Giovanni asks, “Who wrote that?” She looks hard at him and says, “You did.” He’s so far-removed from the dewy-eyed romantic who wrote the letter, he doesn’t even remember that part of him anymore. If it’s a test, he’s failed. Or perhaps it wasn’t a test – merely Lidia’s way of proving to Giovanni that they don’t belong together anymore. Lidia knows now, for sure, that she’s lost both Tommaso and Giovanni. That’s why, when Giovanni weakly attempts to show her she’s wrong, by trying to make love, she begins to push him away. “No… I don’t love you any more. You don’t love me, either.”

La Notte (1961, Italian; aka The Night). Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti.

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