The Speechless Language

Issue 209

Milan 2019

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The year is 1961, and we’re in Milan, amid a world of chance and ambiguity and intrigue. Look at the tailored suits. Notice the manners. Observe the long, uncertain stares. In this black and white city, the shadows are ominous and everyone wears the latest styles and smokes just the right way and there’s always a mysterious, entrancing stranger lurking in the distance.

Experiencing these sensations means that we’ve entered Michelangelo Antonioni’s unforgettable film La Notte, where viewers are shown, right from the beginning, that something is amiss. In the opening minutes, two characters, a husband and wife, visit a friend in the hospital. The scenes are quiet, sparse, uncertain, though contemporary viewers might notice how far society has slipped when they watch a nurse bring champagne to the patient and his visitors.

But then our characters split. The wife, played by an understated yet compelling Jeanne Moreau, goes downstairs. The husband, Marcello Mastroianni, remains inside the room, feeling obligated to spend a little more time with his sick friend. We then watch the wife begin to cry, alone and weary and pained, her back against the outside wall of the hospital. Because it is Italian cinema and 1961, we also watch an extremely unlikely tryst, where a young patient next door attempts, well, to sexually assault the husband, his unwillingness very clear but also very temporary.

And now there are two secrets that we, the viewers, know that are hidden from the characters: we know one thing about the wife that the husband doesn’t know, and we know one thing about the husband that the wife doesn’t know. Whether those are equivalent details is a different subject, but there’s something artful about how those secrets are handled in the next scene.

Michelangelo Antonioni—who managed, incidentally, to overcome what must be a rather stultifying name for an Italian artist—had an array of options for the moment when husband and wife came together. Confrontation or deception or confession were probably the easiest and most apparent paths. But here’s what happens next: nothing at all. The couple meets in the parking lot, Mastroianni does his unmistakable eyebrow raise, his wife looks into the distance, and the viewer’s mind spins with scenarios. They walk to the car, get inside, drive away, wordless, with the next full minute of film nothing but silent—which, in this case, is simply perfect writing.

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Although I am someone who values language, wit, expression, and all the nuances and potency and excitement of words, I also feel, somehow, that I appreciate the significance of silence more than most people. In some ways this shouldn’t be a surprise. The spaces between the words are as important as the words—just as how you say something is indistinguishable, once you look close enough, from what you say. To believe that style is distinct from substance is to ensure that you have neither substance nor style. And if you do value words, you are almost certainly, at the root, valuing the ability to communicate. Words are simply the most visible and particular expression of that ability. Yet there’s language, too, in a glance, or a stare, in a pause or hesitation or delay, in a smile or smirk, in the moment that passes when someone decides not to speak.

In Antonioni’s film, there’s another scene, later, when Marcello and Moreau are at a club, watching a performance. There’s vibrant music, two enticing and dynamic dancers, and a drumbeat to occupy the space while the couple remains silent. A thought seems to vanish from Moreau’s mind, in what appears to be one of those frustrating moments of forgetfulness. She’s about to speak but then she halts, the haze of a misremembered dreamworld left in its place, inchoate and slippery and expressionless. The viewer watches it wash from her face, sympathizing with the sensation. The emotion of a forgotten line always lingers, yes, its incompleteness leaving a hollow feeling in its wake. We all know the sensation, don’t we, of the lost thought, of the forgotten word, of the times when the moment simply passed. Although we are so far away from Moreau—we watch her stoic face from Mastroianni’s perspective, only allowed to know what she reveals. Perhaps her words are hidden rather than forgotten? Of course Mastroianni, soon enough, persists, his voice calm.

“Did it come?”

“Yes.”

“Beautiful?”

His tease is gentle. Was the thought beautiful, now that we’re in this artful, dynamic club, enjoying this enchanting performance? Both characters speak in the whispers of a couple with years of conversations behind them. There’s no rush, although she shakes her head, as this thought isn’t beautiful.

“Tell me?”

“No.”

“No, why?”

Wordless, she touches his lapel, and you, as viewer, perceive her blank face from Mastroianni’s position—unable to access the mystery that is her mind.

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In life, there’s what you think, what you say, and what you do. Your ability and willingness to coordinate these components is crucial—it will determine how you perceive the world and almost certainly determine how the world perceives you. A typical film can access two components—the speaking and the doing—although perception still remains deceptive. Just like in life, perhaps a little doubt should accompany what you spot on a screen. La Notte, in particular, likes to keep its viewers at a distance, forever in doubt about the significance of what’s heard and seen. In one long sequence, Moreau strolls at the city’s edge, her reasoning unclear. You see her steps, interpret her actions, but you can’t get closer. A more dramatic example comes late in the film when a storm prompts a couple to jump into a car—leaving viewers stuck in the rain and unable to hear the pivotal dialogue behind the car’s closed doors.

But much of life, it seems, is about piecing together bits of perception to shape meaning—understanding a full sentence even when there’s a missing word, interpreting a glance from across a room, deciding to forgive an act that appears accidental. Our individual sensations are too murky, too unreliable, so there needs to be a larger context. A smile to go with the compliment. A confused face that accompanies the silence. Context, in art, is just as important. So knowing that this film was released in 1961, within reach of the Second World War, in a world that was abruptly accelerating but still connected to an earlier time, puts the silences, the unspoken thoughts, in a different context for viewers today. It isn’t incidental that Mastroianni and Moreau speak most of their lines without ever opening their mouths.

In a remarkable three year period, Michelangelo Antonioni released three films, with La Notte as the hinge on which this trilogy swings: L’Avventura in 1960, La Notte in 1961, and L’Eclisse in 1962. To watch La Notte today is to enter a distant world. You encounter a hazy, incomplete portrait of postwar Italy; you encounter a slightly clearer but still disjointed portrait of life in Milan at the time; you encounter a rich, brilliant portrait of three separate characters; but you, most of all, encounter a vivid and propulsive and beguiling portrait of Michelangelo Antonioni’s mind. These are concentric circles, the clarity increasing as you nudge closer to the center. Perhaps you’ll watch La Notte and have a clear reaction, one that’s vocal, opinionated, loquacious. Or perhaps you’ll watch La Notte and feel ambivalent, a bit taciturn, unsure of what to say, and you’ll sit in silence with the sensation.