Story of a Love Affair (1950)

 Michelangelo Antonioni's "Story of a Love Affair"


Michelangelo Antonioni's feature-length film debut "Story of a Love Affair" is a loose adaptation of James M. Cain's 1934 novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice." Because of this, the film has a very similar storyline and structure to the feature film debut of fellow Italian filmmaker and Antonioni's good friend Luchino Visconti - his 1943 film "Ossessione." 

However, the difference between these two films lies in the changes Antonioni made. Firstly, Visconti's "Ossessione" deals with characters whose restlessly desperate acts stem from extreme poverty. This was emblematic of the early 1940s in which Italy was experience economic troubles due to the world war they were in as well as the continued authoritarian rule of Benito Mussolini. However, with Antonioni's version, the characters' restless decisions are not out of poverty, but rather extreme boredom that stems from an overabundance of wealth. This too is emblematic of the time period, as 1950s Italy was experiencing an industrial boost, along with much of the global landscape. 

Because of this shift in story, "Story of a Love Affair" feels more like Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity." This is also aided by the film opening, not with the two lovers, but with a private investigator. Like "Double Indemnity," the wife of the industrialist is ultimately dissatisfied with her wealthy lifestyle and seeks to feel something. She throws money away at many points in the film and is visually presented as being well-to-do with her fur coats and diamond necklaces. Also like "Double Indemnity" is the plan to murder her husband. Despite having everything at her fingertips, her and her lover want to feel passion beyond the material realm. To do this, they orchestrate the murder of her industrialist husband. 

Because of the similarities to both the neo-realist "Ossessione" and to the noir "Double Indemnity," Antonioni seems to have a visual foot in both of these worlds with this film. There are many scenes that use the visual language of a noir, as Antonioni paints with a stark black and white brush. However, the film, like a neo-realist piece, is set very much in a grainy, tactful reality. The combination of both integrated together gets striking results.

All of the characters seem to be throwing around money, disregarding each other, and behaving inherently selfish. Antonioni paints a post-war landscape of hollow characters desperate to satiate their restless desires. Antonioni's camera also seems to mirror his characters as he restlessly is searching for some hidden depth in all this melodrama. As Dan Callahan of "Slant" magazine states: "It's extremely difficult to follow the film scene by scene; the camera wanders away from people and makes radical choices in what it wants to look at and linger over. What at first seems like clumsiness finally falls away and something highly original takes its place: an ambiguous meditation on the emptiness of upwardly mobile modern life."



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