James Reviews Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Signora Senza Camelie [Masters of Cinema Blu-ray]

Le Signora Senza Camelie (aka The Lady Without Camelias) is about Clara Manni (Lucia Bose), a young woman form Milan who has come to Rome to become a movie star. Already appearing in a smaller film, film patrons have already been impressed with her good looks and elegant style but when it comes to the film industry itself, they don’t think she has the chops to truly be one of the greats. Ercole (Gino Cervi), a director, has hired Clara for his newest film, one that has many lovemaking scenes and she is to be in the middle of them. Enter the producer, Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), who isn’t too happy with that because he has planned to marry her and doesn’t want her on the big screen bedding men left and right.

The filming ultimately stops because Clara moves in with Gianni and doesn’t want her to go back to Cinecitta to make those types of films. Ercole makes a deal with Gianni to finance a serious, big budget version of Joan of Arc for Clara to star in and have people finally take her seriously and make her a huge star in the business. Will she hit a home run with this supposed passion project and catapult herself to the stratosphere or will it bomb miserable, thus ruining her career altogether.

Antonioni is giving us a film that from the outside looks like a tale about one woman’s dreams and her trying to grab them at any means necessary. But looking within, the film also presents his own outlook on the Italian film industry and how in the 1950’s a few filmmakers were trying to branch out and make meaningful movies. Even Ercole and Gianni’s conversations of what constitutes a ‘serious’ film are intriguing, giving us some insight as to what some directors go through in order to make their art come to life on the big screen.

This is a fantastic release from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema line of films, which I do say is shaping up to be Criterion’s British cousin when it comes to putting out forgotten classics, oddities, retrospective series and the on thing Criterion has failed to release so far, which is animation. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, which always makes one happy when they can present a black and white film on Blu-ray looking as sharp and clear as this. As for extras, we get an introduction by film critic and teacher Gabe Clinger, as well as a overview of Antonioni’s career during the 1950’s by Clinger too. Rounding out the package is a trailer for the film and a booklet containing newly translated critical pieces about the film, excerpts with Antonioni, and a lengthy debate between Antonioni and critic Luigi Chiarini on the subject of the film.

Being the third feature film Antonioni directed, La Signora Senza Camelie is an example of how he further expanded upon Italian cinema so early in his career and ultimately how he was going by his very own vision and nobody else. Being familiar with Antonioni’s later output, it’s an essential film to be able to watch in order to fully understand where he came from as a filmmaker and ultimately as a person. A great release that you should import as soon as possible.