Il grido (1957)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (writer) and
Elio Bartolini (writer) ...

Release Date:

1957 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A man wanders aimlessly, away from his town, away from the woman he loved, emotionally and socially inactive.

Plot Keywords:

Mechanic | Valley | Gas Station | Refinery | Alienation

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Steve Cochran	...	Aldo
Alida Valli	...	Irma
Betsy Blair	...	Elvia
Gabriella Pallotta	...	Edera, her sister
Dorian Gray	...	Virginia
Lynn Shaw	...	Andreina
Mirna Girardi	...	Rosina
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Pina Boldrini	...	Lina
Guerrino Campanini	...	Virginia's father
Lilia Landi
Gaetano Matteucci	...	Edera's fiancé

Also Known As:

The Cry (UK) (USA)
The Outcry (USA) (pre-release title)

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

Italy | USA

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Singapore:PG | UK:12 (DVD rating) | Italy:VM14 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (cut)

Filming Locations:

Francolino, Ferrara, Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Company:

SpA Cinematografica

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Michelangelo Antonioni storia di un autore (1966) (TV)

alienation and the modern man

Known as "The Outcry" in the U.S. A wonderful if disturbing film about alienation and modern society. Not for those who like bouncy, happy films.

The great though relatively forgotten American actor Steve Cochran is near perfect as the worker who finds he cannot communicate, with those he loves, and so begins a downward spiral towards a state of mental disintegration. What is interesting are the Marxist and Freudian overtones that Antonioni puts on the character. The protagonist as the result of his economic position in a capitalist society ( he only has his labour to sell) is uprooted from his community and therefore alienated from his environment, and so becomes alienated from those he loves. The harder he tries the more he withdraws until he perceives he can suffer no more.

Cochran always was very good at playing "heavies" or "playboys", and here he manages to bring both to his underdog character who is strong, brutish and handsome. At the same time he manages to convey the loneliness and vulnerability the character lives through showing that those attributes are not enough to survive.

Antonioni directs with a sure hand a picture of a successful, postwar, industrial Italy where everything is not as easy as it seems. Needless to say the film is in black and white and photographed in grainy neo realist style. The landscapes, in true Antonioni fashion, are bleak, and the loneliness and isolation from others is reflected in the distance between buildings. The leisured pacing, adds to the feeling that life drags on without change.

Antonioni's characters normally, as his films L'eclisse and Red Desert, as with fellow Italian directors Fellini and De Sica during the same period, usually have uncertain futures, as if there is a hidden side to Italy's postwar economic miracle. Here, it's as if the protagonist has a manifest destiny from which there is no redemption.