L’Avventura (1960) Sets Sail for the Criterion Collection

On November 25, 2014, the Criterion Collection released L’Avventura on Blu-ray. Michelangelo Antonioni directed the film starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, and Lea Massari.

‘L’Avventura’ Criterion Summary

Michelangelo Antonioni invented a new film grammar with this masterwork. An iconic piece of challenging 1960s cinema and a gripping narrative on its own terms, L’avventura concerns the enigmatic disappearance of a young woman during a yachting trip off the coast of Sicily, and the search taken up by her disaffected lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend (Monica Vitti, in her breakout role). Antonioni’s controversial international sensation is a gorgeously shot tale of modern ennui and spiritual isolation.

Read the full movie summary here, or listen to our film review here.

Special Features

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring film historian Gene Youngblood
• Olivier Assayas on “L’avventura,” an analysis of the film in three parts
• Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials, a fifty-eight-minute documentary by Gianfranco Mingozzi from 1966
• Writings by director Michelangelo Antonioni, read by actor Jack Nicholson, plus Nicholson’s personal recollections of the director
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Antonioni’s statements about the film after its 1960 Cannes Film Festival premiere, and an open letter distributed at the festival
  
  New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Available on Amazon.com and iTunes