Michelangelo Antonioni's Il grido, Its Music, and the Pain of Living

Abstract

Scholarly research on the soundtracks in Michelangelo Antonioni's cinema confirms that Antonioni creates experimental yet coherent sonic worlds out of exceptionally modernist choices. Particularly in the context of Italian cinema of the 1950s and early 1960s, Antonioni's musical selections appear altogether far from the Hollywood model, which was still widely used at the time, and also far from the late nineteenth-century symphonic style, which was so prevalent in Luchino Visconti's films. In fact, Antonioni sought a synthesis of sounds and noises in ways no other Italian director had at this time. His films show a purely cinematic musicality that is born out of a “phonographic method” in terms of the confrontation with the world, and how this world shapes the narrative development of his films. Regarding this development, Antonioni renders each single sonic event like a mirror, charting the pain of living of each protagonist. This pain of living, which this chapter examines, is omnipresent in Il grido (1957, Outcry) and exemplified by its soundtrack. Giovanni Fusco's strikingly original score showcases sparse sonic events, wistful and melancholic themes, and its sober existence during the story's unfolding. The focus of this chapter is on Fusco's score, the film's pre-existing, diegetically inserted popular songs, the innovative use of electronic sounds, and Antonioni's stunning sound design for the film. Performed almost exclusively on the piano, Fusco's music of Il grido was rightly labeled as “in black and white” in respect to its establishment of a playful chiaroscuro effect in its highest intensity. A succession of musical variations performed on the piano creates an audio-visual dialectic with the film images stirringly to express Aldo's existential condition. The chapter further contextualizes Il grido in relation to other films Antonioni made during that time, such as Le amiche (1955, The girlfriends) and L'avventura (1959, The adventure).