La Signora Senza Camelie [DVD]

Clara Manni (Lucía Bosé) is a young employee of a fabric store who, after a brief role in a film, will become an actress. Once introduced to the world of cinema, it will not take long for her to marry Gianni (Andrea Checchi), a mature and possessive producer who wants Clara to abandon her job as an actress dominated by jealousy. But Clara discovers Gianni's true character and flees from her husband's dominance. She meets Nardo (Ivan Desny), a consul with whom she will have an affair. Meanwhile, a fellow actor advises him to dedicate himself to studying acting and to reject scripts for consumerist productions shot at Cineccittá. Clara takes it seriously and after formalizing the separation with Gianni, she will ask him to include her in the cast of a film he is filming. But the role is already committed to an American actress, which will lead Clara to understand that she will never become the actress she wants, having to settle for being one of the many starlets of Italian cinema of that periodo.Planos . Long shots, elaborate framing , gloomy exteriors, urban locations characterized by their impersonality and social criticism, especially of consumerism, are characteristics of Antonioni's cinema present in this, his second feature film after Chronicle of a Love. The character of Clara was inspired by Gina Lollobrigida, and the film does not fail to capture characteristic places of popular Italian cinema.