Sick Eros: Antonioni's Films Display Outdated Morals

The older generation in America was taught to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but the younger generation knows it does not work. How can they trust strangers after hearing about murders, rapes, kidnappings, shootings, robberies, and gangs? Yet their behavior is dictated by the benefit of the doubt when daters only think about leaving horrible or awkward dates, and ignore uneasy feelings about being alone with a stranger in an elevator. Filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni has a broader claim. He argues morality, specifically in marriage, is outdated. Since man continues to use obsolete morals, however, he is unable to find happiness. Antonioni explores morality's harmful role in marriages in his films: La Notte and Red Desert. He articulates his belief when he writes, "…Eros is sick; man is uneasy, something is bothering him And whenever something bothers him, man reacts, but he reacts badly, only on erotic impulse, and he is unhappy" (Antonioni 34). What moral then does Antonioni argue destroys marriages? He does not directly state a specific moral, but he might argue it is the structure of marriage and the societal hatred of divorce and infidelity.

Marriage in ancient civilizations and until the twentieth century was an arraignment made between two families to gain a political and social benefits. One reason divorce and infidelity were prohibited was to ensure families could not lose those benefits. Instead of developing a different system to join two people together, intimacy became another basis for marriage, but divorce and infidelity were still social taboos. Marriage was not structurally built to provide eternal intimacy and those who uses the escapes of divorce and infidelity were punished to be social outcasts. ...

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...io. Giuliana focuses only her own issues and as a result, emotionally neglects her son. To gain his mother's affection, Valerio fakes paralysis because the viewer assumes the only time the Guiliana wholly pays attention to her son is when he is sick. Yet, Valerio's choice of illness is dramatic and telling. The structure of marriage has indirectly isolated Valerio from any healthy, sustaining love and he has become emotionally paralyzed. He has learned love is a limited source and to obtain love, he must lie.

La Notte and Red Desert examine the destructive nature of the structure and morality of marriage. Couples learn in difficult, painful and embarrassing ways that they cannot obtain the intimacy they wish, but their only escapes are road blocked. As a result, they are unhappy, and they teach their children this unhappiness, thus creating a never ending cycle.