Monica Vitti, star of several of Michelangelo Antonioni’s best films, was born on this day in 1931. She died February 2, 2022. She would have been 94 today.

Vitti was a wonder on screen, saying more silently with her face than many actors can with an extended, scenery-chewing monologue.

Of Vitti’s character in L’Avventura, I once wrote this:

“A woman disappears. Her best friend watches the sunrise, and also has an affair with her still-missing friend’s boyfriend. The movie stops caring about the missing girl, and focuses on what remains; namely, Monica Vitti’s face. Her face always remains. It is haunted, vacant, impossibly lovely, sharp, bored, apathetic, seductive, more hopeful than she dares let on even to herself.”

Monica Vitti’s face always remains, hopeful and devastated.