Thank you for posting, Quiggin. I didn't realize Vitti was 90. That would have made her about thirty at the time of L'Avventura, late for a female star.
I think L'Avvventura holds up very well or at least it did when I last saw it years ago. I'm less enthusiastic about the rest of Antonioni's trilogy, but they all look good. I'd like to see them again.
It was Lea Massari who played Anna, who vanishes halfway through the movie and the mystery of whose disappearance is never solved. At least one critic complained that we lost the wrong actress.
I remember reading that the melancholy women Vitti played for Antonioni were not at all like her; she was very much a joie de vivre girl, like the light comedies she starred in later. RIP.
A photo gallery. We are all the healthier, of course, but stars just aren't the same without cigarettes.