I watched the film with great interest. The subject matter interested me. I didn’t believe that such an old theme, let’s say trite even, could still find such an impassioned and clear portrayal on the screen. Never a moment of boredom. A clear and immediate perception of the reasons and intentions. Only, from time to time, a sort of irritation for some banal technical solution. Elementary rather than banal. Like the backing tracking shot of Kirk Douglas in the trench before the attack. Like the trial shot almost entirely from behind the accused in horizontal pan shots. But I remember other moments where the technical solution coincides perfectly, that is covertly, with the psychological moment, and the effect is startling. For example the scene with general Broulard and colonel Dax, when the latter informs the former of the general’s order to shoot his own men. The whole scene is in close up: but at the end, when the general Chief of Staff is about to leave and he’s at the door, he has already opened it to leave, the colonel reveals the ace up his sleeve and there is a very long shot, probably shot with an 18 lens.

Michelangelo Antonioni, Bianco e nero, aprile 1958