La Notte di UCSF

My spouse went to Boston University in the early 1970s, majoring in film and math, and the professor who made the greatest impression on him was William Arrowsmith, a passionate Michelangelo Antonioni enthusiast. I'd always avoided the early 1960s alienated modern rich people Italian art films La Notte and L'Eclisse because the deeply influential New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael was derisive towards both. Watching La Notte for the first time last week (along with a spouse who couldn't remember a single frame from his youth), I became a late-to-the-party worshiper because it is so arty and fabulous, with Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, and Monica Vitti at their youthful peaks.

On a walk last weekend through the weirdly alienated, under-construction, Mission Bay neighborhood, the two of us immediately said, "This looks like La Notte."

"Go pretend you're Monica Vitti or Jeanne Moreau and look alienated," I told Tony, though in truth he looks more like Marcello.

The new neighborhood seems to be a mixture of urban bedroom community for Silicon Valley...

...and headquarters for the sprawling medical behemoth that is UCSF...

...complete with research institutes founded by dead billionaires...

...and new buildings named after living billionaires like venture capitalist Ron Conway, who wants us all to vote for London Breed for San Francisco Mayor this November.

The newly built Midcentury Modern medical buildings look straight out of La Notte...

...and so do the shiny new hospitals warding off death.