Michelangelo Antonioni
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Bibliography
Notes
"I shot so much film that when I began editing, I didn't know where to start. The real value of my film was the possibility I had for my camera to be in the closest proximity possible to Michelangelo, who wouldn't have allowed anyone else's camera to be so intimate while he was working." --Enrica Antonioni on making "For Me, to Make a Film Is to Live", her documentary of filmmaker husband Michelangelo Antonioni.
When asked what he wants to do next [after "Beyond the Clouds"], Antonioni replied, "It's all said by the director character in my film: 'When I have finished a film, I start thinking about the next one, and for me, being silent is not just the only thing, it is the best thing--to be silent in the darkness and then the lights come up.'"
Biography
Michelangelo Antonioni began writing about film as a student at Bologna University, mercilessly criticizing the fatuous Italian comedies of the 1930s. In 1940, he studied direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and two years later co-wrote the scenario for "Un piloto ritorna" with director Roberto Rossellini before working as an assistant director on films directed by Enrico Fulchignoni and Marcel Carne. His first directorial effort was a documentary, "Gente del Po," begun in 1943 and completed in 1947. For two other documentaries in the late 40s he solicited music from Giovanni Fusco, initiating and cementing a collaboration with the man whose scores would enhance his own pessimism in eight films.
Antonioni's minimalist yet poignant style, which critics described as "structured absence," and his disdain for vulgar commercialism, made him an important influence on post-neorealist Italian cinema. His first feature, "Story of a Love Affair" (1950), used complex camerawork to tell the simple tale of a wealthy woman whose husband dies, an approach that would typify his subsequent work. "The Vanquished" (1952) focused on the youth of post-war Europe in three separate stories set and shot in Rome, Paris and London. The Italian section displeased the Italians by depicting their youngsters as neo-Fascists, and censors in France and England banned their respective portions of the film. Antonioni's episode of the anthology film "Love in the City" (1953) dealt with suicide, a preoccupation that also provided the uneasy resolution to "The Girl Friends" (1955), a study of several women and their disappointing relationships with men.
After the release of "The Outcry" (1957), a study of the inept men of the Po Valley, Antonioni's developing assurance with the medium led him to look beyond the proletarian subjects favored by neorealism. "L'Avventura" (1959) began a phase of non-narrative, psychological cinema, examining the barren eroticism of a bourgeoisie (Antonioni was himself from the middle class) which had abandoned its traditional social and cultural values. The film attracted a political critique that equated Antonioni's work with the writings of Andre Gide. Critics, citing the united thematic concerns of "L'Avventura," "La Notte" (1961) and "L'Eclisse" (1962), have grouped them as a trilogy in which mankind reaches unsuccessfully for love as the last refuge in the modern world. Antonioni made one more film directly charting the same universe, although "The Red Desert" (1964), in which Antonioni working for the first time in color had an entire landscape painted red to underline his theme of despair, focused so intensely on the character of Giuliana as to lose the trilogy's sense of alternative possibilities. Heroine Monica Vitti's palpable frustration signaled the end of her four-film collaboration with Antonioni, which had made her an international star.
"Blow-Up" (1966) marked Antonioni's departure from Italy to "swinging London," where he dramatized the paradoxes of its nervous hip consciousness. The film's finale--a ball-less tennis match--became a reference point of 60s cinema. The success of "Blow-Up" (Antonioni won the National Society of Film Critics' Best Director award and was nominated for Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay) brought the director to California for "Zabriskie Point" (1970), an elegiac view of the intersection of materialism and hippiedom. "The Passenger" (1975) featured Jack Nicholson as an American reporter who adopts the identity of a deceased fellow guest in a North African hotel. The director's virtuoso use of Gaudi's architecture echoed the unresolved angles of the protagonist's world. Neither "Mystery of Oberwald" (1980) nor "Identification of a Woman" (1982) found distribution in the USA.
In 1985, Antonioni suffered a heart attack that left him partially paralyzed and over the next decade managed to produce only the eleven-minute documentary short, "Volcanoes and Carnival" (1992). However, with the encouragement of his wife Enrica and the financial backing provided by French producer Stephane Tchalgadjieff, Antonioni returned triumphantly with "Beyond the Clouds" (1995). German director Wim Wenders, who had become involved because Antonioni's precarious health made him uninsurable, shot the prologue, epilogue and linking shots between the four episodes comprising the movie and otherwise stayed out of the way, totally fascinated by Antonioni at work.
Based on stories in Antonioni's book "That Bowling Alley on the Tiber: Tales of a Director" (1985), "Beyond the Clouds" proved a brilliantly unified movie on par with the director's best work, evoking such familiar themes as alienation in the modern world while also exploring a religiosity not previously found in his films. Employing his signature fluency of camera movement and shots sustained much longer than the norm in the creation of an impeccable visual composition, "Beyond the Clouds" demonstrated that the old master had lost none of his technical expertise and was in fact still growing artistically at the age of 83. His wife chronicled the experience and edited her nearly 85 hours of film into a 52-minute documentary titled "For Me, to Make a Film Is to Live" (1995). The director was presented with an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement at the 1995 ceremony.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Assistant Direction (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Editing (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Director (Short)
Writer (Short)
Editing (Short)
Life Events
1935
Wrote for newspaper, Il Corriere Padano in Ferrara
1935
Worked in bank
1939
Moved to Rome
1940
Began writing for magazine Cinema, fired for political reasons after only a few months; magazine's director was Mussolini's son Vittorio
1942
First film as co-screenwriter, "Un piloto ritorna"; director and co-screenwriter was Roberto Rossellini
1942
Worked as assistant director on Enrico Fulchignoni's "I due Foscari" and in France on Marcel Carne's "Les visiteurs du soir"
1943
Worked as a translator of French literature
1950
Feature film directing debut (also co-screenwriter; from story), "Cronaca di un Amore/Story of a Love Affair"
1955
Sole producing credit, Nicolo Ferrari's "Uomini in piu"
1955
"Le amici/The Girlfriends" widely agreed to be director's first truly outstanding achievement
1957
Directed Monica Vitti on stage in "I Am a Camera"
1958
Worked as uncredited co-director on "La tempesta" (Alberto Lattuada) and "Nel segno di Roma" (Guido Brignone)
1960
Achieved new level of international recognition and success with his "L'Avventura"
1964
Used color film for first time in "Il deserto russo/The Red Desert"
1966
First English-language film, "Blow-Up", made in Great Britain; received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay
1970
Directed only US film, "Zabriskie Point"
1975
"The Passenger", starring Jack Nicholson, brought renewed critical recognition and some degree of commercial success
1982
Last film for a decade, "Identificazione di una donna/Identification of a Woman"
1985
Suffered heart attack that left him partially paralyzed
1992
Completed the documentary short, "Noto - Mandorli - Vulcano - Stromboli - Carnevale/Volcanoes and Carnival"
1995
Returned triumphantly to form directing "Beyond the Clouds"; Wim Wenders directed linking sequences (including a prologue and epilogue)
1995
His wife directed a documentary "For Me, to Make a Film Is to Live" chronicling the making of "Beyond the Clouds"
1995
Presented with honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
"I shot so much film that when I began editing, I didn't know where to start. The real value of my film was the possibility I had for my camera to be in the closest proximity possible to Michelangelo, who wouldn't have allowed anyone else's camera to be so intimate while he was working." --Enrica Antonioni on making "For Me, to Make a Film Is to Live", her documentary of filmmaker husband Michelangelo Antonioni.
When asked what he wants to do next [after "Beyond the Clouds"], Antonioni replied, "It's all said by the director character in my film: 'When I have finished a film, I start thinking about the next one, and for me, being silent is not just the only thing, it is the best thing--to be silent in the darkness and then the lights come up.'"
