Antonioni, Michelangelo

Michalangelo Antonioni was a highly influential director during the early to late sixties, whose cinematic aesthetics have been considered some of the most important of our time, while his films are critically stimulating yet elusive in their visual complexities and meaning. Many of Antonioni's films focus on the theme of abandonment as well as certain narrative techniques in which the spectator is compelled to use the freedom of their imagination.

Michalangelo Antonioni was born on September 29, 1912 into a comfortable middle class family in the heart of the Italian province. In 1931 he attended the University of Bologna to study economics and it was here that he first became interested and involved in student theatre. After graduating he took a job as a bank teller and contributed film criticisms and stories to a local paper.

Antonionis first cinematic attempt was to make a short documentary in an asylum but was quickly aborted when the patients began to convulse uncontrollably under the stress.

Antonioni moved to Rome in 1939 and there started writing for 'Cinema' for a short period of time and it was here that his other slightly more successful cinematic endeavors were made. His first proper film, 'Cronaca di un amore' (1950) was the first of many to come which reflected his bourgeois, neo-realism style and his consistent theme of studying ordinary lives in a semi-documentary style. Swiftly followed 'Signora senza camelie', 'La Amiche' (1953), Le (1955) in which Michaelangelo focused on his underlying cinematic theme of social alienation.

In 1960, Antonioni made a trilogy that was by far his biggest success. 'L'Avventura', 'La Notte' (1961), and 'L'Eclisse' (1962) won several small awards which allowed his film making to broaden to an international scale. He also started making films in English, such as 'Blowup' (1966) set in London and also 'Zabriskie Point' (1970) set in the USA. Both these films which are not only in a more commercially popular language, are also filmed in colour which gave birth to one other of Anonionis themes which he is also noted for exploiting colour as a significant expressive element of his cinematic style.

Antonioni died on July 30, 2007 in Rome, aged 94 leaving behind a vast legacy of films and cinematic paintings which he was also famous for. “In Antonioni's work we must regard his images at length; he forces our full attention by continuing the shot long after others would cut away.”



Above: Ingmar Bergman speaks about Antonioni



Above: French interview with Antonioni, in Cannes