Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni (Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, September 29, 1912-Rome, Lazio, July 30, 2007) was a prominent Italian filmmaker. Due to the quality of his scripts, reworked after each filming, and other writings, he is considered an acute writer of the second half of the century XX. In recent years he dedicated himself to painting, a youthful hobby that he had gradually recovered in his career.

Trajectory

Antonioni was born into a family of industrialists from Ferrara, who lived comfortably; In any case, his mother had been a worker when she was young and his father came from a humble family, although by fighting and studying they had achieved a good social position, from which the son benefited. His childhood friends, however, were modest people, and he also preferred to treat girls from working backgrounds; he saw all of them as more vital people.

Before film, Antonioni was passionate about music and drawing. As a young man he was linked to a group of creators from Ferrara (his city until he was 27 years old), which included the future novelist Giorgio Bassani, a friend of his. Antonioni began writing reviews in 1936 for the Corriere Paduano, activity that would continue in the magazine Cinema. In addition to following various courses in Letters, he graduated in economics from the University of Bologna.

He began in the cinema as an assistant to Marcel Carné in the War (as Visconti did before), although he did not receive him well; but he would always admire the technique he learned from the French classical filmmaker and his black naturalism (partly the same as Lattuada).

He went to Rome in 1942, where he studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Cinecittà, for three months, which were very important for him anyway. During the war, in 1940, he wrote the following review of the anti-Semitic Nazi film the Jew Süß: We have no hesitation in saying that if this is propaganda, propaganda is welcome. It is a powerful, incisive, extremely effective film. (...) There is not a single moment in which the film falls, not a single episode that is not in harmony with another: it is a film of perfect unity and balance (...) The episode in which Süß rapes the young woman has been shot with amazing skill.

He met some of the artists with whom he cooperated in the following years; among them were Roberto Rossellini, "father" from the school of Italian neorealism (with whom he wrote a script), and Federico Fellini, whom he always defended as an exceptional director.

After the war, Antonioni wrote for Italia Libera, Film d'Oggi and Film Rivista. From 1943 until almost the end of his life, 2004, he carried out an extensive film career, in which "neorealism" was the norm. Initially, it was modeled and essentialized. For the rest, he progressively published his scripts, retouched after each shoot, which can be read as valuable literary pieces.

On the other hand, painting was a hobby of his when he was young, when he did many portraits (first of family members). When shooting The Red Desert , he took up the brushes again, to familiarize himself with the color, which he would use so nuanced in that film; and already in recent years he dedicated himself a lot to painting, starting from the abstract world to come to paint mountains and other figurative landscapes.

His cinema until 1962

His first work was the documentary Gente del Po, shot in (1943); due to the war, it was published only in (1947), and an important part of the material was lost. He filmed it on the banks of the Po, almost next to Visconti, who was doing Obsession at the time; it was the Po of his youth, which had been a place for recreation and observation of the barges that crossed the river.

In Crónica de un amor (1950), his first film, and in La señora sin camellias (1953) (with Lucía Bosé), the director draws a dense not a pleasant reflection on the bourgeois world with appearances of mere melodrama.

Las amigas (1955), based on a great novel by Cesare Pavese (Entre mujeres solas) and with a remarkable performance by Eleonora Rossi Drago, began to form the characteristic style of its director; it transcends an already compelling personal story to experiment with social themes, and brings out expressive personal styles of storytelling and framing. Her speech has several readings; He didn't like being compared to Pavese's film, but his moral discourse paralleled it. He later considered Antonioni that he should have been able to shoot a third of it again.In any case, it is still a magnificent piece.

On one occasion Antonioni clearly gave the vision of the bourgeoisie through the point of view of the world of workers: it is The Scream, from 1957, (with Steve Cochran and Alida Valli). And it is not only his first masterpiece, but also the direct antecedent to the subject of human solitary confinement, or rather isolation, which so obsessed the director in his famous trilogy. Through the vicissitudes of a helpless and wandering hero, he talks about the Italy of the moment. That Antonioni film accurately reflects his personality and style, as it will develop in the future.

The 1960s were the moment of international recognition for the director and his professional meeting with Monica Vitti, whom he met while filming The Scream, when she was 23 years old, and was known for dramatic roles (Shakespeare, Brecht) and especially comedians (Molière, Ionesco).

There was an initial failure for The Adventure, 1959, given the rejection by the public; but the critics praised the film and, in addition, 35 intellectuals, among them Roberto Rossellini and André Bazin, wrote a manifesto of solidarity with the author that is published in the Cannes Film Festival Bulletin. This beautiful film it was bitter and often painful, Antonioni acknowledged: it concerns the search for a missing woman on an island in Sicily by her friends; everyone is scared, and finally there are no answers about her fate, and the story extends through the adventures of other characters.

To him, Monica Vitti was one of the most talented actresses he had ever met, someone "incredibly mobile" and original in her interpretation, he was romantically linked with her for eight years, and they made four renowned films.

In The Night (1961), he describes the mental separation of a married bourgeois couple, Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau, in Milan (the film opens with the Pirelli skyscraper); the action takes place in a very short time (half a weekend), and Mastroianni and the screenwriter and writer Ennio Flaiano appear in it, in a scene that has been compared to La dolce vita, but only there is despair in common, in addition to its high quality. At the time, Arbasino and Moravia pointed out the excessive negativity of the protagonist, the fictional writer Pontano.

In The Eclipse (1962), Antonioni shows Monica Vitti that she had thought she loved a young man dedicated to finances and extremely selfish; the story ends in a separation, which is shown with desolate landscapes and objects. The outstanding and extensive scenes of the Stock Exchange in Rome, with its hustle and bustle, are unrepeatable; To make them, the author spent twenty days visiting and used operators, bankers and agents in the film.

Both The Night and The Eclipse fascinated all of Europe and crossed its borders. Between 1955 and 1965, Antonioni and Fellini were at the forefront of world cinema. Critics say that they close the aforementioned triptych, but Antonioni denies that label, and in any case includes The Red Desert in a common problem.

The red desert, a new twist

In 1964, came his first color film and, for some (by no means all), the initial decline of his prestige, with The Red Desert. It is a visually beautiful and very abstract film, with Monica Vitti again, in an almost exclusive way, who finds herself in a fragile and indecisive psychological situation, and who analyzes certain inert landscapes. As Antonioni himself said in 1964: "It is my least autobiographical film; I have told a story as if I saw it as it was happening under my eyes; if there is something autobiographical it is color; colors have always excited me".

One of his most famous and brilliant works was Blow-Up, desire of a summer morning; it was based on a short story by Julio Cortázar and set in the London of artists and publicists who were part of the Pop movement; It was about the adventures of a photographer who discovered a murder through his photographs, but could not finally prove his discovery. Once again, Antonioni tried to recreate reality and its violence in an abstract way, yet he is both thoughtful and intuitive. Despite his great success, Antonioni's late career suffered from some artistic irregularity and a kind of creative block., always surpassed, by fighting to the end and achieving new perspectives.

From the filmmaker's last stage, several works stand out. Zabriskie Point, shot in the United States, deals with youth dissatisfied with the more capitalist way of life, and who becomes marginal; It is a film about the escape of two young people; The landscapes are impressive, but the author's point of view is sometimes very visible, as is some metaphor about the world they dreamed of. Chung Kuo (1972), a revealing documentary work on China at the time, which was poorly accepted by the political leaders, although they always had a representative on set. It showed a human landscape different from the European one, but very concrete and modern, not mythical.

The Reporter (or The Passenger), made in 1975 with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, turns out to be an interesting experience about isolation and depersonalization; on a trip of the protagonist, who goes from Africa to Spain finally, the consequences of having changed the passport with that of a dead man, found occasionally; the editing of the film was also highly manipulated in its American version (and for the author only the European editing is valid).

In 1980, he shot The Oberwald Mystery, a juicy and original drama, with dark, ultra-romantic overtones, based on The Two-Headed Eagle, a melodramatic piece by Cocteau and set in 1903. It is a a work made digitally, in which Antonioni played creatively with the new technique (he supposed it would have such a future that it would replace traditional film), which allowed him to continually experiment with color. The film is not without a current air, despite Cocteau's argument: a young man enters to kill the queen one stormy night, surrounded by a court full of plots. She falls in love with him and protects him, until the drama breaks out. Antonioni narrates it with distance, but experiences "a feeling of lightness in the face of these events devoid of the complexity of reality".

In Identification of a woman, from 1983, it failed to materialize. In 1985 she suffered a vascular accident that left her partially paralyzed. However he was able to carry on, and in the 1990s he worked on more or less successful ambitious projects: Más allá de las nubes (1995) and Eros (2004).).

Antonioni passed away on July 30, 2007, the same day as Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.

Balance

Antonioni figured in his beginnings as a neorealist, and he made documentaries and films in that line that soon began to distort that movement. But it is often said that if in his contemporary and admired Federico Fellini, the first works revolved around social misfits, in Antonioni's most representative films in his early stage —except The Scream—, based on various layers of the urban bourgeoisie (with a social environment that they hardly understand), and their critical moments. However, in all his films there appear as a background, for some moment, people who are busy in his job, hard-working people, and who contrast or complement the protagonist.

He described himself as anti-fascist, and, at times, as an "intellectual Marxist," according to the ideas that prevailed in his youth, and among his friends in the Resistance. For the rest, his affirmation, always nuanced, of social determination in the strange behaviors of his characters is evident, as is his conception of the filmmaker's responsibility in society.

In any case, Antonioni enriched neorealism by studying other social classes, to which is added his anguished rhythm, his relentless sharpness and a narrative detachment that understands his characters. The bourgeois world was the undoubted core of his films, as he always highlighted in his statements.

In most of his films an individual critical situation appears visible in the environment but almost always personalized in a woman, whom he said he knew much better. But, as he said, "it is not the environment that engenders the crisis; it limits itself to making it explode." And on another occasion he pointed out: "The word "alienation" I did not invent it, it is part of the European baggage from Marx to Adorno. It expresses a real phenomenon, a concrete problem of humanity, which has probably worsened in recent years".

Antonioni commented on his admiration for Bergman, a filmmaker who focused like him on individuals, but indicating that both were very far apart in their forms. His work is both documentary and narrative, even in fiction, to a very innovative extent.

From the point of view of the strength of his images —which is so decisive in his films— one must not forget his early taste for the films of Griffith, Eisenstein, Murnau, Renoir or Dreyer, with powerful close-ups to faces and to the environments.

Antonioni was highly esteemed in Italy, and not only by specialists: Umberto Eco wrote about him in Obra abierta; The critic Guido Aristarco highlighted him, not without controversy, and, recently, the great monograph by film historian Aldo Tassone (I film di Michelangelo Antonioni, 2002; best foreign book on cinema in France, when translated), With his documented vision —also based on evident personal knowledge— he shows that his cinema is neither impassable nor glacial.

He was also admired throughout the world, and especially in Japan and France: he was notably interviewed by Jean-Luc Godard, and Roland Barthes wrote an article about him in 1980, "Dear Antonioni", which the filmmaker thanked.

Filmography

• People of the Po (1943), documentary.
• Chronicle of a love (Cronaca di un amore)' (1945)'.
• Rome-Montevideo (1948).
• After oblivion (Oltre l'oblio) (1948)
• Urban (urban) cleaning (urban) (1948), documentary.
• Lovely lie (L'Amorosa menzogna) (1949), documentary.
• White girls (Ragazze in Bianco) (1949)
• Seven reeds, one dress (Sette canne, one dress) (1949), documentary
• Superstition (Superstizione, non ci credo) (1949)
• The Monster Home (La Villa dei mostri) (1950), documentary on Bomarzo
• The funicular of the Faloria (La Funivia del faloria) (1950)
• L'Amore in cità (1953), Love in the city: the segment "Tentato suicido"/"Suicide attempted") short film.
• I Vinti (1953), The defeated.
• The lady without camels (The Signora senza camelie) (1953)
• Friends (Le Amiche) (1955), based on Cesare Pavese.
• The scream (Il Grido) (1957)
• Under the sign of Rome (Nel segno di Roma) (1959) (without credit)
• The adventure (L'Avventura) (1960)
• The night (La Notte) (1961)
• The eclipse (L'Eclisse) (1962)
• The Red Desert (Il Deserto rosso) (1964)
• I tre volti, (1965) (segment "Il provine"/La pruebita) tcc All three faces or Three female profiles (Spain).
• Blow-up (1966), based on the story "The Bass of the Devil", by Julio Cortázar.
• Zabriskie Point (1970), with music by Pink Floyd.
• Chung Kuo - Cina (1972), Chung Kuo - China.
• The reporter (Professione: reporter(1975)
• Suffer or die (Suffer or Die) (1979)
• The mystery of Oberwald (Il Mistero di Oberwald) (1981), based on a story by Jean Cocteau.
• Identification of a woman (identzione di una donna) (1982)
• Kumbha Mela (1989).
• 12 directors for 12 cities (12 registi per 12 città) (1989), the short "Rome".
• Noto, Mandorli, Vulcano, Stromboli, Carnevale (1993).
• Al di là delle nuvole (1995), Beyond the cloudsco-directed with Wim Wenders.
• The Michelangelo sguardo, (2004) The look of Michelangelo, short film on Moses by Michelangelo watched by the filmmaker.
• Eros (2004) (the fragment called "Il filo pericoloso delle cose"/The dangerous thread of things).

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Cannes International Film Festival

Venice International Film Festival

• Knight Grand Cross of the Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic (Rome, 18 November 1992).
• Gold Medal to Merit of Culture and Arts (Rome, January 13, 1997.