Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI, was an Italian film director, screenwriter, editor, and short story writer. Best known for his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents"—L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse—Antonioni "redefined the concept of narrative cinema" and challenged traditional approaches to storytelling, realism, drama, and the world at large. He produced "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" and rejected action in favor of contemplation, focusing on image and design over character and story. His films defined a "cinema of...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth29 September 1912
CityFerrara, Italy
CountryItaly
Michelangelo Antonioni quotes about
But, you know, Cronaca isn't more innovative than what comes after.
I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.
I can never understand how we have been able to follow these worn-out tracks, which have been laid down by panic in the face of nature.
The moment always comes when, having collected one's ideas, certain images, an intuition of a certain kind of development- whether psychological or material- one must pass on to the actual realization.
I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.
I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.
We live in a society that compels us to go on using these concepts, and we no longer know what they mean.
Normally, however, I try to avoid repetitions of any shot.
I don't want what I am saying to sound like a prophecy or anything like an analysis of modern society... these are only feelings I have, and I am the least speculative man on earth.
I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.
Hollywood doesn't believe in the death penalty for anyone except people who get cable TV without paying for it. Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.
You cannot penetrate events with reportage.
In Blow-up I used my head instinctively!
People are always misquoting me.