Antonioni - The Great Eye

On monday July 30, 2007 the world of film lost two of it's brightest (or darkest, however you wish to look at them) beacons in movie History. Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Just like they are Elvis worshippers and there are Beatles worshippers each director had his own set of followers. But as Mrs. Mia Wallace purrs in Pulp Fiction a person can't be both. Bergman had Woody Allen in his camp and Antonioni had Scorsese.

Although I admired Bergman enormously (Persona is one of the most stunning and shocking movies ever) I'd have to place myself in the Antonioni camp.

In 1995 Antonioni was starting to be recognized again and was awarded a lifetime achievement Academy Award by his old Passenger leading man Jack Nicholson. It was around this time I started to delve into Antonioni myself - it was two images that captured my attention. One was from Zabriskie Point. The shot of Daria Halpin looking out over the sand (above) and of the wonder bread flying in the air. The other was the iconic image of the mimes playing imaginary ping-pong at the end of Blow-Up. For some reason those images captivated me.

A few months later I watched my first Antonioni movie L'Avventura. I fell under it's spell right away. It was gorgeous, hypnotic and rich filmaking. It changed how I viewed movies and life. I wanted to dive right in and live that life. I wanted to wear suits all the time, walk down narrow, sparse hallways
come up behind and start kissing beautiful Italian women and tell them that it didn't mean anything and converse about how sex with them was merely to pass the time. This was the world L'Avventura and Antonioni presented to me.

He continued exploring that world and the same themes in in his next films La Notte and L' Eclisse but I was still enchanted by the vacant longing in each character and the way Antonioni juxtaposed that with his locations and framing. But by this point I was madly in love with Monica Vitti - Antonioni's muse.

When Antonioni made his first film in color Red Desert he again made a striking looking movie. Antonioni and Vitti composed a film that combined elements of the old and the modern and the result was breathtaking.

Wite the passing of Antonioni so ends one of the greatest examples of director and actress collabprations in film history. And one of the greatest eyes the form has ever seen.