Re: [xmca] An epidemic of dying directors?

here goes again the 20th century... at least a part that will be missed

On Jul 31, 2007, at 7:29 AM, Mike Cole wrote:

> ROME (AP) -- Italian director Michelangelo
> Antonioni<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?
> p_id=79780&inline=nyt-per>,
> whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema
> with
> movies such as ''Blow-Up'' and ''L'Avventura,'' has died, officials
> and news
> reports said Tuesday. He was 94.
>
> The ANSA news agency said that Antonioni died at his home on Monday
> evening.
>
> ''With Antonioni dies not only one of the greatest directors but
> also a
> master of modernity,'' Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said in a statement.
>
> Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse
> dialogue
> and long takes. Along with Federico
> Fellini<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?
> p_id=89547&inline=nyt-per>,
> he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism
> movement and
> toward a personal cinema of imagination.
>
> In 1995, Hollywood honored his career work -- about 25 films and
> several
> screenplays -- with a special Oscar for lifetime achievement. By then
> Antonioni was a physically frail but mentally sharp 82, unable to
> speak but
> a few words because of a stroke but still translating his vision
> into film.
> The Oscar was stolen from Antonioni's home in 1996, together with
> several
> other film prizes.
>
> His slow-moving camera never became synonymous with box-office
> success, but
> some of his movies such ''Blow-Up,'' ''Red Desert'' and ''The
> Passenger''
> reached enduring fame.
>
> His exploration of such intellectual themes as alienation and
> existential
> malaise led Halliwell's Film Guide to say that ''L'Avventura,''
> Antonioni's
> first critical success, made him ''a hero of the highbrows.''
>
> The critics loved that film, but the audience hissed when
> ''L'Avventura''
> was presented at the 1960 Cannes Film
> Festival<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/
> subjects/c/cannes_international_film_festival/index.html?inline=nyt-
> classifier>.
> The barest of plots, which wanders through a love affair of a couple,
> frustrated many viewers for its lack of action and dialogue,
> characteristically Antonioni.
>
> In one point in the black-and-white film, the camera lingers and
> lingers on Monica
> Vitti<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?
> p_id=73738&inline=nyt-per>,
> one of Antonioni's favorite actresses, as she plays a blond, restless
> jet-setter.
>
> ''In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors
> that
> illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a
> strange
> and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting,'' Jack
> Nicholson<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?
> p_id=104455&inline=nyt-per>said
> in presenting Antonioni with the career Oscar. Nicholson starred in
> the
> director's 1975 film ''The Passenger.''
>
> Antonioni was born on Sept. 29, 1912, in the affluent northern city of
> Ferrara. He received a university degree in economics and soon
> began writing
> critiques for cinema magazines.
>
> Antonioni's first feature film, ''Story of a Love Affair'' (1950)
> was a tale
> of two lovers unable to cope with the ties binding them to their
> private
> lives.
>
> But Antonioni grew more interested in depicting his characters'
> internal
> turmoil rather than their daily, down-to-earth troubles. The shift
> induced
> critics to call his cinema ''internal Neorealism.''
>
> After the international critical acclaim of ''L'Avventura,'' which
> became
> part of a trilogy with ''The Night'' (1961) and ''Eclipse'' (1962),
> Antonioni's style was established. He steadily co-wrote his films and
> directed them with the recognizable touch of a painter. His
> signature was a
> unique look into people's frustrating inability to communicate and
> assert
> themselves in society.
>
> On Oscar award night, his wife, Enrica Fico, 41 years his junior, and
> ''translator'' for him since his 1985 stroke, said: ''Michelangelo
> always
> went beyond words, to meet silence, the mystery and power of
> silence.''
>
> The first success at the box office came in 1966 with ''Blow Up,''
> about
> London in the swinging '60s and a photographer who accidentally
> captures a
> murder on film.
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>

David Preiss, Ph.D.
Subdirector de Extensión y Comunicaciones
Escuela de Psicología
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
Macul, Santiago
Chile

Fono: 3544605
Fax: 3544844
e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
web institucional: http://www.uc.cl/psicologia

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Received on Tue Jul 31 06:52 PDT 2007