MichelangeloAntonioni Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It seems that when a master filmmaker dies, suddenly his archives become of less importance. Last week it was reported that Ingmar Bergman's archives, which are even listed in the United Nations' Memory of the World register, might be doomed because of the expense to maintain them. Now Variety tells us that Michelangelo Antonioni's archives are also in trouble. These archives, which include short films, photographs, drawings, posters and books, are featured in a museum located in the filmmaker's hometown of Ferrara, Italy. The museum closed last year for refurbishing, but it may not reopen at all thanks to a shortage of funds. The city instead wants to open a film museum focused on all the directors who shot in Ferrara. The problem with that, though, is that when Antonioni's archives were donated to the city in 1995, there was a strict stipulation that they only be used for a museum solely about Antonioni.

I'm not too worried about the state of Antonioni's archives, as the film world would never let anything bad come to them. Just as Bergman's archives quickly received a $10,000 donation from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association following news of their jeopardy, Antonioni's archives will certainly be saved as well. Sure, he's not as celebrated a filmmaker as Bergman, but he is still very much loved by the film community. Aside from reports from Variety and other cinema-related media, the news of this travesty made headlines in mainstream Italian papers, such as La Republica, which ran the title "Ferrara 'evicts' Antonioni." I wouldn't be surprised if some fortunate person or organization hasn't already stepped forward. Michelangelo Antonioni, who gave the world L'Avventura and Blow Up, left us on July 30.

After hearing about the death of Ingmar Bergman yesterday, I began thinking about Michelangelo Antonioni. I knew the legendary Italian filmmaker was older and I feared he'd be the next to pass on. As it turns out, he was. Antoninoni died the same day as Bergman, in fact, on July 30. The director of classics like L'Avventura and Blow-Up, Antonioni was the more accessible of the two filmmakers for me, at least when I was first introduced to both as an ignorant teenage film student with a distaste for slow-paced cinema. To this day, I still prefer the films of Antonioni, although not for the same reasons. Back then it was the music and the women that attracted me; today it is the curiosity of his camera and the nonchalant simplicity of his plotting. Of course, I also still think of Antonioni's films as being some of the sexiest art-house pictures ever made. Thanks to Blow-Up, I still have a thing for the now 70-year-old Vanessa Redgrave.

Born in 1912, Antonioni earned a degree in economics and was a film journalist before deciding to attend film school. His first credit was as screenwriter for Rossellini's A Pilot Returns and he continued writing scripts, including Fellini's The White Sheik, while carving out a filmmaking career for himself, initially making documentary shorts. Antonioni's debut feature came in 1950 as Story of a Love Affair. A decade later he achieved his first widespread critical acclaim for L'Avventura, the first in a trilogy -- in themes only -- that also includes La Notte and L'Eclisse. In the mid-60s, Antonioni signed a three-picture deal with producer Carlo Ponti to make English-language films. These films were Blow-Up, for which he was nominated for two Oscars, Zabriskie Point and The Passenger, which stars Jack Nicholson. He had a stroke in 1985, leaving him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Yet he still managed to make Beyond the Clouds, aided by Wim Wenders, in 1995, and his final work, a disappointing segment of the 2004 film Eros.

If his death occured in one of his own films, Antonioni would likely become forgotten, replaced, or thought of as inconsequential. But a film depicting Antonioni's life and death as so meaningless would be too implausible. There are so many memorable scenes and images in his films -- the ending of Blow Up is one of my favorites in all of cinema -- and he has been a great inspiration to and influence on directors following him. Perhaps he would want us to accept his passing as just another event in time, but there's no way he would expect us to think of what he did in life as unimportant.

Nibbles for you:

• In January, Erik reported that Obi Wan's brown cloak from the Star Wars movies was going on the auction block. While bidding didn't explode past the approximately $100,000 starting price, it did make its mark, selling for $104,000 to an anonymous telephone bidder. Did Mr. Lucas slide his own bet in, using the Dark Side to keep others from bidding the price up? Good lord, you could buy an island for that! Personally, I would've grabbed Terry Jones' metal helmet from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That went for what seems like a paltry $19,300 in comparison.
• Sicily has a new funding program for films, budgeted at $9.2 million, that is going to help two premiere foreign filmmakers, and Oscar nominees, make their next features. Michelangelo Antonioni will use his funding to make Aquiloni sull'Etna, translated as North Winds on Mt. Etna, while Wim Wenders will use his share to make Palermo Story. First, props to Antonioni for making a feature at 95, and second, I hope this Wenders film doesn't get swallowed for years like Land of Plenty did.
• When you can't find adaptation inspiration in literature or television, where do you turn? Well, Lionsgate and the Firm think you turn to art. Thomas Kinkade's painting, The Christmas Cottage, will be the source for the feature, and the aim is to release it as Santa rolls around next Winter. The movie, which was written by Prairie Home Companion collaborator Ken LaZebnick, will use the painting to discuss the artists life -- he began painting when his mother was about to lose the family home. I can't blame the studios for wanting a piece of this -- Kinkade's company claims they sold $1.7 billion of his artwork at retail, and $2.4 billion in licensed products. I guess he's not starving.