So soon after losing one titan of art cinema, another passes. Michelangelo Antonioni dies at 94. I can't find any worthy news articles at the moment that do his tremendous work sufficient credit, so I'll link to THIS.
Antonioni, along with Bergman and Tarkovsky were my earliest experiences with serious cinema. His films convey a deep sense of sadness and loneliness that often shook me to the core. Characters tend to drift insubstantially from one liaison to the next, drawfed by an increasingly dehumanizing environment. Real, empathetic communication seems stunted if not impossible within these interpersonal voids. Those that are hyper-sensitive to this existential reality, such as Monica Vitti's character in "Red Desert" are discounted as mad in an essentially anhedonic world of masks.
I just had to grab a Nietzsche book and look up one of his many poignant quotes on this subject as it seems fitting in this context:
"We, too, associate with "people"; we, too, modestly don the dress in which (as which) others know us, respect us, look for us--and then we appear in company, meaning among people who are disguised without wanting to admit it. We, too, do what all prudent masks do, and in response to every curiosity that does not concern our "dress" we politely place a chair against the door."
Most articles on his death are focusing on Blow-Up as his most influential film, and with good reason as it's probably the most commercially successful and well-known. Although it's been several years since I've seen it, I have to admit it didn't impact me in the way his meandering character-driven films do.
My very favorite Antonioni films are the 4 he made consecutively between 1960-1964:
The Red Desert - 1964
L' Eclisse - 1962
La Notte - 1961
l' Avventura - 1960
I also really enjoyed the Passenger, but for very different reasons, and have been trying to track down Zabriskie Point for several years.
