Biography for
Michelangelo Antonioni More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

29 September 1912, Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Date of Death

30 July 2007, Rome, Italy

Height

5' 10" (1.78 m)

Mini Biography

Michelangelo Antonioni was born in 1912 into a middle-class family and grew up in bourgeois surroundings of the Italian province. In Bologna he studied economics and commerce while he painted and also wrote criticism for a local newspaper. In 1939 he went to Rome and worked for the journal "Cinema" studying directorship at the School of Cinema. As he was indebted to neorealism his films reflect his bourgeois roots like in his first movie Cronaca di un amore (1950) or La signora senza camelie (1953) or Le amiche (1955). His biggest success was the trilogy L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), and L'eclisse (1962), with which he won several prizes. This success allowed him to go abroad and to work on international scale in English: e.g. Blowup (1966) in London or Zabriskie Point (1970) in the USA.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Volker Boehm

Spouse

Enrica Antonioni	(1986 - 30 July 2007) (his death)
Letizia Balboni	(1942 - ?)

Trivia

Burglars stole an Oscar, awarded for career achievement, from his Rome apartment during the Christmas holidays. [December 1996]

In 1940, he worked as an editorial secretary for "Cinema", an entertainment magazine published by the Fascist Entertainment Guild, and edited by the son of Benito Mussolini.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 59-69. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

In 1985 he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak.He was unable to finish any film project until 1995, when he released Al di là delle nuvole (1995), co-directed by German director Wim Wenders.

Son of Elisabetta and Carlo Antonioni.

Was fluent in French.

Member of a circle that revolved around the magazine "Cinema", who developed the Italian neorealism, reflecting the changes in Italian everyday life during the postwar period.

Considered himself a Marxist intellectual.

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

Personal Quotes

I feel like a father towards my old films. You bring children into the world, then they grow up and go off on their own. From time to time you get together, and it's always a pleasure to see them again.

Actors are like cows. You have to lead them through a fence.

Reality changes so rapidly that if one theme is not dealt with, another presents itself. Allowing one's attention to be attracted by each little thing has become a vice of the imagination. All one has to do is to keep one's eyes open: everything becomes full of meaning; everything cries out to be interpreted, reproduced. Thus, there is no one particular film that I would like to make; there is one for every single theme I perceive. And I am excited by these themes, day and night. However, opportunity and other practical considerations limit and direct the choice . . .

A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continually renew the supply.

I am not a theoretician of the cinema. If you ask me what directing is, the first answer that comes into my head is that I don't know. The second, all my opinions on the subject are in my films.

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it. My technique, which differs from film to film, is wholly instinctive and never based on prior considerations.

I always try to follow a certain pattern and work without thinking of the audience. It is not that I dislike my audience; I am not an intellectual, but I believe that films should not be made to entertain the audience, earn money or achieve popularity. I think that films should be made to be as good as possible. And it seems to me that this is the best way to work and to be trustworthy in the world of cinema.

The Color of Pomegranates, by Sergei Parajanov, in my opinion, one of the best contemporary filmmakers, strikes with its perfection of beauty.

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