Michelangelo Antonioni
(Ferrara 1912 - Rome 2007)
It was in Ferrara, where Antonioni spent the most serene period of his life, that the initial contact with the world of spectacle took place when he organised a student campaign in which he staged works by Pirandello, Ibsen and Chekhov.
In 1940, he embarked on the adventure of making films in Rome. After an apprenticeship as a critic and screenwriter, he began his activity as a director with the documentary "People of the Po River", in which he depicted the humble and poverty-stricken life of the population that lived on the river. His debut in full-length films came in 1950 with "Story of a Love Affair".
It was followed by others including "The Cry", in which the director returns to the Po Delta as the setting for the existential anguish and eventual defeat of a working class man. The setting is an integral part of the tale; Antonioni transfigures the actual landscape into an abstract one, a landscape of the conscience or the memory.
He achieved international recognition with his set of four films made in the Sixties: "The Adventure", "The Night", "Eclipse" and "The Red Desert" in which the director handled colour for the first time in a totally original and innovative way. For years Antonioni's last film remained "Identification of a Woman". This forced inactivity, due to precarious health, finally came to an end in 1995 with the film "Beyond the Clouds", once again filmed in and around Ferrara and directed in tandem with the German director Wim Wenders.
Antonioni, the undisputed leader of our film-making for forty years, stands out for his style and exact, unmistakable precision that have made him one of the masters of contemporary cinema.
He is buried in the Charterhouse of Ferrara.
Antonioni's most important works:
- The Cry with Gabriella Pallotta, Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, Dorian Gray, Betsy Blair - Drama, Itay 1957;
- The Adventure with Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, Lea Massari, Renzo Ricci, Dominique Blanchar - Drama, Italy 1959;
- The Red Desert with Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Xenia Valderi, Carlo De Prè, Rita Renoir, Aldo Grotti - Drama, Italy 1964;
- Blow-up with David Hemmings, Sarah Miles, Vanessa Redgrave - Commedia, Gran Bretagna, Italy 1966;
- Zabriskie Point with Paul Fix, Rod Taylor, Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Bill Garaway - Drama, USA 1970;
-Identification of a Woman con Tomas Milian, Christine Boisson, Daniela Silverio - Drama, Italy 1982.
THE ARTIST'S PLACES IN FERRARA
Antonioni family homes
- Via San Maurelio 10
- Via Brasavola 14
Monumental charterhouse
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