The Architect of Human Landscape: The Films of Italian Director Michelangelo Antonioni

Description

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) stands out as a poetic auteur of alienation and modernity, whose innovations in narratives and in vision challenged and changed film. He is the only director to have won the prestigious Palme d’Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear, and the Golden Leopard awards.

Antonioni is best remembered for his “trilogy on modernity and its discontents” L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L’Eclisse (1962), as well as “mod masterpiece” Blowup (1966), his first English-language film about a fashion photographer who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film.

This retrospective concentrates on Antonioni’s masterworks that defined his status in world cinema.  From L’avventura (1960), an iconic film driven by metaphors that changed the narrative structure of telling a story, to his final solo feature Beyond the Clouds (1995), in which relationships, alienation and enigmas haunt a successful director.

Screening eight of Antonioni’s films, this programme showcases his masterful techniques, such as his famous long takes, loving exploration of land and people, his careful and creative use of music and silence, and spaces of emptiness.

[photo credit: Park Circus/Warner Bros]