Word: antonioni
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Even the controversy about the mysterioso ending of L'Avventura could be seen as good showmanship: give 'em something to talk about on the way out of the theater. Antonioni's films soon became famous for their endings. The last 7-1/2 mins. of Eclipse comprises a series of static, underpopulated street scenes in which none of the major characters appear. Blowup we'll get to in a moment, and Zabriskie Point ends with the shot of a house ... that blows up. The next-to-last scene of The Passenger is one continuous, wildly elaborate tracking shot that lasts...
...Most actors did an Antonioni film as a solemn duty, not for the laughs. A sworn enemy of bombast, visual or behavioral, he made his performers reveal more with less. This was particularly tough on his compatriots. Italian actors, and Italians in general, speak with their bodies; each conversation is a performance using the most lavish and vigorous hand gestures. Antonioni stripped them of these flourishes - he either refined the natural tendencies of these actors or he straitjacketed them...
...passivity, is a live wire in Eclipse, where he plays a stock market trader who catches the attention of Vittoria (Vitti), who has just broken up with her rich boyfriend. During the frenetic bidding or in a cafe afterward, Delon is constantly on the move, going nowhere fast, and Antonioni gives him a long leash to display his ruthlessness and his boyish charm...
...director first cast Vitti, a little-known stage ingenue, as a voice double for another actress in the 1957 Il Grido. "We became friends," Antonioni later said. "Then things evolved. A relationship was born and a series of films." With a husky voice, a mop of blond hair and strong features that caught the camera's eye even when she wasn't center-screen, Vitti starred in five Antonioni pictures, instantly becoming their anguished or volatile face, their always human soul. She was so acute a revealer of depression, disappointment, despair, that it was a shock...
...stately old lion of American film studios. But the industry ratings board wouldn't give the picture a seal because, during a photo-shoot romp, the model Jane Birkin allowed the briefest display of pubic hair. Instead of trimming the scene to the board's specifications, MGM honored Antonioni's version of the film, invented a subsidiary, Premier Productions, and sent Blowup out under that logo. The film was a surprise hit and ushered in the era of permissive American cinema. For about a decade, thanks to Antonioni, Hollywood movies had permission to be enigmatic, unflinching and adult. Permission...