22 Facts About Michelangelo Antonioni

1.

Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian director and filmmaker.

2.

Michelangelo Antonioni's films have been described as "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes.

3.

Michelangelo Antonioni was born into a prosperous family of landowners in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, in northern Italy.

4.

Michelangelo Antonioni was the son of Elisabetta and Ismaele Antonioni.

5.

In 1940, Michelangelo Antonioni moved to Rome, where he worked for Cinema, the official Fascist film magazine edited by Vittorio Mussolini.

6.

In 1942, Michelangelo Antonioni co-wrote A Pilot Returns with Roberto Rossellini and worked as assistant director on Enrico Fulchignoni's I due Foscari.

7.

Michelangelo Antonioni continued to do so in a series of other films: I vinti, a trio of stories, each set in a different country, about juvenile delinquency; La signora senza camelie about a young film star and her fall from grace; and Le amiche about middle-class women in Turin.

8.

In Le Amiche, Michelangelo Antonioni experimented with a radical new style: instead of a conventional narrative, he presented a series of apparently disconnected events, and he used long takes as part of his film making style.

9.

Michelangelo Antonioni returned to their use in L'avventura, which became his first international success.

10.

Michelangelo Antonioni then signed a deal with producer Carlo Ponti that would allow artistic freedom on three films in English to be released by MGM.

11.

In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni drafted a treatment entitled "Technically Sweet", which he later developed into a screenplay with Mark Peploe, Niccolo Tucci, and Tonino Guerra, with plans to begin filming in the early '70's with actors Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.

12.

In 1972, in between Zabriskie Point and The Passenger, Michelangelo Antonioni was invited by the Mao government of the People's Republic of China to visit the country.

13.

Michelangelo Antonioni made the documentary Chung Kuo, Cina, but it was severely denounced by the Chinese authorities as "anti-Chinese" and "anti-communist".

14.

In 1980, Michelangelo Antonioni made Il mistero di Oberwald, an experiment in the electronic treatment of color, recorded in video then transferred to film, featuring Monica Vitti once more.

15.

In 1985, Michelangelo Antonioni suffered a stroke, which left him partly paralyzed and unable to speak.

16.

Michelangelo Antonioni's final film, made when he was in his 90s, was a segment of the anthology film Eros, entitled Il filo pericoloso delle cose.

17.

The short film's episodes are framed by dreamy paintings and the song "Michelangelo Antonioni", composed and sung by Caetano Veloso.

18.

Michelangelo Antonioni died at age 94 on 30 July 2007 in Rome, the same day that another renowned film director, Ingmar Bergman, died.

19.

Michelangelo Antonioni lay in state at City Hall in Rome where a large screen showed black-and-white footage of him among his film sets and behind-the-scenes.

20.

Michelangelo Antonioni was buried in his hometown of Ferrara on 2 August 2007.

21.

You could say that Michelangelo Antonioni was looking directly at the mysteries of the soul.

22.

Michelangelo Antonioni gives you a full shot of somebody walking down a road.