Michelangelo Antonioni

Paris Belongs to Us defies genre and defies even the loose standards of the New Wave. It does, however, undeniably represent the cinema of Jacques Rivette.

The Conversation is a new feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their third piece, they will discuss Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up. **** Landon’s Take: The cultural impact of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up would be very difficult to overemphasize. Upon release, Andrew …

It is with L’Avventura that one truly gets the sense of ground being broken. That’s not to say it is the best film [Antonioni] ever directed (though I would argue it is), but this is the film of his that most clearly worked to usher in a new form of cinema, from which there was no turning back.

In 1953, Michelangelo Antonioni directed the episodic I vinti (The Vanquished), quite possibly the least “Antonioni-esque” feature he ever made … nevertheless a fascinating examination of this “burnt out generation.”

“L’eclisse” is the third film in Michelangelo Antonioni’s so-called “Trilogy of Alienation,” the preceding works having been “L’avventura” and “La notte.” While the three films taken together do explore many of the same themes relating to spiritual emptiness, the disbanding of relationships, and a struggle to communicate in an increasingly modern and alienating world, “L’eclisse” differs from the two earlier works most notably in its increasingly experimental style and its blatant departures from conventional storytelling and stylistic design.

Please note that the following piece contains spoilers for the final act of Blow Out. Taken at face value Blow Out, Brian De Palma’s 1981 film, is a nifty and tightly wound little thriller. It starts to run into some trouble, however, when compared to Michelangelo Antonioni’s seminal counter culture classic Blowup (1966), the film …

There are few unrealized projects in the history of cinema more tantalizingly fascinating than Stanley Kubrick’s planned feature about Napoleon

“Though dealing with adults and serious adult situations, ‘Jules and Jim’ exhibits a formal sense of unbridled glee, with brisk editing, amusing asides, and a sinuously mobile camera. It is alive like few films are.”

The first time we see Monica Vitti’s character Giuliana, the Italian woman whose mental struggle with her environment is chronicled in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964), she is an olive-green figure walking along a black, desolate wasteland. This green, a symbol of nature and tranquility, contrasts with the orange flames pulsing from the factory and …

Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead …