Michelangelo Antonioni (1912 – 2007) is one of the directors featured in the special presentation in HKIFF 2009. The festival is showing over ten films (made 1950 to 2004) by the Italian Neo-realist director. Apart from the well known ‘Blow-Up’, the ‘L’avventura’, ‘La Notte’, ‘L’eclisse’ trilogy and his first colour TV film ‘Il Deserto Rosso’, the festival is also showing three short films and ‘Chung Kuo’. Commissioned by China, the film was deemed ‘anti-China’ and subsequently banned.
Antonioni is very fond of puppet making and architecture, and started drawing since teenage. He persisted even after his stroke at the age of 73. An art lover, Antonioni majored in economics in university. He also had a flare for tennis. The director officially started learning about film production when he was 29, prior to that he had written 147 film reviews. His writings are known for being sharp and to the point. He mainly wrote reviews on films about Fascist politics, he would analyse on the themes, interpretation and cinematography techniques alike. When Antonioni studied film in Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, he started using 35mm camera and finished a short film in no time. The director was called to the army three months later, as the sergeant of the communication team. He even made time to write screenplay in the evenings during his service in the army – Antonioni’s passion for film is absolutely undeniable.
‘Michelangelo Antonioni — The Complete Films’ published by Taschen tells the life of Antonioni. Written by Seymour Chatman, he is the Professor Emeritus of rhetoric and film studies at University of California, Berkeley. Chatman put together a stunning collection of cinema images and the director’s material from early to late years. ‘Michelangelo Antonioni — The Complete Films’ is a substantial documentary of the career and life of Antonioni.
