The great Michelangelo Antonioni, director of such films as L'Avventura, Red Desert, Blow-Up and The Passenger, died in Italy yesterday. He was 94.
The New York Times in its obituary quotes Jack Nicholson's remarks on the director when he presented him with a career Oscar:
'In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting."
Although crippled by a stroke and rendered aphasic, Antonioni, who began his career as a reporter, continued to make films throughout his years, sometimes with the help of supporters like Wim Wenders. (Wenders' book My Time with Antonioni is a curious, at times quite sad, but ultimately illuminating portrait of the filmmaking process.) If, by any chance, you are unfamiliar with his work, please take some time to discover them, starting with the titles I listed above
