Original subtitles

Here they come!

To Monica Vitti, who has added to her significant gifts as a film actress,

with delicacy and exquisite simplicity,

with her interpretation of the leading role in Miller's comedy,

After the Fall, a new gem.

We therefore consider her to be

one of the most important Italian actresses of all time.

His restraint, his constant search for new forms of expression through cinema,

which have made him one of the most successful directors in the world,

we have a guest of honor, whose name is

Michelangelo Antonioni!

DOCUMENTS and TESTIMONIALS

We have a guest of honor, whose name is

Michelangelo Antonioni!

After having won the Golden Lion in Venice

and receiving acclaim at several infernational festivals,

Antonioni receives a prize

during a noisy and joyous Tuscan festival

in Montepulciano.

Never again will his art be reserved for a select few.

He's an Italian from the North — calm, reserved, demanding.

Just like his films, he's nof easy fo make out at first glance.

In his opinion, what a director has fo say about himself or his work

helps in no way fo understand his body of work.

“The path a director takes fo make a film

is strewn with doubts, errors and faults

and the most unnatural thing you can ask of him is fo talk about it.”

Let's make a dolly.

- Leave the light until the sixth. - Where the painting is.

- Exactly. Before the painting, remove it. - Tough work.

- Turn it off a second. - Turn off the light.

We'll satisfy ourselves with following Anfonioni.

We'll observe him surreplitiously.

We'll watch for every sign that could give us the merest hint

of that intangible interior reality that js artistic creation.

We'll interrogate his friends, his collaborators.

We don't prefend fo draw a portrait of the artist.

Our inquiry is an approach, a starting point.

He has to go toward the bookcase.

That's right.

There. Good.

Let us set aside the myths of cinema.

Under the glare of the spotlights,

the magic only operafes on the conscience.

In the kingdom of fantasy, the ex-Empress Soraya reigns.

Now, come forward and sit down.

Slowly, slowly, slowly. Slowly, that's right.

Look at the telephone, as if it were a foreign object.

Antonioni spent a calm and bourgeois youth in Ferrara

divided befween school, fennis, friends, the sea, girls.

A provincial youth filled with romanticism

that will lead him fo a predilection for certain themes,

certain issues, certain conflicts, sentimenial or psychological.

How the friends from Ferrara have changed

since these pictures were faken.

Very nice, well done.

In what year did you meet Antonioni?

In 1932 or '33.

Did he already have the theater company he was acting with?

Who, Antonioni? Yes, of course, it was called GUF.

It was a theater company made up of college students.

We staged some one-act plays by Pirandello —

- The Bonds of Inferest — - The Bonds of Interest by Jacinto Benavente,

which Antonioni actually directed.

Because Antonioni was so good, that he took over from me.

So I said, you be the director this time.

It was an interesting play.

So he directed it. I became the actor.

I went from being the director to being the actor.

I let him be the director. And he staged several plays.

And a few others as well — A play of his own, actually.

The title escapes me now. I think it was La signora.

I hope I'm not mistaken.

And I remember that around 1932 we created a revue

that we called Lodovico and it was a lof of fun.

It was very successful.

Imagine, in Ferrara we had 27 sold out performances.

He acted, and acquitted himself admirably,

but his gifts as an actor were modest.

He realized it as well, of course, and said, “Directing is more my style.”

He was a college student at the time.

- Was he good? - Very good.

Incredibly intelligent.

And nice. A really nice guy.

He was very private.

Who knows, I guess that's his nature.

It's reflected also in his work.

It's a little bit... sad.

Ferrara,

small city on the plains of Padua, antique and silent.

Like an invitation fo elegance and leisure.

To dissipation.

Not very far from there, on the banks of the Po,

Visconti directed Ossessione.

A few kilometers away, on the same river,

Antonioni directed People of the Po Valley,

a documentary on canal fransport, fishermen.

In it, one can sense the neorealism that will soon be born.

‘By starting fo understand the world through pictures,”

he once wrofe, “/ understood pictures.

Their strength, their mystery.”

Rome, on the fourth day of the streef sweepers' strike.

Gathered af the Circus Maximus, 1,000 men in blue shirts —

silent, tidy — await for who knows what.

An orgy of abstract images.

A never-before-seen figurative violence.

From this vision emerges a documentary

that wins the Silver Medal in Venice.

Antonioni has finished his apprenticeship.

He's attended The Experimental Center for Cinematography,

been the assistant of Carné,

cowritten with Visconti and De Santis.

He's written film criticism, directed short films.

In 1950, he directs his first feature film,

Story of a Love Affair.

I met Michelangelo Antonioni at the time of Documento mensile.

He was one of the collaborators for this magazine about film.

We became pretty good friends.

Already at that time,

he was planning on making his first film, Story of a Love Affair.

We talked about it at length and looked around for a producer,

but we couldn't find one.

I had a friend in Milan,

and I asked him if he would be willing to produce the film.

Over the phone he said yes.

Since we already needed —

we had done some preparatory work and some location scouting —

so we already needed some initial money for the film,

and I found myself obliged

to sign promissory notes for about 40 million lira.

They were endlessly long white papers.

The first promissory notes I ever signed.

When he came back I said, “Look, I've already signed notes for 40 million lira.”

We had discussed it over the phone, and also in person.

And he said no, or rather, yes,

we needed to discuss it further, that I shouldn't have signed.

We finally met a man from Turin,

called Villani,

who partnered with me at first.

The production got started in earnest.

The crew was in Milan with Antonioni.

We all know the outcome of the film.

Everyone was happy. Antonioni because it was his film.

Villani because he had produced an important film.

I because I had helped Antonioni to the best of my abilities,

and because I had gotten out from under the 40 million lira of debt.

In Story of a Love Affair,

Antonioni transports neorealist concepts info a bourgeois milieu

while skewing the drama fowards infrospection.

‘Already, af that moment,” he wrote,

“I needed fo see the characters, even in their simplest gestures,

after all had been said,

after the lines had been consumed

and all that was left were the consequences

of what had just happened in the souls of each one of them.”

That film revealed the face of Lucia Bosé,

a grave, pure and somber beauty.

Lucia Bosé has now abandoned films.

We met her in one of the world's great airports.

- Okay, so we're agreed. - Write to me.

When you get back from Argentina you'll call me, okay?

- Bye. - Bye.

- Did you have anything else? - Did you give her her make-up bag?

Your make-up bag!

- Bye, Lucia. - Bye.

Up a little. A little higher.

A little lower. A little lower.

I vinti ran into a lot of trouble, mostly because of censorship.

The Italian episode, as I remember it,

was shot almost entirely two times over.

There was a lot of reworking of the script,

and then it was reshot, as I said,

because of difficulties it ran into with the censorship board.

In any case, my experience with Antonioni

was quite important in terms of what I was able to see in him.

He is an artist of rare consistency.

He is always consistent and maintains an absolute loyalty to his vision,

in spite of all the obstacles that come up

for him as for all directors in this line of work.

Antonioni took these pictures in Paris, London and Rome

during the preparation for I vinti.

The choice of locations became a kind of key to understanding the film.

That is, the choice of locations in which we would be shooting.

This was a way fo delve deeply info the subject of the film.

As a malter of fact, for The Lady Without Camellias, another of his films,

he put me in charge of location scouting,

since our relationship as collaborators had already been established.

So he had me find the locations. And it was a miserable assignment for me.

I spent a month scouting for locations. He didn't like any of them.

They all looked great, he liked them all, but none of them —

The search for locations was an intimate phase of the work.

If I were alone I could do better.

I'm not too picky, you know. And I'm not ashamed to say so.

- Look, it's that Manni actress. - What?

That's Clara Manni.

The Lady without Camellias is a portrait of the film world.

With a face like that, if only she also knew how to act.

Antonioni slides imperceptibly from satire fo drama,

shining a light on the heroine's gradual awareness

of herself and her surroundings.

...for fear of telling the truth.

- Ponto. - Present.

- Di Lese. - Present.

- Marinelli. - Present.

- Dobboloni. - Present.

- Ghiberti. - Here I am.

- Sabbioli. - Present.

- Bonsalvi. - Present.

- Somma. - I'm here.

- Grande. - Present.

- Agliari. - Here I am.

One here and one there.

Don't ask me anything.

No, no, no, I —

You don't have to do anything.

...with the animals.

You have to calm down.

Calm down, calm down.

To the left.

I would put that thing up there, Rinaldo.

It has to be much more visible, otherwise it will just disappear.

That's right, like that.

Very good. Perfect.

Not straight like that. Turn it a little.

Not too close to the wall, pull it out a little.

Closer to me. Closer, closer, come toward me, like that.

Pull it out a little. There.

She feels ill at ease here. She's intimidated.

So she mustn't let herself go. Don't relax.

You must stay tense. Really tense, okay?

- Did you get the license plate? - Of course.

Write it down.

- Now you have to tell me — - Only where there is dialogue.

Of course. Only where there is dialogue.

As for the rest, we'll leave the original,

with all the background noise,

for Marinelli to do. - Yes.

- So I can tell them — - Yes.

to start and let us know when they're ready so you can come down.

- I have other things to do. - All right.

- Shall we do the interview, then? - No.

- Why not? - I'm not doing it.

But why?

Why not?

- Have you counted them? - I think there are about 1,300.

- Are there any directors? - This is Mario Soldati.

Then I can show you a director...

a classic, if you'll allow me.

It's — well, you'll recognize him on the spot.

And it's a self-portrait, his own.

This is René Clair.

And here, in a few days —

Probably, over here, in a few days will go one of Michelangelo.

Antonioni, you see, because right now he's making a self-portrait for me.

Antonioni, as you know of course, is also a painter.

As in all his pursuits, he's somewhat of an introverted painter.

Hidden, solitary, with stylistic problems

as large as the ones he has when directing.

So he didn't just toss it off in one night.

I asked him for it two years ago. And time passes.

- Are you sure he's doing it? - Yes, I'm sure.

Do you want to — Let's give him a quick call.

Zavattini once thought of editing a journal

whose articles would be short films.

Is first edition was the only one fo ever see the light of day.

Its theme was Love in the City.

One of the episodes, directed by Anfonioni,

fold the authentic stories of women who had failed in their suicides

and who mimed their attempts on-screen.

“A failed suicide is on the border of being a testimonial

and uses art as a form of self-exploration.”

...prearranged with Antonioni.

But instead it's really spontaneous.

I will absolutely swear to it. - Of course.

He's not answering.

No, nothing. You see, this is proof

that we had no agreement.

One of the most annoying things about television

is when the camera zooms in on a character and he goes,

“Oh, it's you. Looking for me?”

Meanwhile, the guy had been there lying in ambush for an hour.

Hello, is Mr. Antonioni there?

Hi, it's Zavattini. Hi.

Listen, Michelangelo. I'm calling you simply because

our friend Mingozzi is here at my house.

And as I'm speaking to you,

the camera is zooming in on me

for an extreme close-up.

We're calling you at home.

And he had the excellent idea of including this phone call in his story.

Yes, I know.

Yes. Okay.

Okay, then.

That's great. Yes.

No, but I was happy to do it.

I showed them the sofa.

The sofa, you understand.

That's no longer there.

I said, “When he was here on this sofa,

it was a different sofa,

on which he said, ‘No, I won't do it like that.

I'm going to do it my way.” Et cetera, et cetera.

You know, speaking of Lo schiaffo —

When you wanted to do Lo schiaffo, you said, “I'd love to do it.

I love it, I'd love to work with you, but I'll do it my way.”

Et cetera, et cetera.

You understand? Okay. Bye, Michelangelo.

Bye, bye.

Lo schiaffo, “The Slap,”

a project that will never see the light of day.

Then Anfonioni directs Le amiche,

a story of multifaceted women

in the frivolous world of the bourgeois and artistic high society of Turin.

This intimate union

of the worlds of imbalance and uncertain passions

opens the period of Anfonioni's greaf masterpieces.

I don't remember it very well. It was almost 10 years ago.

I do remember clearly that the film ran into a series of problems.

Financial problems.

Italian cinema was in a crisis back then.

Italian cinema was in trouble,

and no distributor at that time had any faith in Le amiche,

even though they realized it was a very good film.

In fact, only Franco Cancellieri, the producer,

had the guts to promote the project and set the production in motion.

But after a few weeks, unfortunately,

we had to interrupt the shooting because we ran out of money.

And then we started up again, I can't remember, after a month or two.

With new funding.

A little more this way.

This curl is really annoying.

Do you understand?

Do you think that the problems you had during production influenced the acting?

No.

Absolutely not.

I think Le amiche is one of Antonioni's best films.

As far as the acting goes, I don't know.

I think we all tried to do our best work.

In fact, you won the Nastro d'argento and if I'm not mistaken the Groffa d'oro.

Yes. Yes.

I don't know.

You worked on // grido, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, // grido. Ten years ago.

Ever since then, I've stopped wearing a tie.

As far as I'm concerned, in addition to the Oscar and the Golden Lion,

Antonioni should be given the title of “arbiter of elegance.”

Every time I would put on a tie he'd say, “What have you done?”

And he'd walk away in shock, because it was always the wrong tie.

So I gave up.

- Are you ready? - No, never.

I've got to run.

Did I say anything idiotic? - You said some beautiful things.

- I think I made a mistake. - Where?

In the second-to-last question,

where it says “therefore, the director and I did not disagree” —

Take out the word “therefore.” I want to insert the word “no.”

Quiet.

Action.

Go, Menicuccio.

Cut.

All right, Menicuccio.

Tell the story with more introspection, Giulietta, don't launch into it.

Valentina, turn to face the other way.

Fellini and Antonioni collaborated on the script of The White Sheik,

Fellini's first feature film.

On the sef of Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini speaks about Antonioni.

I hope that my friendship with him

doesn't preclude me from being objective.

I have great admiration for Michelangelo,

as an artist, as a director and as a man.

What I like most about Antonioni is his consistency, his constancy.

He has always endeavored to remain loyal to A/s kind of cinema,

taking a stand not only

against the sometimes constraining limits of the producers,

but imposing — again, to the point of being quite touching —

imposing his style of cinema on a public that for years refused to go along with him.

In my opinion this is an exemplary show of strength.

From this strength of character, this loyalty to a certain kind of cinema,

many young directors should learn a lesson in dignity.

A tireless worker,

he never stops experimenting, scrutinizing faces,

seeking oul his atmospheres, his music.

This is the tempo. It's simpler, like this —

Let's see how this melds with the pianissimo.

I think I can do it.

- Could you play the second loop? - Okay.

6/4. Two bars in 3/4 each.

...various moments, these four characters.

The period of an early Marilyn.

That other one is more of the postwar years.

This could be more an existentialist.

It's more precise when you say Leaf Storm —

This one — we'll have to make it up. I have no idea.

She's some kind of gypsy.

Antonioni rejects the traditional musical commentary.

He feels that a film's music

must erase jfself as an aufonomous expression

fo play the role of an element in a more global sensory experience.

“The ideal would be fo make up a fantastic soundtrack with noises

and get a conductor fo direct it.”

I/ grido is just a piano.

It's one theme with a few variations.

Would you like to hear it?

What is Antonioni's musical taste? You've known him for a long time.

It's rather difficult. Refined.

He told me that he studied the violin.

- Really? - Sure.

He says he should have been a musician. He's always maintained that.

Who do you think is Antonioni's favorite composer?

Classical? Melodrama? Verdi? Rossini?

No, melodrama really doesn't appeal to him.

Neither Verdi nor Rossini.

Maybe a composer closer to us?

Schoenberg.

- Schoenberg? - Yes, Schoenberg.

Pierrof Lunaire.

It seems to me that he cares a lot about his choices for the score.

Yes, the choices are important,

because he tries to avoid overly loud music —

American style, just to be clear.

He always uses very few instruments.

Because it's a bit like his stories, they're very intimate, you know?

In some of his films he went to the extreme of using a single instrument.

Yes, his first film, Story of a Love Affair.

It was a saxophone.

I/ grido uses only a piano.

But the intro uses three or four instruments.

Il grido 7s a linear work,

slack like the river Po,

whose course ifs hero follows.

Here, Anfonioni's laborer is foreign fo his milieu

and lives in the solitude of his own passion.

What's being blamed is not a certain type of society

but existence itself, where love, any kind of love,

reveals us in our nakedness, our misery,

our disarmed state, our empfiness.

This film, which Antonioni has been carrying in him for years,

reveals him fo the world as one of the greatest llalian directors.

Antonioni was looking for a voice fo dub Dorian Gray.

He discovered Monica Vitti.

Without a doubt, the film world had never seen such a perfect union

between a director and an actress.

“I chose Monica,” he said,

“because no other actress inspires me like Monica,

and she brings me luck.

Before meeting her, no woman was exactly what was needed.”

And thus came L'avventura, a drama on the loneliness of human beings

set in the barren volcanic loneliness of the island of Panarea

off the Sicilian coast.

L'avventura announces a bold, new conception of dramatic composition.

A strange ballet,

where the comings and goings of the characters throughout the island

marry with the motions of the waves,

which aflack the bare rocks tirelessly.

Hang on, Michele. It's shaky.

Directing L'avventura fook several months,

both because of the difficulties that come with shooling exteriors

and the financial difficulties, which eventually caused

the bankruptcy of the production company,

leaving the crew with no money and no news,

stuck on an island in the dead of winter.

Antonioni withstood everything —

the unhappiness, the strikes the credifors —

while he waited for another company fo fake over the film's production

and enable ifs completion.

The volcano.

A terrifying tornado that was about to mow us all down,

and I was terrified, saying, “What are we going to do?”

And among us there was this guy who was some kind of shaman.

And he knows fhe word. It was told to him in church on Christmas day.

“What do you mean, the word?' “Yes, absolutely.”

I of course believe it right away. 1 go up to him and say, “Please, say it.”

We have to stop it, because if it keeps coming, we're ruined.

While I'm trembling, this guy goes out on a cliff

and starts making gestures, puts a leg like this,

making the sign of the cross in the direction of the tornado,

while this one just keeps shooting the tornado.

As soon as the guy makes the sign of the cross,

miraculously, the tornado disappears.

I swear, it disappeared.

Michelangelo kept on shooting and started insulting everyone.

- I wanted to fire the guy. - He wanted to fire the guy.

He wanted to kick out — “But I have to shoot the tornado!”

“It was going to blow us away.” “It doesn't matter.”

We had to keep shooting it.

That man over there was always acting as a lookout,

making sure the sea wasn't changing, that it wasn't dangerous.

And the boat was amazing, because every fime the sea got rough,

he would warn us, “Quick, quick, we have fo leave the island right away.”

- Were you ever stuck there? - Yes, we were, sure we were.

We were there a whole night and a day, without food or anything.

Our food was on a large boat that couldnt bring if fo us

because the sea was foo rough and it couldn't approach the island.

We saw the boat go away with all our food in it,

on the verge of fears.

And we spent the night in this shack.

We slept on the floor, just sitting down.

It was so cold, and the wind was ferrible. And the sea was so rough.

- How long was production halted? - / don't know.

The production? Three months.

During the summer there is...

a boat that brings food to these people.

- Who came fo rescue you? - No one.

There wasn't a reporter, a photographer. No one ever came.

No one.

This interlude was nof included in the final version.

On a trip fo Sicily, the two main characters of the film

meet a kind of buffoon who invites them lo play a strange game.

Games are an element that is always present

in Anfonioni's films.

Good for you.

Now we're going to play the shoemaker's game.

I'll sit here in the middle. Shoes.

Would you give me your shoe?

You hold this one like this. And you hold this one.

With this hand.

Move over a bit. Like that, good.

Now I'll work, and when I go like this you have to hit my hand with the shoe.

- Here, or — - With this hand, like this.

Let's work. - What are you doing, working?

I'm a shoemaker.

Working on a film by Antonioni is always an adventure.

It's unpredictable.

And this is one of the aspects that makes it an important period in one's life.

The consequences are equally unpredictable.

For instance, when we went to Cannes, it was my first festival and my first film.

It was like entering a fair where everyone is a socialite.

The night of the screening,

the stairway was full of hundreds of photographers.

It felt as if they were aiming rifles at us, or guns.

It was completely full, all black.

The screening of L ‘awenlura in Cannes was awful.

From the very beginning, the credits, the audience was sneering.

1 don't know why. They would laugh during the most serious moments.

The ones that had cost us the most, in which we believed the most.

This went on for the entire film.

Very few people really followed, really loved L ‘awventura.

When I came out I was crying like a baby. I was inconsolable.

I felt as if all my work, all those months,

during which I had given my all for this to be a good film,

had been for nothing.

We had all believed in this film, and it was falling on deaf ears.

These people were laughing, these socialites.

The next day something completely unpredictable happened.

When we came down, in the lobby of the hotel there was a list.

A very long list full of important names.

ltalian and foreign directors.

Reporters, critics, writers, people who had seen the film.

And this long list was preceded by a few words:

“Last night we saw the best film we've ever seen al a festival.”

In La notte, fhe fragedy of a couple erupts after a long, growing awareness.

One night is all it will take fo consume ifs disintegration.

These 8-mm rolls were taken during the shoot.

At dawn, in the park of a sumptuous villa,

despite the musicians that are still playing

and the spouses that embrace almost wildly,

the day that's about fo rise will not be any belter.

- ...only for the night? - Yes, only for the night. Then we —

There was nothing more to say, apparently.

Nothing more to communicate, as they say.

Communication had been interrupted.

In any case, I admire him —

In Italy there are two directors, as far as I'm concerned:

Fellini and Antonioni.

The trouble is that Antonioni veers in the direction of photography,

and Fellini toward costumes.

Does he take direction from the screenwriters?

I think he's quite pliable.

He lets their suggestions percolate,

and then he adds something of his own.

Otherwise he wouldn't be the director he is.

From a production standpoint,

was La noffe a difficult film to make?

Antonioni thrives on difficulty.

Like certain fish who can only live at bone-crushing depths.

In his case, if there are no difficulties he will introduce them.

I think they stimulate his imagination.

Could I have a grappa, please?

Make that two.

- You don't like interviews. - I don't understand them.

I don't enjoy them. I've never enjoyed being interviewed.

How is a screenplay born? Let's talk about Red Desert.

That's irrelevant. It all starts with a story.

The story is set in a place, in this case in Ravenna.

And then there was a great deal of research that we did.

We even consulted with some doctors, some psychoanalysts.

Sure, it's tough, because with Michelangelo it's a rather difficult job.

Because he's quite exacting.

Difficult and fun.

Sometimes. Often.

Because we play.

We play games.

We argue a lot.

Yes, because I'm stubborn as well.

He's capable of racing me, five floors.

I'll be in the elevator, and he'll run up the stairs.

He'll get there first, and I'll find him sitting in the house.

He's amazing, in this respect. He's amazing.

At cards I can beat him easily, because he's a child, he's naive.

As a screenwriter, have you ever been disappointed?

Never, never. There's no such thing as being disappointed.

Because the screenplay is a dead thing.

Antonioni always adds something.

There's no escaping it.

Antonioni's images go beyond.

They give new meaning to the film.

It's his images, there's no escaping it.

No, it makes an enormous difference.

He creates images that have a very specific, plastic structure.

In this respect he goes outside of the boundaries of the form.

From any standpoint, whether you judge the film as a film, or as a work of art.

We could even say that he has influenced...

a certain group of Italian painters.

Indirectly, perhaps,

in such a way that no one has established from a critical standpoint,

and the very painters who have been influenced have not even realized it.

I myself was greatly inspired by the final section of L ‘eclisse.

I don't know how great a film it was.

I'm not in a position to judge that.

But it seemed to contain some real plastic and visual discoveries.

This power of suggestion has nothing to do with the quality of the photography,

and ultimately not even with the framing of the images, strictly speaking.

It's a different way of perceiving things.

A different way of placing objects in space.

At least in that particular film.

Obviously you're not going to find a painter

who has painted a corner of a house with the edge of a balcony

like in L'eclisse.

But that particular way of conceiving geomelries, images —

well, that has indeed influenced all of our current painters.

Antonioni is the filmmaker of the present, of ifs sole and fleeting reality.

He feels a need fo be linked fo his era,

not so much fo express and interpret its harsher and harder aspects,

but fo record its echo inside us.

We live in a world of research.

The researcher in emotions, like any other researcher,

lives on hold.

In that sense, Antonioni is modern, young,

inexorably doomed fo experimenting.

His essential wish is fo always be receptive,

fo remain open fo the future.

Up to now, which have been the most successful experiments you've done?

We study mental categories, in many different people.

We know, for instance, what a “cause” is and what an “effect” is.

Let's say you see a worm crawling up a plant.

You can see it two ways.

The worm crawls up the plant to go eat the leaves.

The worm crawls up the plant because it's hungry.

The worm crawls up the plant just because.

Both explanations — You see the same exact thing with your eyes.

But the two mental attitudes are different.

If I can figure out what mental operations you perform,

I can transfer them to the camera.

And the camera will speak in its own language.

Cybernetics, machines, the mysteries of the fechnical

fascinate Antonioni like toys attract a child.

Ravenna in Red Desert is a construction set for adults.

Antonioni explores the path of figurative suggestion,

drastically changes the traditional symbolism of colors

and returns fo nature through the bias of an absltract landscape.

But the fundamental question he asks himself is this:

In the desert of the great industrial complexes,

“red” because it's bleeding from men's flesh,

what is, in fact, the color of our emotions?

After all, it's Antonioni's first film in color, so it was important to him.

And also for film history.

Also in view of the fact that Antonioni paints.

He had to conceive these paintings, study the colors, invent them.

As well as doing this artificially, sometimes he is helped by nature.

Nature does not always give us the colors we want at the right moment.

So think of that.

Antonioni has two completely separate and distinct personalities.

There's the Antonioni who is your friend, whom you meet for dinner,

he invites you to his house, you invite him to yours.

The Antonioni of the living room, if you will,

or the café, or the outing.

Then there is Antonioni the director.

The regular, non-director, friend Antonioni

is an incredibly nice and entertaining man.

He's intelligent, he understands your troubles.

He listens to you, he tells jokes.

When he's working he changes completely.

There is no relationship.

There is no communication between Antonioni the director

and Cervi or anyone, or a producer. No relationship.

The producer doesn't exist for him. The producer's problems don't count.

Not at all. But not because —

It's a selfish thing. He has to do his thing.

He has to finish his project. He goes forward and doesn't want any interference.

The producer might die, another might step in, another hundred might step in.

He has to finish his project. There's nothing to be done.

He alienates you. He tells you, “You'll see the film and you'll understand.”

I think this image of Antonioni is due to his attitude on set.

Every time I've seen Antonioni arrive at any given location,

I've seen a discomfort in him

for having to share something so intimate to him,

that is made of modesty, of jealousy, which he loves, with so many other people.

With the cameraman, the technicians,

with the assistant director, with the architects,

with the actors, who all bring something...

personal but also spurious,

that doesn't mesh perfectly with the idea in his mind.

His great effort and concentration are due to his attempts to overcome

what these other people bring to the work, and make it fit with his idea of the film.

With his feeling of what the film should be.

Because in life, on the other hand,

if I were fo point out one characteristic of Michelangelo if would be his youth.

He's incredibly young. He's fresh, he's alive, he's modern,

as opposed fo the molds they fry fo make him fit info.

He's open fo all the issues we face in today's world.

You could go with him to see a competition for new voices,

like the Giro d'/falia or even a piece of avant-garde theater.

If he could, he would work in secret, like a thief He would like —

He would have his own little machine fo make his own clouds, his own light.

He would make his own aclors. That would be ideal for him.

He's inferested in every aspect of reality.

What is Anfonioni's connection fo his actors?

How does he conceive directing actors?

Let's listen fo Monica Vitti,

as she triumphs on stage in Arthur Miller's After the Fall.

- Can you stay for five minutes? - Sure, I'm in no rush.

Because I'm always in a rush.

Would you like a steak? Or a drink?

There are two fridges here, you know?

My agent is in Jamaica, so I've moved in here for the week.

Friday I'm going to London, the Palladium, a huge theater.

It's extremely important for me.

But I'm so scared. - But why?

I've heard you, you know. You sing splendidly.

- No. - Especially — What's that song called?

I'm still coming into my own.

Have you read what they wrote in the News?

Where is it? Oh, here.

My records have to be put in the fridge, because they overheat the room.

1 know that certain actors, especially from other countries,

have said thal working with Michelangelo Anfonioni is difficult.

This may be true for those acfors who are accustomed fo gelling special freaftment.

For those who feel that they are the most important part of a film.

For Michelangelo the actor is not the only important part of the film.

He is one of the elements in what he is making, in his work.

There is the story, there js what he wants fo say,

there js the photography, there's the landscape,

and sometimes there's the color, and maybe an object.

There are things that have a certain value, in addition fo which there is the actor.

Antonioni does nof look al the actor in the traditional way.

He doesn't rely so much on the intelligence of the actor,

which ultimately may not be essential,

as much as he does on his instinct.

In my opinion it's much more important fo be one of the elements

of a work that has value

than fo be the most important element of one that is worthless.

Quiet, quiet, be quiet.

Move away, like that, that's right.

Very good.

You move away without coming this way. Stay close to the car.

As you were.

Let's try to shoot it, now that it's quiet. Let's go.

Damn it, the words were scarcely out of my mouth.

Rolling! - Hold it.

- Slate? - 2/29A, take 1.

Action!

Did anyone call?

Come on, let's go.

Cut!

You have to turn slightly. That's right, like that.

You don't agree, come on. We're ready.

We're still rolling. Just keep going.

2/29A, take 3.

Action!

- Did anyone call? - No.

She must be tired of catering to a princess.

With all that money?

You're supposed to say that line under your breath, not to him.

You're talking to yourself. Understand?

Discard it. Let's go.

- Ready. - Rolling.

“1962.

I went fo Florence fo film the eclipse of the sun.

Sudden frost.

A silence different from all other silences.

Earthly light, different from all other lights.

And then, darkness.

Total stillness.

All I could think about

was that during the eclipse...

emotions also stop.”

Antonioni filmed these pictures without really knowing why,

heeding a strange foreboding.

He won't even use them

because he's wary of definitions that are foo explicit.

They belong fo the most intimate memories

of an artist who will never tire of exploring the unknown.