JACKI LYDEN, host:
The Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni was buried in his hometown in Italy on Thursday. Known for films like "Zabriskie Point" and "Blowup," Antonioni died on Monday at the age of 94. His 60-year career in the movie industry included an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.
We have a personal appreciation by NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: Antonioni is credited by many film buffs as the cinematic father of angst, alienation and existential malaise. For some moviegoers, he was too enigmatic, plodding and cerebral. Whatever the critical judgments on his work, two of Antonioni's movies have always struck me as bookmarks of that tumultuous decade, the 1960s.
"L'Avventura," his first big critical success, came out in 1960. Here he described the emotional confusion of Italy's emerging post-war class, torn between the moralism of a poor agrarian world and the temptations of a newly wealthy and modern society. In a Europe that had just come out of years of totalitarianism and war, Antonioni introduced filmgoers to internal struggles and the estrangement of individuals in a rapidly changing society.
At the end of the decade, in 1970, Antonioni went to the U.S. to make "Zabriskie Point," a movie about counterculture revolutionaries. The soundtrack featured music from Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead, but it was a critical and box office failure. The final slow motion explosion of a house could be seen today as the illusion of bringing about revolution, an idea at that time that Antonioni's fans in both Europe and the United States were unprepared to accept.
Through lingering shots and sparse dialogue, Antonioni sought to explore the emotional sterility of contemporary society. Discarding traditional plotlines, he often left filmgoers puzzled and frustrated.
On his death, many commentators said it's hard to watch an Antonioni movie today due to the affliction of contemporary society, our difficulty concentrating on anything for any length of time.
But I remember the films of Antonioni as representing a time when we went to the movies not just seeking entertainment. It was a time when discussing the enigmas, hidden meanings and symbolism of movies was a vital part of the film-going experience. You may not have agreed at all with the director's personal vision, but it could be stimulating to critique even what you thought was pretentious.
Antonioni was an iconoclastic director. His films were painterly oblique and challenging. He inspired a generation of filmmakers who saw him as a poet with a camera. But he was also dismissed by some critics as too opaque. He once told an interviewer he made all his movies according to his own personal taste, not that of the public. He left many questions unanswered and remains as enigmatic as his films.
Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
