Which are your favorite Michelangelo Antonioni movies?

Who? How old is this buzzard?

He died at the age of 94, R1. Lol.

I think Blowup was his masterpiece. It was an experience watching it.

'The Passenger' is another favorite. I believe, it's one of the best movies of Jack Nicholson, as well.

I love BLOW-UP, it is the 1960s for me being 21 at the time, also THE PASSENGER, and L'AVVENTURA and L'ECLISSE with the endlessly fascinating Monica Vitti.

R5, Monica Vitti and Alain Delon were both fascinating in 'L'Eclisse', but i'm not particularly fond of this film. However, i find the first three you mentioned excellent movies.

Where is the Massimo Girotti kitty?

I'm glad that someone voted for 'La Notte'. It was the first Antonioni movie i saw. I was impressed.

In a Jim Morrison biography I read that Jim liked 'Zabriskie Point'.

Pier Paolo Pasolini was enthusiastic about 'Red Desert'.

I remember seeing L'avventura in college and thinking this is as close to a novel as a film can get.

I enjoy his films a lot, and I adore La Notte in particular.

But L'eclisse has one of the most cynical and saddest ending in film history. To me it's five minutes of Antonioni fabulousness.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the new restoration of La Notte coming to NY's Film Forum September 14-22.

I'm agnostic on most of Antonioni's films, but I think Zabriskie Point is one of the most pretentious, overrated films I've ever sat through.

It's Antonioni's Ishtar.

R12, there will be a new restoration of 'La Notte'? That's great. I would also like to see that. Thanks for the info.

Well, R13, from all the Antonioni movies i have seen, 'Zabriskie Point' is the one i like the least. We kind of agree.

'Il Grido' with DataLounge favorite Steve Cochran is also an interesting movie to watch.

DataLoungers, why haven't you given so far, not even a vote to 'Red Desert'? Hello!

I remember how hillarious it was when Ingmar Bergman and Antonioni died on the very same day. When the news of Bergman's death came many people said Antonioni is now the greatest living European director, but a couple of hours later it was announced that Antonioni had also croaked.

But I never really cared for him. I watched only Story of a Love Affair (which is supposed to be among his more grounded and realistic works) and I found it totally boring and cliched. I never watched a single movie of his ever again because they all sound equally boring and pretentious. Give me a good Fellini or Pietro Germi movie over this hack anyday!

Hmm, okay, R17.

There is already a good thread on Fellini's movies and it is still open.

Now as it comes to Bergman, i would like to make a poll on his movies, but i hesitate. The thing is that i would leave out 'Fanny and Alexander' which along with 'Summer With Monika' i consider them to be the most boring and unwatchable Ingmar Bergman films i have seen. By leaving out 'Fanny and Alexander' from a poll on Bergman movies, i'm fully aware that i would get a lot of boos. I don't particularly need that, now. Maybe, some other time...

But anyway, perhaps one of you decide to make a poll on Bergman movies and release me from this burden. :P

I can understand why Zabriskie Point didn't go over that well at the time, especially with counterculture audiences - the English-language dialogue isn't always that hot, and the leads (while pretty) can't really act, making them seem dim. But I still think the whole thing is beautiful and hypnotic to watch, and it has one of my very favorite endings. Antonioni films always have great endings.

Voted for L'Avventura, but I really love all the films from L'Avventura to The Passenger.

I loved The Passenger the first time I saw it years ago, but would like to give it another watch. I had a disappointing experience watching Blow Up a second time, feeling it didn't hold up as well, but it certainly caught the zeitgeist of 1966 well . I voted for L'Avventura, which is always mesmerizing, and I could watch L'Eclisse any time just for Delon and Vitti's magnificent screen presences. This video is for a Sade song, but it uses scenes from L'Eclisse to great effect.

agree on how dated and a bit ridiculous Zabriskie might be today, but the lead actor was scorching hot IMHO

He was DEFINITELY hot, R22. His name was Mark Frechette.

Here is some interesting trivia about him:

Throughout the filming of 'Zabriskie Point', Mark Frechette and Antonioni disagreed bitterly about the script, while Frechette had an affair with co-star Daria Halprin.

He donated his $60,000 earnings from 'Zabriskie Point' (1970) to a commune.

He tried to rob a Boston area bank; sentenced to 15 years in prison. One of his accomplices was killed by the police. [August 1973]

Mark Frechette died in prison on September 27, 1975, during an apparent weightlifting accident, when a 150-pound barbell fell on his neck and he suffocated. Prison officials did not suspect foul play. Friends thought he had been suffering from depression. He was 27 years old.

'Blow up' the film is far better than the original story by Cortazar.

A hot boy like Frechette wasted his life on "counter-revolution" and radical activism. His type today would spend his life on Instagram. I really don't know which option is sadder.

I voted for Red Desert

Some scenes are truly amazing in it

Nice link, R24. Thank you!

R25, it's also interesting that both Jim Morrison and Mark Frenchette died at the same age. They were both 27. As has been said before, Morrison liked 'Zabriskie Point'.

R26, i love your taste. I love certain scenes in this movie, too.

DL, I need your help. I fell asleep during L'Avventura.

I want to have a second go at it, but I need some encouragement with something that I can look for to appreciate.

I was gobsmacked by David Hemmings' beauty in BLOW-UP.

I saw it right before GLADIATOR came out.

You can imagine my shock. I actually stifled a scream during the credits when his name appeared.

R28, 'L'avventura' premiered in 1960 at Cannes to an audience that laughed and hooted during its unreeling. Three years after the Cannes brouhaha (calmed somewhat by its jury prize win), “L’Avventura” was ranked third (behind “Citizen Kane” and “Battleship Potemkin”) on Sight and Sound magazine’s international critics’ poll of the best 10 films ever made.

I absolutely think that you should give it a second go. It's one of the films that demand a second view, after all.

Cute reply, by the way. :)

If anything, Antonioni is probably cinema's greatest compositor, even greater than his closest rival Kubrick. His compositions are flawless and always striking. I'm willing to bet that Americans, including myself, have trouble with the ambiguity in the storylines.

As I get older I realize how pretentious these films are.

Me too, R32. But i long for those times when Italy felt so exciting and fresh.

I always felt that someone should make a movie about the making of L'Avventura: the shooting was a nightmare, with the cast and crew stranded on those islands for long periods of time with scarce food and no money... it could even work as a comedy!

I don't know, when I see a run of the mill blockbuster like the new Star Trek movie, it really makes me appreciate the era of high modernism in the 60s. A movie like L'Avventura is unafraid to move at its own pace and make up its own narrative (or anti-narrative) logic as it goes along. It can be boring if you're not in the right mood, but if you give yourself up to it and go with the flow, there's something really tonic about it.

L'Eclisse is stunning to look at on Blu-ray, with Vitti and Delon at their peaks of beauty, amazing compositions. Back in the 60s and 70s we young folk went to european arthouse movies as a matter of course, every big city had at least one cinema showing them. Today's kids can barely bother with superhero movies now.. Those stunning black and white Antonioni Fellini and Bergman movies are still great now, like Visconti's The Leopard and others in color too. Pasolini's Teorema too.

"pretentious" = Americanism for "I don't understand what this means!"

Agreed that the ending of ZP is still electrifying.

Vitti was mesmerizing in Antonioni's movies. it's shocking to think that later she became a bonafide comedy star. Check out her 70s italian comedies, she's absolutely brilliant. A real star with huge range.

Michelangelo Antonioni receiving an Honorary Oscar.

Unlike Loren and Lollobrigida, Vitti also in her 80s now, has not been seen for years, not even at Antonioni's funeral. Seems she has Alzheimers for some time, I presume she is being well looked after.

I like her later comedy roles too, MODESTY BLAISE has some amazing moments, and THE SCARLET LADY and AN ALMOST PERFECT LOVE AFFAIR, and LE FATE (THE QUEENS) where she has a very amusing section and looks marvellous. Shes a very funny comic lady.

Watch Girl with a Gun, R41. She's super funny in that. Vitti has not been seen in public for more than 20 years now. Last i heard she's Living in a swiss clinic. It's very sad.

I watched L'Eclisse on TCM last night and fell asleep in the middle. I watched the ending today on YouTube. I’m not sure why the ending has such high praise or considered sad and haunting. I found the cinematography beautiful with interesting shots. Am I missing something?

[quote]As has been said before, Morrison liked 'Zabriskie Point'.

The Doors recorded "L'America" for the movie, but it ended up not being used.

I love the way Antonioni photographs architecture, particularly in The Passenger. The scenes in Barcelona are fabulous.

Bump

One of my favorite scenes in L'Aventurra is where Vitti and Gabrielle Ferrezzi go into this abandoned town on a tip that Anna was spotted there. Antonnioni knew how to convey forbodding emptiness.

R43 - The two main characters have abandoned each other, but the movie still continues to underscore that sense of abandonment.

Those final things we see - such as the bus, the water sprinkler, the barrel of water, the crosswalk, the wind blowing - all appeared at other moments in the film when the characters (along with their feelings) were there. But now they couldn't bother to show up for each other, and that fact that life goes on basically emphasizes what a loss that is.

BTW I was all set to post here, thinking this was a new topic, until I realized that the thread is 4 years old - and that I posted here (at R12) when it first appeared.

Thanks, r48

Alain Delon looks like a Jared Leto/Zac Efron mix. What great actor he was.