a farewell: the visionary

In the noisy forest of an urbanscape, a woman wanders endlessly for what we are not sure of. Stark and linear constructions of glass and metal shield and envelop her in the puzzle of the city. Her face is awash in expressions unsaid. She responds to a crying baby, a group of men fighting, and a crumbling wall. The woman is Jeanne Moreau and the film is "La Notte." This was my full introduction to the genius of Michelangelo Antonioni. "L'Avventura" was my initial foray but I wasn't quite ready for its existential cool and specific narrative pull. I recognized there was something there. Something hidden but relevant and capable of being fresh and tangible. "La Notte" was my next bout with Antonioni's world of alienation, the bored bourgeoisie, and impaired relationships. Stunning, heartbreaking, and devastatingly sexy, "La Notte" fully realized everything I love Antonioni and film in general. It feels personal and consistent. There is an emphasis on aesthetics that produce radical ideas about the world, gender, and cinema. "La Notte", like many other Antonioni films is unabashedly concise in its daring narrative trajectory in that it simmers and builds like a slow burning fire leading up to mostly explosive and perfect ending. You almost feel like his films are unlike anything you've ever seen before and yet they are often simple in their approach and subject matter. "La Notte" is quite simply a story about a married couple, who over the course of one night discover their relationship is broken and devoid of vitality. There is a crushing profundity in his almost minimalist execution and that is what makes Antonioni a true master of the modern plastic art that is film.

"La Notte" was the second film in the loose tetralogy Antonioni crafted in the 1960s. "L'Avventura", "L'Eclisse", and "Il Deserto Rosso" spoke very loudly about the new Italy in a post-World War II sense. As the economy grew, the bourgoise found its place again and relished in their newly secured wealth and priviledge. Sexual mores were also changing, perhaps not so radically and overtly as in America at that time, but in Antonioni's films the savagely incandescent Monica Vitti was a symbol of a woman in control of her body and mind. She was the other woman in "La Notte" and "L'Avventura"; a bored housewife going insane in "Il Deserto Rosso"; and enraptured by the allure of Alain Delon in "L'Eclisse." She was dynamic and sexual but in an assuredly cerebral way. Jeanne Moreau also fit this bill with her brilliant lower lip and dagger of a stare. In "La Notte" she tells her husband played by the ineffable Marcello Mastroianni that she has her own thoughts and she is not to be condescendingly belittled by anybody. With a sly drag from his cigarette he responds with a coy indifference. He recognizes the power his wife holds but in a way only Mastroianni can, pretending that it's not wrecking him on the inside. That is Antoninoi. Tide like emotions bubbling beneath the surface. Some grand meaning can be achieved in the slightest blink, stare, or gust of wind. It's not pretentious but more so revealing of a culture that is vacant of faith, love, and the natural environment.

Like many Antonioni films, "The Passenger" is about identity, or the lack there of, and how we are always searching for more whether it be love from a spouse, God, or the self. We are a restless world broken and fractured with the influx of neo-capitalism and crippling technology. Our world is now brimming with skyscrapers, construction sites for future buildings, and more monuments that celebrate us in our self-defined glory. The gap between the have and the have nots is ever-expanding like a bloated pig. Antonioni heralds from an upper crust background and lets that inform his knowledge of this world. Aside from the somber "Il Grido", Antonioni's attention is tuned into the identity of a class that vacations on the regular, hosts cocktail parties, and wallow in their silent despair of having it all. Something is missing for these people, but they are insanely watchable and someone we wouldn't judge too harshly. His characters understand the promise and possibilities of life otherwise why would they want it so badly? They recognize the beauty and difficulties of something more vital and alive but the distraction and white noise of bourgeois societal expectations has clouded their vision and made them amputated from something real.

As these characters yearn and search for something to connect to they are gorgeously framed. Monica Vitti reading on the steps at the party in "La Notte"; David Hemmings looking smaller and less significant on a tennis court in "Blow-Up"; and Jack Nicholson lying on a bed in "The Passenger" are strong and resonate images that very easily become etched into your brain. His films are typically short on words and full on striking images. Antonioni understands that film is primarily a visual medium and perhaps the strongest statement a filmmaker can make is how they use the camera. Antonioni uses it to not only comment on the world but cinema as well. The last few minutes of "L'Eclisse" are some of the most mind-expanding images ever committed to celluloid. It opens our eyes to the idea of reality versus the artificial. Film can very easily be reduced to a populist mass form of fluff, but in fact if we look hard enough there is something purposeful and weighty that exists. The slow drip of water or the rustling of leaves is just as captivating as watching a sad and sorrowful Jeanne Moreau in the rain. It's all relative in Antonioni's cinema. Our cinematic expectations are reared in a direction in Antonioni's films. We have to connect the dots from the implied nature of his haunting images. Film is a plastic art that is meant to evoke and provoke and that acts as a definition for the visual appeal and punch of Antonioni's films that are an exact realization of the many wondrous possibilities of film.

Although his work has slowed in the past two decades due to a debilitating stroke, it will be unthinkable to imagine a world without the dear presence of Antonioni. Luckily his subtle influence of characters grappling with miscommunication and uncertainty combined with arresting visuals can be found in Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation", Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood for Love", and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." His films have an eternity that will surely be appreciated for future cinephiles who crave something a little bit daring and subtly unusual. Ingrid Sischy of Interview magazine described Miuccia Prada's clothes as having an "interior life" and that is the gift that Antonioni gave to his audience. Each film is a poetic inner dialogue that challenges us, moves us, and stays with us.