Michelangelo Antonioni Quotes About Film
-
I believe in the autobiographical concept only to the degree that I am able to put onto film all that's passing through my head at the moment of shooting.
→ -
The script is simply a series of notes for the film.
→ -
Nothing regarding man is ever inhuman. That's why I make films, not iceboxes.
→ -
I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.
→ -
I never think in terms of alienation; it's the others who do. Alienation means one thing to Hegel, another to Marx and yet another to Freud; so it is not possible to give a single definition, one that will exhaust the subject. It is a question bordering on philosophy, and I'm not a philosopher nor a sociologist. My business is to tell stories, to narrate with images - nothing else. If I do make films about alienation - to use that word that is so ambiguous - they are about characters, not about me.
→ -
You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters.
→ -
A film that can be described in words is not really a film.
→ -
I never feel empty. I travel a lot and I think about other films.
→ -
It's only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.
→ -
All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.
→ -
I didn't like university life much at Bologna. The subjects I studied - economics and business administration - didn't interest me. I wanted to make films. I was glad when I was graduated. Yet it's odd; on graduation day, I was overcome with a terrible sadness. I realized that my youth was over and now the struggle had begun.
→ -
A film you can explain in words is not a real film.
→ -
I've always played down the drama in my films. In my main scenes, there's never an opportunity for an actor to let go of everything he's got inside. I always try to tone down the acting, because my stories demand it, to the point where I might change a script so that an actor has no opportunity to come out well.
→ -
When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.
→ -
Innovation comes spontaneously. I don't know if I've done anything new. If I have, it's just because I had begun to feel for some time that I couldn't stand certain films, certain modes, certain ways of telling a story, certain tricks of plot development, all of it predictable and useless.
→ -
I've made films about the middle classes because I know them best. Everyone talks about what he knows best.
→ -
Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they're no use to me anymore. I've assimilated them - so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.
→ -
When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.
→ -
Another reason for switching to color is world television. In a few years, it will all be in color, and you can't compete against that with black-and-white films.
→ -
My films have always had an element of immediate autobiography, in that I shoot any particular scene according to the mood I'm in that day, according to the little daily experiences I've had and am having - but I don't tell what has happened to me. I would like to do something more strictly autobiographical, but perhaps I never will, because it isn't interesting enough.
→ -
Before each new setup, I chase everyone off the set in order to be alone and look through the camera. In that moment, the film seems quite easy. But then the others come in and everything becomes difficult.
→ -
When I see a good film, it's like a whiplash. I run away, in order not to be influenced. Thus, the films I liked most are those I think least about.
→ -
A particular type of film emerged from World War Two, with the Italian neorealist school. It was perfectly right for its time, which was as exceptional as the reality around us. Our major interest focused on that and on how we could relate to it. Later, when the situation normalized and post-war life returned to what it had been in peacetime, it became important to see the intimate, interior consequences of all that had happened.
→ -
I dislike judging myself, but I will say I would be wealthy today if I had accepted all the films that have been offered to me with large sums of money. But I've always refused, in order to do what I felt like doing.
→ -
I've never had a method of working. I change according to circumstances; I don't employ any particular technique or style. I make films instinctively, more with my belly than with my brain.
→ -
My films always leave me unsatisfied, since I've always worked under fairly disastrous conditions economically.
→ -
I'll go on making films until I make one that pleases me from the first to the last frame. Then I'll quit.
→ -
My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times. That's how I understand my first films, and that's what I'm still doing...
→
Michelangelo Antonioni
- Born: September 29, 1912
- Died: July 30, 2007
- Occupation: Film director
Related Authors
-
Abbas Kiarostami Film director -
David Hemmings Film actor -
Pier Paolo Pasolini Film director -
Luchino Visconti Theatre Director -
Alain Delon Actor -
Wong Kar-wai Filmmaker -
Roberto Rossellini Film director -
Akira Kurosawa Film director -
Bernardo Bertolucci Film director -
Andrei Tarkovsky Film writer -
Marcello Mastroianni Film actor -
Federico Fellini Film director -
Vittorio De Sica Film director -
Wim Wenders Filmmaker -
Jean-Luc Godard Film director -
Jeanne Moreau Actress -
Francois Truffaut Film director -
Luis Bunuel Filmmaker -
Ingmar Bergman Writer -
Yasujiro Ozu Film director