This screening includes Zabriskie Point
- Date and time:
- Sun, Sept 30, 2018, From 4–5:53 pm
- Runtime:
- 1 hr 53 min
- Cost:
- Free, but ticketed
President’s Choice Film Series: Late Antonioni
Acclaimed Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni was regarded as part of the triumvirate of great directors of European art cinema along with Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. His earliest films were in the neorealist style, an Italian film movement that had a major influence on French New Wave cinema, and, ultimately, on films all over the world. His mid-career films grew much richer, more complex, and visually powerful and expressive. His first “trilogy on modernity and its discontents”—L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse—introduced the world to one of cinema’s most aesthetically distinct voices.
Between 1966 and 1975, Antonioni returned to the theme of modern alienation with another trilogy, the English-language films produced by Carlo Ponti: Blow-Up, Zabriskie Point, and The Passenger, all of which explored the social and cultural currents of their times. These three films were also Antonioni’s last major works. While other Italian filmmakers were struggling with the transition from black-and-white to color, Antonioni’s bold and refined use of light and color gives these films a striking visual impact that represented a major leap forward in cinematography. Critic David Thompson writes that these three films “benefit from being seen as a unit ... In these films, the world no longer deserves tragedy. Farce is a more likely destiny, or fatalism. And love is an attitude that has gone out of style.”
Series: Michael A. McRobbie's Choice