Neorealism taught us to follow the characters with the camera, allowing each shot its own real interior time. Well, I became tired of all this; I could no longer stand real time. In order to function, a shot must show only what is useful. Michelangelo Antonioni More Quotes by Michelangelo Antonioni More Quotes From Michelangelo Antonioni 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. Michelangelo Antonioni surfing space character I always mistrust everything I see, which an image shows me, because I imagine what is beyond it. And what is beyond an image cannot be known. Michelangelo Antonioni mistrust show-me imagine 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 digging research firsts Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing. Michelangelo Antonioni hollywood talking 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. Michelangelo Antonioni differences mind doe Reality has a quality of freedom about it that is hard to explain. Michelangelo Antonioni hard quality reality Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer. Michelangelo Antonioni moral moon men The struggle for life is not only the material and economic one. Comfort is no protection from anxiety. Michelangelo Antonioni anxiety struggle comfort I simply know what the actor's attitude should be and what he should say. He doesn't, because he can't see the relationship that begins to exist between his body and the other things in the scene. Michelangelo Antonioni actors body attitude Violence is not the only means of persuasion. Michelangelo Antonioni persuasion violence mean When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them. Michelangelo Antonioni space use men I rarely feel the desire to reread a scene the day before the shooting. Sometimes I arrive at the place where the work is to be done and I do not even know what I am going to shoot. This is the system I prefer: to arrive at the moment when shooting is about to begin, absolutely unprepared, virgin. I often ask to be left alone on the spot for fifteen minutes or half an hour and I let my thoughts wander freely. Michelangelo Antonioni done half desire Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance. Michelangelo Antonioni actors scene people A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continually renew the supply. Michelangelo Antonioni artist men ideas I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space. Michelangelo Antonioni space want character 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. Michelangelo Antonioni cutting fighting character That love is a conflict seems to me obvious and natural. There isn't a single worthwhile work in world literature based on love that is only about the conquest of happiness, the effort to arrive at what we call love. It's the struggle that has always interested those who produce works of art - literature, cinema or poetry. Michelangelo Antonioni struggle love-is art Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different. Michelangelo Antonioni strong men reality It's untrue to say the colors I use are not those of reality. They are real: The red I use is red; the green, green; blue, blue; and yellow, yellow. It's a matter of arranging them differently from the way I find them, but they are always real colors. So it's not true that when I tint a road or a wall, they become unreal. They stay real, though colored differently for my scene. Michelangelo Antonioni wall real blue Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy. Michelangelo Antonioni tragedy taken should
