"The films of Michelangelo Antonioni are aesthetically complex – critically stimulating though elusive in meaning. They are ambiguous works that pose difficult questions and resist simple conclusions. Classical narrative causalities are dissolved in favour of expressive abstraction. Displaced dramatic action leads to the creation of a stasis occupied by vague feelings, moods and ideas. Confronted with hesitancy, the spectator is compelled to respond imaginatively and independent of the film. The frustration of this experience reflects that felt in the lives of Antonioni's characters: unable to solve their own personal mysteries they often disappear, leave, submit or die. The idea of abandonment is central to Antonioni's formal structuring of people, objects, and ideas. He evades presences and emphasises related absences. His films are as enigmatic as life: they show that the systematic organisation of reality is a process of individual mediation disturbed by a profound inability to act with certainty."
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James Brown, of the Ellipsis Film Society, in "Michelangelo Antonioni" at Senses of Cinema
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Antonioni
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Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni (29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian modernist film director whose films are widely considered among the most influential in film aesthetics.
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