Cinema According to Antonioni: From Neo-Realism to Screen Existentialism

Abstract

2022 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of one of the most iconic film directors in the world, Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2008). The object of analysis in the article is the work of this outstanding Italian film director, screenwriter and publicist.
His contribution to the history of world screen culture is undeniable. Coming to the world of cinema on the eve of the fall of the fascist dictatorship, having mastered the aesthetics of “film truth” as the basis of neorealism, Antonioni eventually becomes a prominent representative of screen existentialism, in his work he addresses complex problems of the spiritual and social existence of man in the bourgeois world. M. Antonioni’s creative directorial style takes shape in his non-fiction films. His directorial debut was the documentary “People of the Po Valley”, which he began filming in 1943 and completed in 1947. This picture, as well as his subsequent works (“Superstition”, “Dustmen”, “The House of Monsters”, etc.), is “a peculiar version of neorealism in documentary cinema”.
On this basis a kind of “Antonioni” touch and language of his films started to take shape; the process of forming the creativity philosophy, the artist’s view of the world, society, man was launched.The author of the article proceeds from the premise that the understanding of the tragic loneliness of man, his “uncommunicativeness”, “alienation”, being an existential foundation of Antonioni’s films, is the result of his observations on the life of Italian society not only at the time after the defeat of fascism and the fall of the Mussolini regime, but also during the period of social “stabilization”.
This is the central theme in his main films of the 1950s and 1960s: “The Cry”, “The Adventure”, “The Night”, “The Eclipse”, “Red Desert”. A special place in his work is occupied by the films shot outside of Italy: “Blowup”, “Zabriskie Point”, “Professione: Reporter” (“The Passenger”).
In the 21st century mankind has to face new global problems and challenges of civilization. But the spiritual life of a person, as well as the problems of his relationship with society, the environment, his adjustment to new communicative conditions make the work of Michelangelo Antonioni ever so relevant and socially significant.