Again, more on Antonioni.

"The impression delivered even by those who admired him is not just that Antonioni films were bleak but that the bleakness was unleavened; worse still, that the man himself was above all an intellectual, who happened to choose film as the medium in which to vent the results of his cogitation," writes Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. "Neither of these judgments is accurate, and, taken together, they are guaranteed to send novices scurrying for cover. All I can say is: hold your nerve, go online, order a stash of Antonioni, lie back with a grappa, and stare.... [T]his great director, whose characters are said to be glazed with spiritual death, forged something intensely alive, as if celluloid were as strokable as skin."

Online viewing tip. Glenn Dunks has found a clip of Jack Nicholson presenting the honorary Oscar to Antonioni. Via Movie City News.

Earlier: "Michelangelo Antonioni, 1912 - 2007" and "More on Antonioni."

Update, 8/22: Edward Copeland still isn't entirely won over.

Posted by dwhudson at August 20, 2007 8:40 AM