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Innovation Comes Spontaneously. I Don't Know If I've Done Anything New. If I Have, It's Just Because I Had Begun To Feel For Some Time That I Couldn't Stand Certain Films, Certain Modes, Certain Ways Of Telling A Story, Certain Tricks Of Plot Development, All Of It Predictable And Useless.

-Michelangelo Antonioni

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Innovation Comes Spontaneously. I

Michelangelo Antonioni

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Innovation Comes Spontaneously. I Don't Know If I've Done Anything New. If I Have, It's Just Because I Had Begun To Feel For Some Time That I Couldn't Stand Certain Films, Certain Modes, Certain Ways Of Telling A Story, Certain Tricks Of Plot Development, All Of It Predictable And Useless.

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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.

Hollywood Is Like Being Nowhere And Talking To Nobody About Nothing.

It Isn't Easy To Understand The Lives Of People Different From Your Own.

Monica Vitti Is Astonishingly Mobile. Few Actresses Have Such Mobile Features. She Has Her Own Personal And Original Way Of Acting.

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.

We Know That Behind Every Image Revealed There Is Another Image More Faithful To Reality, And In The Back Of That Image There Is Another, And Yet Another Behind The Last One, And So On, Up To The True Image Of That Absolute, Mysterious Reality That No One Will Ever See.

I Never Think In Terms Of Alienation; It's The Others Who Do. Alienation Means One Thing To Hegel, Another To Marx And Yet Another To Freud; So It Is Not Possible To Give A Single Definition, One That Will Exhaust The Subject. It Is A Question Bordering On Philosophy, And I'm Not A Philosopher Nor A Sociologist. My Business Is To Tell Stories, To Narrate With Images - Nothing Else. If I Do Make Films About Alienation - To Use That Word That Is So Ambiguous - They Are About Characters, Not About Me.

Today We No Longer Know What To Call Art, What Its Function Is And Even Less What Function It Will Have In The Future. We Know Only That It Is Something Dynamic - Unlike Many Ideas That Have Governed Us.

One Of The Problems Of The Future World Will Be The Use Of Leisure Time. How Will It Be Filled Up? Maybe Drugs Will Be Distributed Free Of Charge By The Government.

I Believe In The Autobiographical Concept Only To The Degree That I Am Able To Put Onto Film All That's Passing Through My Head At The Moment Of Shooting.

Actors Are Always A Little High At Work. Acting Is Their Drug. So When You Put The Brakes On, They're Naturally A Little Disappointed.

If An Actor Tries To Understand Too Much, He Will Act In An Intellectual And Unnatural Manner.

A Scene Has To Have A Rhythm Of Its Own, A Structure Of Its Own.

Method Actors Are Absolutely Terrible. They Want To Direct Themselves, And It's A Disaster.

People Are Always Misquoting Me.

Hollywood Doesn't Believe In The Death Penalty For Anyone Except People Who Get Cable Tv Without Paying For It. Hollywood Is Like Being Nowhere And Talking To Nobody About Nothing.

I Can't Imagine Love Without A Sexual Charge.

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.

Fitzgerald Said A Very Interesting Thing In His Diary; That Human Life Proceeds From The Good To The Less Good - That Is, It's Always Worse As You Go On. That's True.

Another Reason For Switching To Color Is World Television. In A Few Years, It Will All Be In Color, And You Can't Compete Against That With Black-and-white Films.

Black And White

A Film That Can Be Described In Words Is Not Really A Film.

Take Einstein; Wasn't He Looking For Something Stable And Changeless In This Enormous, Constantly Changing Melting Pot That Is The Universe? He Sought Fixed Rules. Today, Instead, It Would Be Helpful To Find All Those Rules That Show How And Why The Universe Is Not Fixed - How This Dynamism Develops And Acts. Then Maybe We Will Be Able To Explain Many Things, Perhaps Even Art, Because The Old Instruments Of Judgment, The Old Aesthetics, Are No Longer Of Any Use To Us - So Much So That We No Longer Know What's Beautiful And What Isn't.

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...

You Can't Go To An Lsd Or Pot Party Unless You Take It Yourself. If I Want To Go, I Must Take Drugs Myself.

The Struggle For Life Is Not Only The Material And Economic One. Comfort Is No Protection From Anxiety.

My Films Have Always Had An Element Of Immediate Autobiography, In That I Shoot Any Particular Scene According To The Mood I'm In That Day, According To The Little Daily Experiences I've Had And Am Having - But I Don't Tell What Has Happened To Me. I Would Like To Do Something More Strictly Autobiographical, But Perhaps I Never Will, Because It Isn't Interesting Enough.

I Think People Talk Too Much; That's The Truth Of The Matter. I Do. I Don't Believe In Words. People Use Too Many Words And Usually Wrongly. I Am Sure That In The Distant Future People Will Talk Much Less And In A More Essential Way. If People Talk A Lot Less, They Will Be Happier. Don't Ask Me Why.

I Don't Want What I Am Saying To Sound Like A Prophecy Or Anything Like An Analysis Of Modern Society .... These Are Only Feelings I Have, And I Am The Least Speculative Man On Earth.

I'll Go On Making Films Until I Make One That Pleases Me From The First To The Last Frame. Then I'll Quit.

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.

The Script Is A Starting Point, Not A Fixed Highway. I Must Look Through The Camera To See If What I've Written On The Page Is Right Or Not. In The Script, You Describe Imagined Scenes, But It's All Suspended In Mid-air. Often, An Actor Viewed Against A Wall Or A Landscape, Or Seen Through A Window, Is Much More Eloquent Than The Lines You've Given Him. So Then You Take Out The Lines. This Happens Often To Me And I End Up Saying What I Want With A Movement Or A Gesture.

I Began Taking Liberties A Long Time Ago; Now It Is Standard Practice For Most Directors To Ignore The Rules.

The Moment Always Comes When, Having Collected One's Ideas, Certain Images, An Intuition Of A Certain Kind Of Development- Whether Psychological Or Material- One Must Pass On To The Actual Realization.

When I See Nature, When I Look Into The Sky, The Dawn, The Sun, The Colors Of Insects, Snow Crystals, The Night Stars, I Don't Feel A Need For God. Perhaps When I Can No Longer Look And Wonder, When I Believe In Nothing - Then, Perhaps, I Might Need Something Else. But I Don't Know What.

A Man Who Renounces Something Is Also A Man Who Believes In Something.

Favourite Directors Change, Like Favorite Authors. I Had A Passion For Gide And Stein And Faulkner. But Now They're No Use To Me Anymore. I've Assimilated Them - So, Enough, They Are A Closed Chapter. This Also Applies To Film Directors.

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.

Everyone Has Understood Me In His Own Way. But I Would Have To Understand Myself First In Order To Judge - And So Far, I Haven't.

I've Never Had A Method Of Working. I Change According To Circumstances; I Don't Employ Any Particular Technique Or Style. I Make Films Instinctively, More With My Belly Than With My Brain.

Before Each New Setup, I Chase Everyone Off The Set In Order To Be Alone And Look Through The Camera. In That Moment, The Film Seems Quite Easy. But Then The Others Come In And Everything Becomes Difficult.

I Want An Actor To Try To Give Me What I Ask In The Best And Most Exact Way Possible. He Mustn't Try To Find Out More, Because Then There's The Danger That He'll Become His Own Director.

Often To Understand, We Have To Look Into Emptiness.

Innovation Comes Spontaneously. I Don't Know If I've Done Anything New. If I Have, It's Just Because I Had Begun To Feel For Some Time That I Couldn't Stand Certain Films, Certain Modes, Certain Ways Of Telling A Story, Certain Tricks Of Plot Development, All Of It Predictable And Useless.

Women Are A Finer Filter Of Reality. They Can Sniff Things.

I'm Not Rich And Maybe I'll Never Be Rich. Money Is Useful - Yes - But I Don't Worship It.

The Script Is Simply A Series Of Notes For The Film.

Reality Has A Quality Of Freedom About It That Is Hard To Explain.

I've Made Films About The Middle Classes Because I Know Them Best. Everyone Talks About What He Knows Best.

Violence Is Not The Only Means Of Persuasion.

The Public Buys "art" - But The Word Is Drained Of Its Meaning.

Reality Itself Is Steadily Becoming More Colored. Think Of What Factories Were Like, Especially In Italy At The Beginning Of The 19th Century, When Industrialization Was Just Beginning: Gray, Brown And Smoky. Color Didn't Exist. Today, Instead, Most Everything Is Colored. The Pipe Running From The Basement To The 12th Floor Is Green Because It Carries Steam. The One Carrying Electricity Is Red, And That With Water Is Purple. Also, Plastic Colors Have Filled Our Homes, Even Revolutionized Our Taste. Pop Art Grew Out Of That And Was Possible Because Of This Change In Taste.

The Photographer In Blow-up, Who Is Not A Philosopher, Wants To See Things Closer Up. But It So Happens That, By Enlarging Too Far, The Object Itself Decomposes And Disappears. Hence There's A Moment In Which We Grasp Reality, But Then The Moment Passes. This Was In Part The Meaning Of Blow-up.

When I'm Sure I Have A Story, I Call My Collaborators And We Begin To Discuss It. And We Conduct Studies Of Certain Subjects To Make Sure Of Our Terrain. Then, Finally, In The Last Month Or Two, I Write The Story.

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.

Ingmar Bergman Is A Long Way From Me, But I Admire Him. He, Too, Concentrates A Great Deal On Individuals; And Although The Individual Is What Interests Him Most, We Are Very Far Apart. His Individuals Are Very Different From Mine; His Problems Are Different From Mine - But He's A Great Director. So Is Fellini, For That Matter.

There Can Be No Censorship Better Than One's Own Conscience.

When You Work On A Character, You Form In Your Mind An Image Of What He Ought To Look Like. Then You Go And Find One Who Resembles Him.

I Don't Know Whether I Am Ever Bored. I Never Look At Myself.

The Greatest Danger For Those Working In The Cinema Is The Extraordinary Possibility It Offers For Lying.

I'm More Or Less Skeptical About Marriage, Because Of Family Ties, Relations Between Children And Parents - It's All So Depressing.

A Woman's Sex Appeal Is An Inner Matter. It Stems From Her Mental Make-up, Basically. It's An Attitude, Not Just A Question Of Her Physical Features - That Arrogant Quality In A Woman's Femininity. Otherwise, All Beautiful Women Would Have Sex Appeal, Which Is Not So.

When I See A Good Film, It's Like A Whiplash. I Run Away, In Order Not To Be Influenced. Thus, The Films I Liked Most Are Those I Think Least About.

A Particular Type Of Film Emerged From World War Two, With The Italian Neorealist School. It Was Perfectly Right For Its Time, Which Was As Exceptional As The Reality Around Us. Our Major Interest Focused On That And On How We Could Relate To It. Later, When The Situation Normalized And Post-war Life Returned To What It Had Been In Peacetime, It Became Important To See The Intimate, Interior Consequences Of All That Had Happened.

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.

When I Am Shooting A Film I Never Think Of How I Want To Shoot Something; I Simply Shoot It.

A Film You Can Explain In Words Is Not A Real Film.

I Would Throw Out The Sense Of Nation, "good Breeding," Certain Forms And Ceremonies That Govern Relationships - Perhaps Even Jealousy. We're Not Aware Of All Of Them Yet, Though We Suffer From Them. And They Mislead Us Not Only About Ethics But Also About Aesthetics.

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.

I Never Feel Empty. I Travel A Lot And I Think About Other Films.

Nothing Regarding Man Is Ever Inhuman. That's Why I Make Films, Not Iceboxes.

The Family Today Counts For Less And Less. Why? Who Knows - The Growth Of Science, The Cold War, The Atomic Bomb, The World War We've Made, The New Philosophies We've Created; Certainly Something Is Happening To Man, So Why Go Against It, Why Oblige This New Man To Live By The Mechanisms And Regulations Of The Past?

My Films Always Leave Me Unsatisfied, Since I've Always Worked Under Fairly Disastrous Conditions Economically.

There Are Many Ways Of Communicating. Some Hold The Theory That New Forms Of Communication Between People Can Be Obtained Through Hallucinogenic Drugs.

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.

I Can't Give Any Absolute Definition Of What Love Is, Or Even Whether It Ought To Exist.

It's Only Human And Natural That An Actor Should See The Film In Terms Of His Own Part, But I, As A Director, Have To See The Film As A Whole. He Must Therefore Collaborate Selflessly, Totally.

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.

I Meant Exactly What I Said: That We Are Saddled With A Culture That Hasn't Advanced As Far As Science.

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.

I Dislike Judging Myself, But I Will Say I Would Be Wealthy Today If I Had Accepted All The Films That Have Been Offered To Me With Large Sums Of Money. But I've Always Refused, In Order To Do What I Felt Like Doing.

In Any Case, The Idea Of Giving "all" Of Reality Is Overly Simple And Absurd.

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.

All I Know Is That We Are Loaded Down With Old And Stale Stuff - Habits, Customs, Old Attitudes Already Dead And Gone.

I Didn't Like University Life Much At Bologna. The Subjects I Studied - Economics And Business Administration - Didn't Interest Me. I Wanted To Make Films. I Was Glad When I Was Graduated. Yet It's Odd; On Graduation Day, I Was Overcome With A Terrible Sadness. I Realized That My Youth Was Over And Now The Struggle Had Begun.

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.

I've Always Dreamed Of Getting To Know The Women Of Other Countries Better. When I Was A Boy, I Remember, I Used To Get Angry At The Thought That I Did Not Know German Or American Or Swedish Women.

There's Much Talk About The Problems Of Youth, But Young People Are Not A Problem. It's A Natural Evolution Of Things. We, Who Have Known Only How To Make War And Slaughter People, Have No Right To Judge Them, Nor Can We Teach Them Anything.

It's Obvious That I Must Explain What I Want From An Actor, But I Don't Want To Discuss Everything I Ask Him To Do, Because Often My Requests Are Completely Instinctive And There Are Things I Can't Explain. It's Like Painting: You Don't Know Why You Use Pink Instead Of Blue. You Simply Feel That's How It Should Be - Pink. Then The Phone Rings And You Answer It. When You Come Back, You Don't Want Pink Anymore And You Use Blue - Without Knowing Why. You Can't Help It; That's Just The Way It Is.

Normally, However, I Try To Avoid Repetitions Of Any Shot.

Life Should Be Taken Ironically; Otherwise, It Becomes A Tragedy.

After You've Learned Two Or Three Basic Rules Of Cinema Grammar, You Can Do What You Like - Including Breaking Those Rules.

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.

You Cannot Penetrate Events With Reportage.

The Women I Like, No Matter What Nationality, All Seem To Have More Or Less The Same Qualities. Perhaps This Is Because One Goes Looking For Them - That Is, You Like That Type Of Woman And Then Look For Her.

The Way I Relax, What I Like Doing Most, Is Watching. That's Why I Like Traveling, To Have New Things Before My Eyes - Even A New Face. I Enjoy Myself Like That And Can Stay For Hours, Looking At Things, People, Scenery.

Sometimes Actors' Mistakes Give Me Ideas I Can Use, Because Mistakes Are Always Sincere, Absolutely Sincere.

In Blow-up I Used My Head Instinctively!

I've Always Played Down The Drama In My Films. In My Main Scenes, There's Never An Opportunity For An Actor To Let Go Of Everything He's Got Inside. I Always Try To Tone Down The Acting, Because My Stories Demand It, To The Point Where I Might Change A Script So That An Actor Has No Opportunity To Come Out Well.

I Forget About The Relationship Between Myself And Any Actress When Working With Her.

I May Film Scenes I Had No Intention Of Filming; Things Suggest Themselves On Location, And We Improvise. I Try Not To Think About It Too Much. Then, In The Cutting Room, I Take The Film And Start To Put It Together, And Only Then Do I Begin To Get An Idea Of What It Is About.

I Am Neither A Sociologist Nor A Politician. All I Can Do Is Imagine For Myself What The Future Will Be Like.

Scientific Man Is Already On The Moon, And Yet We Are Still Living With The Moral Concepts Of Homer.

We Live In A Society That Compels Us To Go On Using These Concepts, And We No Longer Know What They Mean.

I Read Somewhere That Happiness Is Like The Bluebird Of Maeterlinck: Try To Catch It And It Loses Its Color. It's Like Trying To Hold Water In Your Hands. The More You Squeeze It, The More The Water Runs Away.

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