Michelangelo Antonioni - Silence in Spaces

We’re used to going in to see a film knowing that we’ll be given a mapped-out narrative with matching visuals that make sense to the plot, but this is not so in case of Antonioni’s films. In a way yes, he is the man who “freed” cinema as put by Scorsese because his stories took the unconventional route of defying conventional expectations that were usually followed by a film. The classic narrative structure does not hold weight in the stories that Antonioni tells. Unlike most narratively inclined films, Antonioni’s films hold a lot more meaning in terms of spaces, furniture, architecture and the environment that the characters are in – these places are consciously brought into the story in order to add mystery and to serve as barriers and imposing figures apart from our characters.

This is portrayed in Antonioni’s romantic drama L’Eclisse, where the story is free of any of the usual plot points, climactic peaks and moments that portray emotional significance. The story starts unconventionally in the middle of things where we are introduced to two people clearly not seeing eye to eye in terms of their relationship. Just like we are introduced to the couple we are also audience to their parting that holds no apparent emotional weight. After leaving her partner Riccardo, Vittoria meets Piero and has a whirlwind romance that seems to be drifting in the surface and here too we see that there is not much of an emotional depth. We see something similar in La Notte where Lidia and Giovanni are two people who are trying to connect but keep failing. This film is so rich in terms of silence and absence of dialogues and emotions that it almost feels as though it were not a movie. Real life become equivalent to reel life because most relationships in reality fail to connect too. L’Avventura also captures this desperate attempt to find something that may or may not have existed. Through the absence of Anna, we get to see Claudia and Sandro struggle to find her and instead uncover a passion they have for each other. But does that exist in the real world or is it just their imagination, or the disappearance of Anna bringing them together? We see yet another failed connection with long silences and shots that linger just a little longer than usual. All of these silences have the power to speak louder than words and that can be seen in Blow Up. In this film, Antonioni really puts in all his creative genius. Here too, Thomas is trying to find something that he saw…or did he see nothing? Was it a dead body and a gun or was it just his imagination running wild? There are far too many moments with absent dialogues and we as an audience get to focus on the visual narrative which is what Antonioni holds dear. He frees cinema from its usual narrative hold of dialogues and perfectly timed scenes by giving us an irregular rhythm and open-ended conclusions. What do these mime artists have to do with our story of the young artist? Maybe he needs silence to get inspiration or maybe they’re there to provide him some well-earned silence and simplicity. The catharsis in these films can be that anything and everything could have happened in the end, we are not bound by a sold ending, because why should we be. The scene from The Passenger is so well shot that it’s as though the audience too is a part of the narrative. Antonioni makes sure that he has a hundred percent of our focus on the things he wants us to see in that one

dolly-in shot of the camera looking out of the window and suddenly being out the window. So much has happened in that time but we don’t find out because we are locked into the movement as Antonioni wanted us to be. Genius.

The cinematic techniques of Antonioni are precise and concrete and arguably the opposite of narrative and they work but only in the way he tells his stories. It is massively inspiring to see common genres like drama, romance and mystery be converted to something which has more visual depth and audience participation. You cannot watch an Antonioni film because you’re bored and want mindless entertainment. His films don’t work that way; he makes the audience work for their entertainment, you have to find meaning in the visual cues and the implication in the silences. Antonioni’s approach to filmmaking differs largely from those of his contemporaries and masters. He works to put more emotional depth in his silences and spaces, his set is also a character that tells a story. The streets, studio, park all tell a story in Blow Up – they’re not just locations. Same goes for L’Eclisse, La Notte and L’Avventura – they all have locations that are either buildings (modern or old-fashioned), streets, island, waters and old towns; they all tell a story that is interlaced into the story of our characters. He makes sure to linger on shots just a little longer so that we can see the texture of the landscape, for example, in L’Avventura the different colors and textures of the rocks force us to see Anna’s body just lying on the rocks and he toys with our imagination that way.

The film that hit me hardest was Blow Up simply because it had a grandiose and far flung beginning as well an absurd ending! Mime artists travelling and playing tennis – this is what life should be; exciting and always unpredictable. No one would have ever imagined a film to start and to end like Blow Up did – no one would have had the courage to make it that way. His pauses and scarce use of dialogues is something that really hit a different note. He uses his quiet moments very thoughtfully. It is a sort of fast paced movie and these silences help the audience catch a break and regain composure to take in all the different visuals that were shown in succession. Was Thomas seeing things his imagination wanted him to see – was he finding inspiration? Did he actually end up finding anything? Obviously, Antonioni will never tell us that! Just like in all his other films we focused on, we are left with an open-end to do whatever we want with it. It ends just like every other film, in silence that speaks a thousand words.

In the book At the Edges of Thought, author Craig Lundy quotes Michelangelo Antonioni in regard to his non-narrative films: “When everything has been said, when the main scene seems over, there is what comes afterwards…” (Lundy 325).

In conclusion the absurdity of Antonioni’s films obviously cannot be explained, they are however, open to infinite interpretations.

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Works Cited

Lundy, Craig. “Deleuze, Antonioni and the Kantian Lineage of Modern Cinema.” At the Edges of Thought: Deleuze and Post-Kantian Philosophy, Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2015, p. 325. Print.