Michaelangelo Antonioni dies, and fewer care than for Bergman

Italian filmmaker Michaelangelo Antonioni died today, one day later and much more obscurely than Ingmar Bergman did Monday.

Everything posted in a previous blog about Bergman's irrevelevance to the past few generations of moviegoers also applies to Antonioni. Today's moviegoers would be equally baffled about the acclaim for his movies but we can be thankful he inspired others to create.

My Antonioni film memories have some qualifying factor making them so.

Blow-Up marked the first time I (or anyone else for that matter) had ever seen full frontal female nudity in a legitimate (i.e. non-porn) movie. That's the only reason it was booked at an Alabama drive-in theater in the 1960's, I assure you.

The Passenger starred my all-time favorite actor, Jack Nicholson, but even that couldn't get it many U.S. bookings. I didn't see it in a theater until 2005 at the Telluride Film Festival, plugging its future release on DVD. Slow and interesting, as were many of Antonioni's works.

Two days, two aged, revered foreign filmmakers gone. If I were Bernardo Bertolucci, I'd watch my back until the trifecta's played out.