Chronicle of an Auteur: More Antonioni Goodness!

Frame grab from Cronaca di un amore / Story of a Love Affair (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950)

Film Studies For Free presents the second of its celebrations of the centenary of the birth of Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. Below are embedded the video recordings of a number of unmissable talks at Antonioni and the Arts, an event held at Royal Holloway, University of London, in October to mark the anniversary. 

Thanks to Royal Holloway's School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures for hosting the talks, as well as taking the trouble to record them and make them freely available online.

This latest entry coincides with Cronaca di un autor: Convegno dedicato a Michelangelo Antonioni nel centenario della nascita, a marvellous conference, with an amazing array of speakers, taking place between December 11-13, 2012, merely the latest in a series of brilliant, celebratory events in Ferrara, Antonioni's birthplace.

Who knows? Maybe there'll be some more videos to embed here at FSFF! Hope so! In any case, You can see the first FSFF Antonioni anniversary celebration here: Sculpting the Real: Michelangelo Antonioni Studies in the Centenary Year of his Birth.

Part 1.a, Arts Building - Antonioni and the Arts @ Royal Holloway, University of London from SMLLC, Royal Holloway, London on Vimeo.

Dr. Laura Rascaroli's lecture and discussion. In conversation with Dr. Giuliana Pieri.

A study day devoted to the late Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) took place on Friday, 26 October, in Egham, co-sponsored by HARC, SMLLC, Media Arts, and the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni.

The centenary of the birth of this master of European modernist cinema was a chance to bring together a number of scholars and curators who have a particular interest in the interdisciplinary aspects of Antonioni’s oeuvre. Dr Laura Rascaroli (U. of Cork) and Dr John David Rhodes (U. of Sussex), who edited the 2011 volume, Antonioni: Centenary Essays, offered a novel perspective on the work of the Italian film-maker by focusing on the influence of art and architecture respectively. The two talks were preceded by a screening of two rare Antonioni documentaries: Gente del Po (1943-7) and Lo Sguardo di Michelangelo (2004). Documentaries are a very important but often less studied aspect of Antonioni’s production. They also ideally frame his career since Antonioni began as a documentary film maker and ended his cinematic career with his tribute to the master of the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti, in a short film of extreme beauty which helped the audience to reflect upon art and tradition. The general discussion that followed covered a number of fascinating topics relating to Antonioni’s practice, including his consistently ‘open’, physical engagement with the human figure, as compared, for example, with that of Jean-Luc Godard.

Part 1.b, Arts Building - Antonioni and the Arts @ Royal Holloway, University of London from SMLLC, Royal Holloway, London on Vimeo.

Dr. John David Rhodes's lecture, discussion and round table with Dr. Laura Rascaroli, Dr. Giuliana Pieri and Prof. James Williams.

Part 2.a, Windsor Lecture - Antonioni and the Arts @ Royal Holloway, University of London from SMLLC, Royal Holloway, London on Vimeo.

Prof. Dominique Païni's presentation of the retrospective 'Antonioni And The Arts. The Gaze of Michelangelo' and lecture. Introduction by Prof. Williams James.

The second part of the study day was a lecture by film scholar and curator, Professor Dominique Païni (École du Louvre, Paris), who presented with slides his plans for the forthcoming centenary exhibition on Antonioni in his home-town of Ferrara. Prof. Païni revealed that the physical challenge of the exhibition space, the Renaissance Palazzo dei Diamanti, created the opportunity to present Antonioni’s work as a series of contrasts arising from the idea that cinema is, after all, narrative sculpture in movement, and that shapes are born out of the most basic contrast, that of light and dark. Both the lecture and ensuing discussion brought into focus a series of important characteristics of the work of Antonioni: the identification of women and the nation, ideal masculinity and Italian art and tradition, the critique of humanism and the classical heritage, and the ambiguous relationship between Antonioni and Italy’s post-war tradition of social and political engagement (impegno) which characterised the work of many of his contemporaries working in film and literature.

Part 2.b, Windsor Lecture - Antonioni and the Arts @ Royal Holloway, University of London from SMLLC, Royal Holloway, London on Vimeo.

A few reflections with Professor Dominique Païni. Translation in English by Alix Agret.

Framing Jarman: New Tate Visual Arts Channel in Beta

Film Studies For Free wanted to rush you the great news that the Tate has just launched a new, highly elegant and very user-friendly channel to enable the viewing (and embedding - yay!) of hundreds of videos about visual arts, like the great film above in which James Mackay, friend of British film artist Derek Jarman, talks about Jarman's experimental work on super 8. These films that he began making in the 1970s are rarely shown. Mackay, who later produced some of Jarman’s feature films including The Garden (1990) and Blue (1993), agreed to open up his archive of these ground-breaking short films for TateShots.

FSFF also came across an even more detailed interview with Mackay about his work with Jarman here at the 400blows website. You can also find interviews there with the following people about their work and friendships with this filmmaker: Jenny Runacre; Simon Fisher Turner; Tilda Swinton; Peter Tatchell; Christopher Hobbs; Tony Peake; Tariq Ali; Ron Peck; and Gaye Temple;

FSFF has only just begun to explore the riches and the capabilities of the new Tate channel; it gleefully urges you to do the same. But it closes, today, happily in a Derek Jarman frame of mind with a sublime Jarman artifact, from his 1987 short Aria, starring Tilda Swinton, music by Gustave Charpentier from his opera Louise with its aria 'Depuis le jour', sung here by Leontyne Price: