Michelangelo Antonioni was born on September 29th, 1912 in northern italy. He died July 30th, 2007, at the age of 94. Antonioni graduated from University of Bologna with a degree in economics, and in 1940 he moved to Rome, where he began working for Cinema, the official fascist magazine with Vittorio Mussolini as editor. After being fired within the first few months, Antonioni enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, where he briefly studied film technique. After three months he left, and was drafted into the army. Antonioni began making his first short films in the 1940s, which were classified as neorealist, since they were semi-documentaries studying the lives of ordinary working class people. In the 1950s Antonioni produced his first feature length film, this time depicting the middle class. The style of Antonioni's films were radical and new at the time, gaining him international success. In his film Le Amiche, he "experimented with a radical new style: instead of a conventional narrative, he presented a series of apparently disconnected events, and he used the long take frequently. This style is potentially frustrating due to its slow pacing and lack of forward momentum, although it is very fascinating in visual and conceptual terms." These stylistic techniques soon became Antonioni's signature vision, and help emphasize his stories, which tend to be about social alienation. Antonioni also tended to emphasize the meaningless of peoples lives, and how deep down human-beings lives are purposeless and shallow. According to film historian David Bordwell, in Antonioni's films "Vacations, parties and artistic pursuits are vain efforts to conceal the characters' lack of purpose and emotion. Sexuality is reduced to casual seduction, enterprise to the pursuit of wealth at any cost." Antonioni is considered very influential in the film world, and is known for "encouraging filmmakers to explore elliptical and open-ended narrative" (Bordwell).
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