Ta Nea (2007)
Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) - Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Common birth is usually what favors comparisons. Yet, the almost simultaneous death of two great filmmakers, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, makes us reflect on their works through their similarities and differences.
First and foremost is their thematic focus. For Bergman, God, or rather His absence and the agonizing search for Him, is central to his work and directly connected to the unbearable and harrowing loneliness of humanity, which has metaphysical roots. In contrast, God does not seem to concern Antonioni. For him, space, time, and society play a decisive role in this loneliness. His films, while speaking to something beyond their time, are inextricably tied to it. Bergman’s dramas, however, can move outside any era or spacetime.
But human loneliness, whatever its primary cause, is only perceived through communication (or the lack thereof) with others. Thus, the dead-end emotional communication may also be a common theme for both directors, yet their approaches differ. In Bergman's work, emotions themselves are not the origin of problems. Emotional dysfunctions arise from the metaphysical chaos that threatens to engulf us. Antonioni, however, portrays man tormented by the inherent sickness of the emotions themselves. He confessed to first discovering "the sickness of emotions and then the emotions themselves".
The directors' themes may not have drastically changed over time, but the journey of each reveals much about the peculiarities of their work and personality. Antonioni began in cinema, quickly evolving a new syntax of film language. After his famous trilogy, nothing remained the same in the cinematic world. His subsequent films confirmed his talents, but as Bergman said of him, "on the right path, he got lost, drowned by his own ennui." His work effectively concluded, leaving behind, as a swan song, a sterile beautified pictorialism of naked girls ("The Dangerous Thread of Things") and a narcissistic confrontation with the namesake Moses of Buonarotti ("The Gaze of Michelangelo").
Conversely, Bergman started in theater and, in a unique way, remained faithful to it, even when he turned to cinema. He changed many times along the way but not fundamentally. Bergman made films out of despair, to avoid total collapse or suicide. Therefore, his films did not signify a revolutionary change in film language, which was not his concern anyway.
The form that the work of these directors took was, of course, directly related to their content. Antonioni didn’t need to narrate; he dared to create a cinema of image and silence. The gaze of people mattered less than their position in space and movement in time, hence acting was never significant in his works. But Bergman could not and did not want to free himself from his characters, their anxieties, their stories. It’s no coincidence that his characters often have the same names, recurring like family members. Words, gazes, bursts of emotion play a significant role in his films.
Bergman, with his continuous close-ups on the faces of his characters, tries to penetrate their souls. Antonioni uses wider angles. Space, the city, landscapes define the people living in them. The duration of his shots serves no narrative but suggests, implies, hints. Antonioni’s style is elliptical and desdramatized, while Bergman writes in bold, tightening circles that increasingly constrict the actors and the audience. One subtracts the blood, the other adds it. Antonioni seeks the aesthetic presence of his frames; Bergman seeks their dramatic function. Antonioni plays visually with colors; Bergman uses them for dramatic effect. Both directors obsess over the meticulous planning of their films, yet Antonioni’s perfect structure is sometimes threatened by an underscored sensuality of the image, whereas in Bergman's case, the content sometimes risks being overwhelmed by excessive design.
These two great directors left us two unique and personal worlds, with their similarities and differences, relevant to us all, always. I am grateful to Antonioni for teaching us to approach the world with the clinical clarity of relentless imagery. And I am grateful to Bergman for teaching us to evaluate and utilize the pain this world inflicts upon us.
Michelangelo Antonioni
1. The existence of God does not concern him.
2. He is concerned with human loneliness, attributing it mainly to lifestyle, space, cities, others.
3. He is concerned with the inability to communicate,
attributing it to the inherent sickness of emotions.
4. He creates cinema of silence.
5. He is concerned with film language.
6. Originates from cinema.
7. Uses long shots.
8. Does not emphasize acting.
9. Adopts elliptical writing.
10. Moves in a quiet depression.
11. His scripts have a basic plot.
12. He is interested in the aesthetic search, even to the point of pursuit, of the frame.
13. Uses colors artistically.
Ingmar Bergman
1. The absence of God wounds him, and his search for God concerns him.
2. He is concerned with human loneliness, attributing it mainly to metaphysical angst.
3. He is concerned with the inability to communicate, attributing it to loneliness and metaphysical angst.
4. Creates cinema of the word.
5. The language of cinema concerns him only as far as it serves the content.
6. Originates from theater.
7. Uses close shots.
8. Places great importance on acting.
9. Adopts dramatized writing.
10. Moves in a quiet despair.
11. His scripts have a robust plot and fully-fleshed characters.
12. His frames function usually dramatically rather than aesthetically.
13. Uses colors dramatically.
We try to achieve two things at once: communication with others, our deepest instinct, and safety. Through continual communication with others, we hope to confront the terrifying fact of our total solitude.
I happen to discover first the sickness of emotions and then the emotions themselves.