Michelangelo Antonioni Quotes

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.

A film that can be described in words is not really a film.

A man who renounces something is also a man who believes in something.

A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.

Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.

You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters.

A film you can explain in words is not a real film.

Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.

The greatest danger for those working in the cinema is the extraordinary possibility it offers for lying.

My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times. That's how I understand my first films, and that's what I'm still doing...

I always mistrust everything I see, which an image shows me, because I imagine what is beyond it. And what is beyond an image cannot be known.

When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.

When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them.

I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

Reality has a quality of freedom about it that is hard to explain.

Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer.

I simply know what the actor's attitude should be and what he should say. He doesn't, because he can't see the relationship that begins to exist between his body and the other things in the scene.

I can't give any absolute definition of what love is, or even whether it ought to exist.

If an actor tries to understand too much, he will act in an intellectual and unnatural manner.

People are always misquoting me.

You cannot penetrate events with reportage.

Nothing regarding man is ever inhuman. That's why I make films, not iceboxes.

Monica Vitti is astonishingly mobile. Few actresses have such mobile features. She has her own personal and original way of acting.

The script is simply a series of notes for the film.

Violence is not the only means of persuasion.

I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.

The struggle for life is not only the material and economic one. Comfort is no protection from anxiety.

After you've learned two or three basic rules of cinema grammar, you can do what you like - including breaking those rules.

I've made films about the middle classes because I know them best. Everyone talks about what he knows best.

I want an actor to try to give me what I ask in the best and most exact way possible. He mustn't try to find out more, because then there's the danger that he'll become his own director.

We live in a society that compels us to go on using these concepts, and we no longer know what they mean.

The public buys "art" - but the word is drained of its meaning.

There are many ways of communicating. Some hold the theory that new forms of communication between people can be obtained through hallucinogenic drugs.

My films always leave me unsatisfied, since I've always worked under fairly disastrous conditions economically.

I'm more or less skeptical about marriage, because of family ties, relations between children and parents - it's all so depressing.

You can't go to an LSD or pot party unless you take it yourself. If I want to go, I must take drugs myself.

Actors are always a little high at work. Acting is their drug. So when you put the brakes on, they're naturally a little disappointed.

When you work on a character, you form in your mind an image of what he ought to look like. Then you go and find one who resembles him.

I'm not rich and maybe I'll never be rich. Money is useful - yes - but I don't worship it.

Normally, however, I try to avoid repetitions of any shot.

I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.

Hollywood doesn't believe in the death penalty for anyone except people who get cable TV without paying for it. Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.

It's only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.

Method actors are absolutely terrible. They want to direct themselves, and it's a disaster.

There can be no censorship better than one's own conscience.

Another reason for switching to color is world television. In a few years, it will all be in color, and you can't compete against that with black-and-white films.

I forget about the relationship between myself and any actress when working with her.

I've always dreamed of getting to know the women of other countries better. When I was a boy, I remember, I used to get angry at the thought that I did not know German or American or Swedish women.

Sometimes actors' mistakes give me ideas I can use, because mistakes are always sincere, absolutely sincere.