Post WWII film directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni Die
Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) was, and remains, a legend in theater and film.
Known for such landmark films as Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, Bergman was celebrated for his ability to combine innovative, often surrealistic, techniques with an essential simplicity, allowing him to address both overarching themes—religion, death, despair—as well as profoundly personal concerns. He evoked signature performances from notable actors, including Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, and remains an inspiration to filmmakers worldwide.
Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian director who brought a poet's affinity for metaphor and a novelist's instinct for subtlety to the art of making movies, died July 30, 2007 at his home in Rome. He was 94.
Antonioni's cinema, whose touchstone works include "L'Avventura" (1960), "La Notte" (1961), "Blow Up" (1967) and "The Passenger" (1975), was distinguished by allusion and inference more than explicit action. His cameras probed the enigmas in people's silent expressions and lingered on the shadows hovering over desolate landscapes.
He and Bergman were among the last of a generation of post-World War II film directors who sought to widen the possibilites for telling stories with pictures - and to trust the audience to make its own connections and draw its own conclusions.
-B. Silberstein
