Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) was an Italian director and screenwriter who reshaped postwar European cinema by replacing plot with mood, geography, and the architecture of alienation. After early work as a critic and documentarian, he emerged in the late 1950s with a series of features built around modern characters adrift in landscapes — beaches, industrial outskirts, foreign cities — that mirrored their inner emptiness. His use of duration, colour, and architectural framing influenced generations of art cinema. His acclaimed films include L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert, Blow-Up, and The Passenger.