Quotes from Michelangelo Antonioni

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.

Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.

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 mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.

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

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

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

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

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

I don't want what I am saying to sound like a prophecy or anything like an analysis of modern society .... these are only feelings I have, and I am the least speculative man on earth.

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

Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy.

Fitzgerald said a very interesting thing in his diary; that human life proceeds from the good to the less good - that is, it's always worse as you go on. That's true.

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

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.

One of the problems of the future world will be the use of leisure time. How will it be filled up? Maybe drugs will be distributed free of charge by the government.

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

But, you know, Cronaca isn't more innovative than what comes after.

I can't imagine love without a sexual charge.

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

Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.

All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

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.