Michelangelo Antonioni

From Wikipedia:

Michelangelo Antonioni (Italian – 29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian director and filmmaker. He is best known for his “trilogy on modernity and its discontents”—L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L’Eclisse (1962)—as well as the English-language film Blowup (1966). His films have been described as “enigmatic and intricate mood pieces” that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent art cinema. Antonioni received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, being the only director to have won the Palme d’Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Golden Leopard.

Paul McCartney met Michelangelo Antonioni in April 1966 and used this opportunity to show him some of the experimental films he had started to create.

Through Robert Fraser, Paul got to meet many of the artists and film-makers who passed through London, one of whom was the leading New Wave Italian film-maker Michelangelo Antonioni, director of L’Avventura, La Notte and L’Eclisse.

Paul: “I remember the word around town was ‘There’s this guy who’s paying money for people to come and get stoned at some place in Chelsea’, and of course in our crowd that spread like wildfire. It was Antonioni. He was doing Blow-Up and everyone was being paid, like blood donors, to smoke pot.”

It was April 1966, and Antonioni was using Christopher Gibbs’s exquisite apartment on Cheyne Walk, overlooking Chelsea Bridge, as the set for his orgy scene. […] Christopher took Antonioni round to visit Robert Fraser at a time when Paul happened to be there.

From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

He was just there at Robert’s one evening. And Keith Richards and myself just happened to be there, and I’d brought some little home movies of mine. I used to have a projector that would flick pictures very slowly: click, click, click. So instead of 25 frames a second, a cat would just move flip, flop, flip, and we’d play sitar music or Beethoven or Albert Ayler, who was a great favourite. It was very very slow but it created a hypnotic mantra kind of effect. I showed Antonioni these movies and he was quite interested. They lasted about quarter of an hour, it was really a five-minute flick but we showed it so slow.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

So way before John met Yoko and got avant-garde, I was like the avant-garde London bachelor with Miles in my pad in St. John’s Wood. I was making 8mm movies and showing them to Antonioni. I had all sorts of theories of music — we’d put on a Ravi Shankar record to our home movies and it’d synchronise and John used to come from Weybridge, kind of looking slightly goofy and saying ‘Wow! This is great! We should do more of this!’

I used to sit in a basement in Montagu Square with William Burroughs and a couple of gay guys he knew from Morocco and that Marianne Faithfull-John Dunbar crowd doing little tapes, crazy stuff with guitar and cello. But it didn’t occur to me in the next NME interview I did to rave about William Burroughs. Maybe it would have been good for me to do that.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Q Magazine, October 1986

‘Blow-up’ director for Beatles? – and big cartoon with new songs

REPORTS circulating on the Continent suggest that plans for the Beatles’ third film are now being finalised. Authoritative sources say the picture will begin shooting in Malaga, Spain, in September. It is further reported that the movie will be directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, the celebrated director responsible for the recent award-winning film “Blow-Up.” Production is expected to last six months although not necessarily all on location.

According to the Danish magazine “Borge” — usually a reliable source — the film will be called “Shades Of A Personality.” Story line of the picture is divided into four sub-sections dealing with the four faces of a man — as a dreamer, as a human being, and as the world sees him. It is believed that John Lennon will play the part of the man himself, while the three other Beatles will portray each of the faces of his split personality. This basic idea for the next Beatles’ picture was originally revealed in the NME last October, and reported at the time to have been submitted by script-writer Owen Holder.

No confirmation of these plans could be obtained from Nems Enterprises in London, although it was agreed that September is the likely starting date for the film. The Beatles hope that before becoming involved in the picture they will be able to complete the projected TV spectacular based on their current LP.

CARTOON PLANS

The Beatles will be the subject of a full-length colour cartoon film to be made in America by King Productions — the company which made a series of TV cartoons about the group last year. This new venture is intended mainly for cinema screening, and is expected ultimately to be seen in this country. Tentatively titled “ Yellow Submarine,” it will not be completed before next year. Three new Beatles’ compositions will be featured in the cartoon, as well as several of their previous hits. It is not yet clear whether the group will record the numbers for the soundtrack, and the cartoon’s producer is currently visiting London to discuss the possibility.

From New Musical Express – June 10, 1967

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