R.I.P. Ingmar & Michelangelo

[proggrrl]

Ingmar Bergman died on Monday on the small island of Faro on the Baltic coast of Sweden. He was 89…

…Mr. Bergman's celluloid carvings often revealed an obsession with death. But in later life he said that the obsession had abated. "When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying," he said. "But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about."

New York Times 7/30/2007




Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema with movies such as ''Blow-Up'' and ''L'Avventura,'' has died, officials and news reports said Tuesday.  He was 94. 

...Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini,  he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination.

AP, 7/31/2007

....Mr. Antonioni was the movies’ first diagnostician of what back then was called alienation, anomie, angst and decadence.  Their melancholy poetry transmuted an overriding mood of self-pity into something deeper and closer to tragedy.

Mr. Antonioni’s death on Monday, so close to Ingmar Bergman’s, should give us pause. Their deaths bring down the final curtain on the high-modernist era of filmmaking, when a handful of directors were artistic gods accorded the respect and latitude of great painters or authors.

New York Times, 8/1/2007

Comments

[cordwainer.livejournal.com]

When you think of the loss of these great directors, along with Robert Altman not long ago, and Stanley Kubrick years ago, there is a deep sense that the great film artists are gone, and as yet none have come along who even come close to their level of film mastery.

[proggrrl.livejournal.com]

You know, sometimes I have felt that way - that all the good ones are gone and we don't have anyone to replace them. I just added another NYT article link to this post (see above), that addresses this a bit:

"...Their deaths bring down the final curtain on the high-modernist era of filmmaking, when a handful of directors were artistic gods accorded the respect and latitude of great painters or authors."

That bit, about how much lattitude filmmakers used to get, and the common attitude that the great ones are like great artists, seems to be the element we are now missing. We DO have some incredible film artists alive and working right now (many of them are Asian and have not broken through to US audiences). Off the top of my head though, I would list: Cronenberg, Fincher, Linklater (our modern US Bergman, IMO), the Wachowskis, the Dardennes, the Coens, Sophia Coppola, Jan Svankmeyer, Brad Bird, David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven.

What society now lacks is the ability to recognize the new, up-and-coming artists, give them a budget and final cut - and distribute their creations far and wide.

There is a real problem right now with getting the more 'challenging' work by newcomers out to an audience...that is the thing that allows 'artists' to grow and make more films: popularity.