Michelangelo Antonioni

1912 Born in the northern Italian City of Ferrara on September 29 to Elizabetta Roncagli Antonioni and Ismaele Antonioni, a successful small industrialist.

1922—30 Develops an interest in puppetry, designing the figures and building model settings for them. Also develops an interest In architecture and, during his teenaged years, begins painting.

1931—35 Studies business, economics, mathematics, and commerce at the University of Bologna’s Technical Institute, receiving the Dottore degree.

1935—39 Returns to Ferrara, working for a short time as a bank teller. With friends, establishes a drama company, putting on plays by Pirandello, Ibsen, and one by Antonioni himself titled The Wind; he directs some of these productions. He writes stories as well, and also wins a number of regional tennis tournaments. Begins writing film criticism for the local newspaper, Il Corriere Padano. Makes his first attempt at filmmaking, a 16mm documentary shot in a lunatic asylum; but it remains uncompleted after the Inmates go into paroxysms of terror when the lights are switched on.

1939—40 Leaves Rome to assist with Mussolini’s World’s Fair, the Esposizione Universale Roma (E.U.R.), which was to be held In 1942 but never took place. Leaves this job after a few months and becomes a writer and editor for Cinema, the official film magazine of the Fascist party. Travels as a journalist to the Italian colonies in Africa.

1940—41 Studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. 

1942 Co-scenarist of Un pilots ritorna (A Pilot Returns), directed by Roberto Rossellini. Co-scenarist and assistant director of I due Foscari (The Two Foscaris), directed by Enrico Fulchignoni; assistant director of Les visiteurs du soir, directed by Marcel Carne. Drafted into the Italian army. Marries the Venetian Letizia Balboni, a Centro student of editing who acted in the short film he made at the school in order to get his diploma. 

1943 Returns to Ferrara to direct his first film, the documentary Gente del Po (People of the Po Valley), released in 1947. After the Nazis assume control of Italy, Antonioni refuses offers to go north and do film work with Mussolini’s new Fascist regime, the Republic of Salo. Becomes involved in the anti-Fascist Action Party’s underground network. Survives this difficult period by translating various works into Italian, among them Gide’s La porte ertroite, Morand’s Monsieur Zero, and Chateaubriand’s Atala, as well as by selling the trophies and medals he had won at tennis toumaments. 

1944 After the Allies liberate Rome, Antonioni writes film criticism for the new Cinema magazine, as well as for Film d’oggi, Lo schermo, and L’Italia libera. Director of photography for some of the covers of the magazine Bis. Works with Luchino Visconti on two scripts that are never filmed: Furore and The Trial of Maria Tarnowska. 

1947 Co-scenarist of Caccia tragica (Tragic Pursuit), directed by Giuseppe De Santis. 

1948 Directs the documentary shorts Roma-Montevideo, Oltre (Over Oblivion), and N.U. (Nettezza Urbana; Sanitation Department). N.U. wins the Silver Ribbon for best documentary, an annual award made by the Italian Guild of Film Joumalists. 

1949 Directs the documentary shorts Ragazze in bianco (Girls in White), Bomarzo L’amorosa menzogna. (Lies of Love), Superstition (Superstitions), and Sette canne, un vestito (Seven Reeds, One Suit). L’amorosa menzogna wins the Silver Ribbon for best documentary.

1950 Directs the documentary shorts La villa dei mostri (The Villa of Monsters) and La funivia del Faloria (The Funicular of Mount Faloria). Directs his first fiction feature film, Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair), which wins a Silver Ribbon in 1951. 

1952 Co-scenarist of Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik), directed by Federico Fellini. Directs I vinti (The Vanquished), a feature film in three episodes. 

1953 Directs the feature film La signora senza camelie (The Lady without Camelias). Directs Tentato suicidio (Attempted Suicide), an episode of L’amore in citta (Love in the City), a six-episode anthology film whose directors also include Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada, Carl Lizzani, Francesco Maselli, and Cesare Zavattini. 

1954 Letizia Balboni leaves Antonioni, and their marriage is later annulled. 

1955 Producer of the documentary short Uomini in piu (More People), directed by Nicole, Ferrari. Directs the feature film Le amiche (The Girlfriends), which wins the Silver Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival and a Silver Ribbon for best direction. 

1956 Completes two scripts, Ida e i porci (Ida and the Pigs) and Le allegre ragazze del 24 (The Happy Girls from 24), but neither is filmed. 

1957 Directs the feature film II grido (The Outcry), which wins the Critics’ Grand Prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Directs the play Scandali segretti (Secret Scandals), co-written with Elio Bartolini, at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome. Meets Monica Vitti, who dubbed the Italian voice for English-speaking Dorian Gray in II grido and who also is a theater actress, and they begin living together. 

1958 Second-unit director of La tempesta (The Tempest), directed by Alberto Lattuada. Director of the reshoot of Nel segno di Roma (In the Sign of Rome), after the death of its director-screenwriter, Guido Brignone. Technical supervisor on Questo nostro mondo (This, Our World), directed by Ugo Lazzari, Eros Macchi, and Angelo Negri. With Tonino Guerra, prepares Makaroni, a screenplay based on Ugo Pirro’s novel Le soldatesse (The Camp Followers), but their hopes for production fall through at the last minute. 

1959—60 Directs the feature film L’avventura (The Adventure), which is awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Festival and wins the British Film Institute’s award for Best Foreign Film of 1960. 

1960—61 Directs the feature film La notte (The Night), which wins the 1961 Silver Ribbon for best director and the Golden Bear (or Grand Prize) at the 1961 Berlin Festival. 

1962 Directs the feature film L’eclisse (The Eclipse), which is awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 1962 Cannes Festival. This work is considered by Antonioni as part of a trilogy that also includes L’avventura and La notte. A British Film Institute poll of seventy international critics names L’avventura the second-best film ever made. 

1963 Publication in English, in New York and London, of The Screenplays of Michelangelo Antonioni (includes Il grido, L’avventura, La notte, and L’eclisse). 

1964 Directs his first feature film in color, Il deserto rosso (Red Desert). It wins the Golden Lion (or Grand Prize) and the International Critics’ Prize at the 1964 Venice Festival. 

1965 Directs Prefazione: il provino (The Screen Test), the introductory episode of the three-episode anthology film I tre volti (Three Faces). The other two episodes were directed by Franco Indovina (Antonioni’s assistant on three films) and Mauro Bolognini, respectively. 

1966 Directs the feature film Blow-Up, which wins the Best Director Award from the National Society of Film Critics in New York, the Palme d’Or at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, the BFI’s 1967 award for Best British Film, and a Silver Ribbon for Best Director of a Foreign Film. 

1969 Publication in English, in New York, of the screenplay of L’avventura. 

1970 Directs the feature film Zabriskie Point. 

1971 Publication in English, in London, of the screenplay of Blow-Up. 

1972 Directs the feature-length documentary Chung Kuo (China), in 16mm.

1974—75 Directs the feature Professions: Reporter (The Passenger), his first film written entirely by someone else (Mark Peploe). Its script is published in English, in London, and the film wins a Silver Ribbon for Best Director. Plans to make Tecnicamente dolce (Technically Sweet), which would have involved working on location in the Amazon jungle, fall through. 

1976—78 Conceives a number of film projects, all of which are ultimately abandoned at one stage or another: The Crew, co-written with Mark Peploe, which would have been shot in Australia; The Color of Jealousy; a science-fiction film titled L’aquilone (The Kite), with a script by Tonino Guerra, which was to have been filmed in the southern Asiatic part of the Soviet Union; and Patire o morire (Suffer or Die), with a script by Guerra and Anthony Burgess, which was first to star Richard Gere and then Giancarlo Giannini. 

1979—80 Directs the feature film Il mistero di Oberwald (The Mystery of Oberwald), based on the play L’aigle a deux tetes (The two-Headed Eagle), by Jean Cocteau. It is shown on (Italian) television first, then transferred from videotape to film to be shown in some theaters and at several festivals. 

1982 Directs the feature film Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman), which wins a Special Prize at the Cannes Festival. At the same festival, Antonioni receives a special award for the entire body of his work. 

1983 Directs Renault 9, a publicity spot, as well as Ritorno a Lisca Bianca (Return to Lisca Bianca), a short documentary for the television program Falsi ritorni (Fake Returns). Exhibitions in Venice and Rome of a collection of his artwork titled The Enchanted Mountain: it consists of small watercolors, shown beside photographic enlargements made by the director. 

1984 Plays himself in Chambre 666 (Room 666), a documentary film by Wim Wenders. Directs Fotoromanza, a music video made for the song of the same title by Gianna Nannini. 

1985 Suffers a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. 

1986 Publication of That Bowling Alley on the Tiber: Tales of a Director, a short-story collection. Second marriage, to Enrica Antonioni.

1989 Directs the documentary Kumbha Mela. 

1990 Directs Roma ’90, a documentary for the television program 12 autori per 12 citta (Twelve Authors for Twelve Cities). 

1992 Directs Noto-Mandorli-Vulcano-Stromboli-Carnevale (Volcanoes and Carnival), a documentary on Sicily. 

1993 Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Film Academy. 

1995 Appears as himself in the documentary Making a Film for Me Is Living, directed by his wife, Enrica. Co-directs, with Wim Wenders, the feature Al di la delle nuvole (Beyond the Clouds), based on material from That Bowling Alley on the Tiber. It wins the International Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Receives the Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

1997 Receives the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Outstanding Career. 

1998 Co-produces, with Robert Altman, the fiction short Liv, directed by Edoardo Ponti. 

1999 Begins to direct the fiction feature Tanto per stare insieme (Just to Be Together), based on Antonioni’s 1973 short story “Two Telegrams,” and starring Robin Wright Penn, Sam Shepard, Winona Ryder, Andy Garcia, and Johnny Depp, but the film is abandoned in production. 

2000 Begins to direct the fiction feature Destinazione Verna, co-written with Tonino Guerra, and starring Anthony Hopkins and Sophia Loren, but the film is abandoned in production. 

2001 Special citation from the National Society of Film Critics in the United States.

2004 Directs the episode “The Dangerous Thread of Things,” based on material from That Bowling Alley on the Tiber, for the three-episode omnibus film Eros; its other episodes are directed by Steven Soderbergh and Wang Kar-Wai. Directs the documentary short Lo Sguardo di Michelangelo Antonioni (Michelangelo Eye to Eye), in which he appears as himself. 

2007 Dies on July 30 at his home in Rome.