The other Michelangelo

Interview, Oct, 1995 by Miuccia Prada

Michelangelo Antonioni uttered only one word when he received an honorary Oscar at this year's Academy Awards ceremony. On a night of verbose self-congratulation, his simple, dignified "Grazie!" was a reminder that the road of excess doesn't always lead to the palace of wisdom, as William Blake would have us believe.

A former critic and amateur filmmaker who worked for both Roberto Rossellini and the French director Marcel Carne in the early '40s, Antonioni began his own career as a documentarist. In 1950 he directed his first feature, Cronaca di un Amore, and he went on to make a string of masterpieces: Le Amiche (1955), II Grido (1957), L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), The Eclipse (1962), The Red Desert (1964), Blow-Up (1966), and The Passenger (1975). After a thirteen-year absence, he recently completed the filming of Beyond the Clouds, which will have its American premiere at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival this month. It consists of four sections based on his own short stories and linked by framing scenes directed by Wim Wenders; the cast includes John Malkovich, Fanny Ardant, and Irene Jacob. Although Antonioni is physically unable to do an interview, we wanted to get as close to him as possible. So we asked the fashion designer Miuccia Prada to interview his wife, Enrica, who has produced, directed, and edited a documentary about the making of Beyond the Clouds.

Prada seemed the perfect choice to interview her countrywoman, for her own work is eloquent with silent power and beauty; you could say she makes clothes with emotional depth of field. "Beyond my admiration for Antonioni's films, which is very strong, they have a place in my life," she said. "I have been affected by them in lots of ways, from the way they look, to their spirit, to their emotions, to their atmosphere, to their stories, to what they say, to what they ask." G.F.

MIUCCIA PRADA: Enrica, is it true that you and Michelangelo Antonioni first met the same way people meet in his films, or was it simpler than that? I'm sure you remember your first meeting.

ENRICA ANTONIONI: The first meeting I had with Michelangelo was, in fact, a little like a meeting in an Antonioni film, The Passenger, where Jack Nicholson first meets Maria Schneider in London. She is sitting on a bench reading a book. He happens to pass by and stops to look at her. Then he crosses paths with her again in Barcelona, in a building designed by Gaudi. He says to her: "I'm trying to remember something. . . ."

I first met Michelangelo in Rome, in January 1972. He was talking to a friend at the corner of Piazza di Spagna and Via della Croce. I happened to be walking by, and our eyes met. I thought, Now I'm going to introduce myself, but when I turned around he was already gone. A week later, we were introduced by a mutual friend, a painter named Eugenio Carmi. It was fate. During our first few times together, he told me about the experience he had had making Zabriskie Point [1970] in America. I remember him telling me: "You are exactly the person I had to meet. You are a very good listener."

MP: What sort of atmosphere was there around Antonioni at the time? How did he involve his collaborators - actors, writers, producers - in his work? What did it mean to people to work for him?

EA: One learns from him by listening, by watching him. Michelangelo was born to make films; he has all the qualities necessary to be a great director. He is without fear, without greed, and almost without desires. He simply is, along with his refined assortment of virtues. One needs only to follow his example to learn. It's not so much his film techniques that one should observe, but the impulses from which his ideas and intuitions spring. That's where his creativity lies. To understand him, you have to go to that place where his eyes are looking when they seem to be looking beyond.

His actors, screenwriters, and producers have perhaps felt a little bewildered working with him. The best way to collaborate with him is to abandon oneself entirely, to enter his world and then follow him.

MP: Does Antonioni suffer the torments of creation, or does he manage to remain untroubled despite it all?

EA: It certainly isn't easy to follow someone like him, especially when you're his wife and so much younger, at that. It's easier after forty; now, I manage very well. It helps to be more mature, to have more experience; you become more understanding and generous, better able to look at your companion without a feeling of competition.

I should have realized earlier that the real Michelangelo is the one on the set. At home, there's always something preventing him from giving all of himself, whereas in his films he is offering you all of his very deepest thoughts, without ever sparing himself.

MP: Could you tell me what it meant to him to have started working again, on Beyond the Clouds?

EA: "For me, making films is a living" - those are his words. So returning to the set was, for him, like coming back to life, to the life that comes closest to his expectations, with a chance once again to express himself with the means most congenial to him.