Michelangelo Antonioni meets Michelangelo Buonarroti, and in this documentary attempts to show the dialog and the shared love of art between them. Antonioni shows his passion for art as he makes the camera pan, zoom, and dissolve over Michelangelo's sculpture, leading the audience's eyes over what Antonioni finds in it.
This short is only good because at times Antonioni really does manage to give the viewer a very haptic ("touch-like") experience to the statue, something hard to do with photography and film. In fact, this film is pretty good mostly at helping us "look" at the sculpture the way Antonioni sees it.
However, I have two concerns: 1) Why did Antonioni make this? To share artwork that he likes? It seems more like he wants to connect himself visually and rhetorically with Michelangelo the sculpture... Michelangelo eye to eye. Whereas I consider Antonioni a very amazing filmmaker and Buonarroti a very amazing Renaissance artist (who doesn't on the latter point?), why compare them? 2) I don't particularly like being told how to look at something. I'm just sayin'. And while that seems like a personal point, it's for a larger argument I'm trying to make: films like this, no matter how benevolent in design, instruct viewers on how to look at something like an artwork by a Renaissance master in ways that may not be the way that other people can appreciate it. It's lovely to see someone take such joy in a piece of art, but why look here, not there, or there, not here, at whatever certain point? --PolarisDiB
This short is only good because at times Antonioni really does manage to give the viewer a very haptic ("touch-like") experience to the statue, something hard to do with photography and film. In fact, this film is pretty good mostly at helping us "look" at the sculpture the way Antonioni sees it.
However, I have two concerns: 1) Why did Antonioni make this? To share artwork that he likes? It seems more like he wants to connect himself visually and rhetorically with Michelangelo the sculpture... Michelangelo eye to eye. Whereas I consider Antonioni a very amazing filmmaker and Buonarroti a very amazing Renaissance artist (who doesn't on the latter point?), why compare them? 2) I don't particularly like being told how to look at something. I'm just sayin'. And while that seems like a personal point, it's for a larger argument I'm trying to make: films like this, no matter how benevolent in design, instruct viewers on how to look at something like an artwork by a Renaissance master in ways that may not be the way that other people can appreciate it. It's lovely to see someone take such joy in a piece of art, but why look here, not there, or there, not here, at whatever certain point? --PolarisDiB