Michelangelo Antonioni

"I try to avoid repetitions of any shot. It isnt easy to find one in my films. You might, I suppose, see something twice, but it would be rare. And then, you know, every line requires its own kind of shot. The American method of shooting one actor continuously, then moving to the other, then intercutting both — this method is wrong. A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own."

"I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space."

"I would like to make clear that I speak only of sensations. I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like."

"I dont want what I am saying to sound like a prophecy or anything like an analysis of modern society .... these are only feelings I have, and I am the least speculative man on earth."

"Modern life is very difficult for people who are unprepared. But this new environment will eventually facilitate more realistic relationships between people."

"You must be painter who takes a canvas and does what he likes with it. We are more like painters in past centuries who were ordered to paint frescoes to specific measurements. Among the people in the fresco may be a bishop, the princes wife, etc. The fresco isnt bad simply because the painter used for models people from the court of the prince who ordered and paid for it."

"Sometimes I pick up a magazine and read a piece of film criticism — to the end only if I like it. I dont like those which are too free with praise because their reasons seem wrong and that annoys me. Critics who attack me do so for such contradictory reasons that they confuse me, and I am afraid that if I am influenced by one, I will sin according to the standards of the other."

"When we say a character in my films doesnt function, we mean he doesnt function as a person, but he does function as a character — that is, until you take him as a symbol. At that point it is you who are not functioning. Why not simply accept him as a character, without judging him? Accept him for what he is. Accept him as a character in a story, without claiming that he derives or acquires meaning from that story. There may be meanings, but they are different for all of us."

"My characters are ambiguous. Call them that. I dont mind. I am ambiguous myself. Who isnt?"

"Ive always said that the actor is only an element of the image, rarely the most important. The actor is important with his dialogue, with the landscape, with a gesture — but the actor in himself is nothing."

"I always want to tell stories. But they must be stories that evolve, like our own lives. Perhaps what I seek is a new kind of story."

"A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continually renew the supply."