Antonioni, Michelangelo (mëkālän'jālō äntōnyô'nē) [key], 1912–, Italian film director and scriptwriter, b. Ferrara, Italy. In the 1940s he made documentaries that contributed to the development of Italian neorealism. His later films deal with the alienation, malaise, and loveless eroticism of modern life, with plot and dialogue often subordinate to visual and aural images. His works include Le Amiche (1955), L'Avventura (1959), L'Eclisse (1961), The Red Desert (1964), Blow-Up (1966), Zabriskie Point (1969), The Passenger (1975), Identification of a Woman (1983), and Beyond the Clouds (1995).
See studies by I. Cameron and R. Wood (rev. ed. 1971), S. Chatman (1985), S. Rohdie (1990), and W. Arrowsmith (1995); T. Perry, Michelangelo Antonioni, A Guide for Reference and Resources (1986); E. Antonioni's Making a Film for Me Is Living (film, 1995).
