“We’re all going to die.” *

Barista has posted a wonderful obituary on Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Italian born filmaker Michelango Antonioni, who died earlier this week – on the same day:

As an artist, [Bergman] put the actor and character at the centre of the frame and the process. He was unafraid of stillness, content to watch, absorbed in the great mysteries and depth of a human being struggling with life itself.
…
In the sacred space of shared artistic process, Bergman was unflinching and profound, full of joy and pity, laconic and dark, playful and despairing.
…

[Antonioni] was able to embrace a world in which certainty and continuity are no more than a carapace. He was fascinated by discontinuity, disappointment, the world between objects, the unintelligible gesture and the unanswered question.
… he was the first truly valorised modernist of the cinema, who took the medium forwards into wider artistic possibilities.

Personally, my knowledge of their work is limited, and my recollection of what I have seen of theirs is constrained. If anything, what I knew of them is nicely summed up by Barista's comment that they were "the enduring icons of the art movie, and clichés in popular culture".

However, his post brought their work and legacy alive for me. I think we may be having a retrospective at home this weekend – if we can get hold of any DVDs, as I suspect lots of others have the same idea.

* to get this reference, please do read Barista's post.

[Image: 'Wild strawberries' by deaddamien (cc)]