Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni began writing about film as a student at Bologna University, mercilessly criticizing the Italian comedies of the 1930s. In 1940, he studied direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and two years later co-wrote the scenario for "Un piloto ritorna" with director Roberto Rossellini before working as an assistant director on films directed by Enrico Fulchignoni and Marcel Carne. His first directorial effort was a documentary, "Gente del Po," begun in 1943 and completed in 1947. For two other documentaries in the late 40s he solicited music from Giovanni Fusco, initiating and cementing a collaboration with the man whose scores would enhance his own pessimism in eight films.