Part 2.a, Windsor Lecture - Antonioni and the Arts @ Royal Holloway, University of London

Prof. Dominique Païni's presentation of the retrospective 'Antonioni And The Arts. The Gaze of Michelangelo' and lecture. Introduction by Prof. Williams James.

The second part of the study day is a lecture by film scholar and curator, Professor Dominique Païni

(École du Louvre, Paris), who presented with slides his plans for the forthcoming centenary exhibition

on Antonioni in his home-town of Ferrara. Prof. Païni revealed that the physical challenge of the

exhibition space, the Renaissance Palazzo dei Diamanti, created the opportunity to present Antonioni’s

work as a series of contrasts arising from the idea that cinema is, after all, narrative sculpture in

movement, and that shapes are born out of the most basic contrast, that of light and dark. Both the

lecture and ensuing discussion brought into focus a series of important characteristics of the work of

Antonioni: the identification of women and the nation, ideal masculinity and Italian art and tradition,

the critique of humanism and the classical heritage, and the ambiguous relationship between Antonioni

and Italy’s post-war tradition of social and political engagement (impegno) which characterised the

work of many of his contemporaries working in film and literature.