I rarely feel the desire to reread a scene the day before the shooting. Sometimes I arrive at the place where the work is to be done and I do not even know what I am going to shoot. This is the system I prefer: to arrive at the moment when shooting is about to begin, absolutely unprepared, virgin. I often ask to be left alone on the spot for fifteen minutes or half an hour and I let my thoughts wander freely.
Michelangelo AntonioniI've always played down the drama in my films. In my main scenes, there's never an opportunity for an actor to let go of everything he's got inside. I always try to tone down the acting, because my stories demand it, to the point where I might change a script so that an actor has no opportunity to come out well.
Michelangelo AntonioniThe way I relax, what I like doing most, is watching. That's why I like traveling, to have new things before my eyes - even a new face. I enjoy myself like that and can stay for hours, looking at things, people, scenery.
Michelangelo AntonioniThere are many ways of communicating. Some hold the theory that new forms of communication between people can be obtained through hallucinogenic drugs.
Michelangelo AntonioniWhen a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.
Michelangelo AntonioniInnovation comes spontaneously. I don't know if I've done anything new. If I have, it's just because I had begun to feel for some time that I couldn't stand certain films, certain modes, certain ways of telling a story, certain tricks of plot development, all of it predictable and useless.
Michelangelo Antonioni