Exploring The Establishment And Management Of Space In Antonioni's Film

Michelangelo Antonioni is one of the most important Art Film directors in the second European modernism film movement. The original and distinguished image style of his works, has become a hot research object for film critics and film enthusiasts for many years. Antonioni's particular and creative management of the film space has cast a great influence on other film directors. How to construct a particular film space to reflect the director's thoughts and make it become a container which can project the inner worlds of the characters? This thesis will start from these questions to discuss the establishment and management of space in Antonioni's films.This thesis is based on researching Antonioni's film works and his original path in building his distinguished film space as a director. First of all, it will analyze the characteristics of Antonioni's early films. From the analysis we will find that in his earlier works, Antonioni inherits Jean Renoir's space theory, which complies with the rule of continuity of the traditional drama space, and the confirmation and relations of all spaces serves for the developing of plots and narratives. It also compares the characteristics of space usage of Antonioni's earlier film with Italian Neorealism films, from which we could trace the evolution of his film style. In the second part, the thesis will pay great attention to Antonioni's unique means to construct his particular film space, and the development of Antonioni's space conception. During this period, Antonioni has broken the traditional rule of continuity in terms of connecting actions and spaces. His film mode brings a kind of modernism to his films which featured "discontinuity". Thirdly, the thesis discusses while Antonioni breaks the integration of traditional drama space, he also manages to import a new exoteric space into his films, which endows the image with a latent spiritual space and make the characters interact with the space. The above two points compose the most creative practices Antonioni did regarding the film space. Together they also shape two of the most important characteristics of Antonioni's particular film style which symbolize modernism. Those two characteristics will be the main points of this thesis.This paper tries to understand Antonioni's space conception and his film theories by analyzing his construction of film space. Meanwhile, the ultimate dilemmas the characters in Antonioni's films encounter and the social impact they undergo under the modernization of contemporary society, form a significant example for those who are experiencing similar social reformations and mutation in modern China. Therefore, through this thesis, I hope to give a useful reference to Chinese young film makers who wish to study the unique image style of Antonioni's cinema, and develop their own afterwards.