Michelangelo Quotes

(on reactions to his directorial debut) You know what was traumatizing, what was very, very strange in terms of this film I directed a few years back called The Brave (1997). Well, I guess I wouldn`t say traumatizing, but I would say weird: at the premiere of the film the reception of it was beyond any expectation that I had. I had no idea I`d be looking at (Bernardo Bertolucci) or (Michelangelo Antonioni) sitting there watching my film. And then to receive the applause that my film got, it was so incredible. And then the next day the majority of the American press just turn it into this horrible thing. Once again, everybody is entitled to their opinion, man. Maybe it`s a bad film? Maybe it`s a good film? To me it`s just a film. It`s something I needed to make.

(on Zabriskie Point (1970)) It was the worst fucking - and I have to curse because there is no other way that I can express myself - picture that I ever saw. I got so angry about it. I was in love with a girl. We went to the movie and it ended the whole affair. He (Michelangelo Antonioni) hired cardboard, the worst actors, and it was a conscious effort - that`s what pissed me off.

(on Michelangelo Antonioni) He`s done two masterpieces, you don`t have to bother with the rest. One is Blowup (1966), which I`ve seen many times, and the other is Notte, La (1961), also a wonderful film, although that`s mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Grido, Il (1957) and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don`t feel anything for Avventura, L` (1960), for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress."

I hate the word superstar". I have never been able to think in those terms. They are overstatements. You don`t hear them speak of Shakespeare as a superpoet. You don`t hear them call Michelangelo a superpainter. They only apply the word to this mundane market."

What we admire about Michelangelo, ... is that he was so devoted to something.

Michelangelo told (his biographer) Condivi what to write, ... Michelangelo was aware of posterity, so he wanted people to remember him as a self-created genius.

If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.

In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.