posted 07-31-2007 04:42 AM                       

quote: BBC News Online

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Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, renowned for his 1966 release Blow-Up, has died aged 94.

He gained two Oscar nominations for the iconic release, and was awarded an honorary Academy Award for his life's work in 1995. His Italian language films, including La Notte, also won recognition during his career, which began in the 1940s. The director died peacefully at home on Tuesday night, according to his wife, actress Enrica Fico.

Antonioni was born in 1912 in Ferrara, a small town in the north-east of Italy. He studied economics at the University of Bologna, but came to attention as a film critic when he savagely criticised the Italian comedies of the 1930s.

In the 1940s, he enrolled at Centro Sperimentale, Italy's national film school, and soon began working as a scriptwriter, collaborating with directors such as Roberto Rossellini and Enrico Fulchignoni.

His debut feature film, Story of A Love Affair, was released in 1950, but he did not achieve international success until L'avventura (The Adventure) in 1960. The film, which won the special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a group of couples who take a boat trip to an island off the coast of Sicily.

One of the party, a young woman called Anna, wanders off and becomes lost. As they search for her, Anna's boyfriend and best friend become attracted to one another and eventually forget about their former companion. The film's premiere at Cannes was a disaster, with the audience jeering the film when they found out the mystery of Anna's disappearance would never be resolved. But the critics loved it, and L'avventura went on to be acknowledged as a classic.

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