Michelangelo Eye to Eye (2004) User Reviews

MICHELANGELO EYE TO EYE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 2004) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 22 August 2007]

This 20-minute short is Michelangelo Antonioni’s true final film and, for a master film-maker who has peerlessly studied (over almost a 55-year period) the inability of people to communicate between one another, it is appropriate that his last characters are himself – who has been debilitated by a stroke and deprived of speech and most bodily movement for practically 20 years – and the “inanimate” statues found in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

It is also fitting that a modern artist who has carried all his life the first name of one of the greatest artists the world has ever known, Michelangelo Buonarroti, should seek to pay tribute to his “ancestor” through his own medium of expression. And so it is that, ‘through the magic of cinema’, we see a frail Michelangelo Antonioni ‘make his way’ slowly through the empty Basilica and find himself a place where to observe in pensive solitude and from a close but respectful distance the figures sculpted by Michelangelo in the 16th Century, the most prominent of which being that of Moses.

The film mostly has the camera gazing, panning or tracking incessantly over every detail of the awesome statues and occasionally show us the interaction between the two ‘entities’, even down to taking the exact same camera position from each other’s viewpoint. Antonioni occasionally makes some jerky hand movements as if dumb-founded by what he is seeing but, then, his ‘disembodied’ hand is seen caressing the statues and feeling the tactile nature of the sculptor’s artistry. I cannot profess to be anywhere near the ideal person to describe Buonarroti’s work – sculpture, painting and classical music have always been too highbrow for me and best left for the cognoscenti to appreciate – and, for all I know, this may be the most boring and pointless piece of celluloid ever shot for the uninitiated. But for the admirers of the two Michelangelos (but especially Antonioni), this is essential viewing. There have been finer cinematic swan songs, no doubt, but possibly none have been as moving.

Antonioni's Tomb

[tieman64 · 19 May 2010]

"Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much." - Orson Welles

Michelangelo Antonioni directs "Michelangelo's Gaze", a fifteen minute short film alternatively known as "Eye to Eye", "Michelangelo and Eye(I)" and "The Gaze of Michelangelo". Each title has the same double meaning: the film consists of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni watching a statue by Italian Renaissance Man Michelangelo Buonarroti, the great painter, poet, sculptor, architect and engineer of the High Renaissance. In other words, the film's about a Michelangelo watching a Michelangelo who's watching a Michelangelo.

Interestingly, both the Michelangelo statue – a marble sculpture of Moses – and the real Michelangelo Antonioni have been "restored" by science and digital technology. Having recently suffered a stroke and unable to walk, speak or see, Antonioni uses Computer Generated Imagery to "enable" himself to walk one last time. Similarly, a restoration project has recently been completed on Michelangelo's five hundred year old statue. End result: two Michelangelos restored by modern technology and in each other's presence.

But the film goes beyond the ability of art, technology and imagination to transcend limitations (be they temporal or physical). It begins with Antonioni entering St Peter In Chains Church, just off of one of central Rome's busiest streets. He hobbles across our screen like a world-weary cowboy, his hands at his sides like a gunslinger ready to down his next opponent. As Antonioni's feeble body comes to a rest, he's drawn face to face with Michelangelo's Moses, his adversary or perhaps kindred spirit. The two rivals lock eyes and the battle begins.

What follows is an intimate dance of light and shadow. Close ups and medium shots of Antonioni are inter-cut with close ups and medium shots of the statue. This ballet builds and builds until something odd happens: the statue seems to be scrutinising Antonioni as much as Antonioni scrutinises it. This theme – the way facts/objects/truths change when under observation – can be found throughout Antonioni's filmography, but here there's a strangely melancholic tone.

As the film unfolds, Antonioni counterpoints the strength, the virility, the masculinity, the power of this magnificent statue, with the silence of the church, the faint hum of sacred music, and of course the wrinkles of Antonioni's own face, the sound of his feeble footsteps, tortured coughing and laboured breaths. The film forces us to confront the fleshy materiality of Antonioni, his dying body, his bespectacled eyes and dead tongue. In this way the film is at once about the temporality of the artist and the longing for an immortality through art. The artist anticipates his departure, but clings to the meagre hope that he, or his gaze, may be preserved through the artifacts he leaves behind. We recall Welles' "F For Fake".

The second half of the film watches as Antonioni's hands feel the sensuous folds of the Moses statue. In haunting, subtle, slow movements, Antonioni reaches out and feels the marble, both Michelangelos seemingly merging for a moment. Soft liver-spotted flesh on solid stone, it's as though two artists reach out through eternity and touch each other; time collapses, the sixteenth century, present and future conflating.

Antonioni then walks away from the statue, slowly covering the long distance back toward the church entrance. We think the director's movements are being contrasted with the stagnant statue. But the real Antonioni is wheelchair bound. His motions are an illusion, a bit of CGI trickery, a "misconception" that's mirrored to the earlier dance of the statue, in which clever editing allows Moses to himself come alive. The computer aided walk and camera aided revival coalesce into something ghostly: all is dead, dust, but through art these cripples live. Dance. Breath. Move. But there's nothing romantic in this assertion. The film is spiritual only in its absolutely, profoundly cold "deadness". Moses lives, but only in death. The stones are cold, white, pale and bloodless. They are alive in the same way fossils and dinosaur bones are alive; bleached, sterilised and quarantined.

Before exiting the hall, Antonioni pauses for a moment and gives one last backward glance at Michelangelo's Moses. He lingers mournfully on namesake, before walking off into a shaft of light, like some corpse being lifted up into heaven. The camera remains in the church as its master disappears, the machine caught in some ephemeral space. It has to remain here, of course. A digital camera trapped in the alcoves of an ancient Church, left behind for future Michelangelo's to take up the challenge.

The film's shot in ivory whites and limestone-and-chalk coloured shadows. In more ways than one, Antonio's filming his death, the film his gravestone. The choice of location is significant. Michelangelo was hired to sculpt this statue for Pope Julius' tomb. This would be Antonioni's last film before his death. This would be his own tomb.

10/10 - Worth two viewings.

Great summation short from the titan.

[migraineboyyy · 10/10 · 7 May 2005]

It is recommended of course to visit St. Pietro in Vincoli first, study Michelangelo's majestic work (and the surrounding statues), and then see Antonioni's gaze.

The director (for some years now confined to a wheelchair due to a stroke) walks into St. Pietro (his walking "restored", "thanks to the magic of cinema") and starts studying and stroking Michelangelo's Moses, (also recently restored). There is no dialog of course, but as the master of visual articulacy, Antonioni makes this simple visit as interesting as many of his famous "silent" sequences. All we hear is muffled street noises from outside, some discreet sound effects, and towards the end, suddenly choir music (in matching cathedral acoustics), at which point Antonioni leaves quietly.

A must for Antonioni buffs.

A Nutshell Review: Gaze of Michelangelo

[DICK STEEL · 5/10 · 24 June 2008]

This is possibly the final short film of Michelangelo Antonioni, starring as himself as well as he seeks out his the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo's statue of Moses at the Churce of St Pietro in Rome.

Basically it's a piece which has the camera lingering on extreme close ups of the statue, covering every possible nook, cranny and corner, coupled with a meditative looking Antonioni decked in Armani, caressing the statue with his hand. In all frankness I have no idea what this short was trying to achieve, although it boasts some stunning visuals against absolutely no dialogue and sans music accompaniment, save for the ambient noise of shutting doors, and a church chorus toward the end.

It might get a tad repetitive as well, given that it seemed certain shots got repeated ad nauseam. Perhaps it's to share the brilliance of one of Michelangelo's statues, or to share that the statue might be one of Antonioni's favourites.

Qualities and concerns

[Polaris_DiB · 5/10 · 4 April 2007]

Michelangelo Antonioni meets Michelangelo Buonarroti, and in this documentary attempts to show the dialog and the shared love of art between them. Antonioni shows his passion for art as he makes the camera pan, zoom, and dissolve over Michelangelo's sculpture, leading the audience's eyes over what Antonioni finds in it.

This short is only good because at times Antonioni really does manage to give the viewer a very haptic ("touch-like") experience to the statue, something hard to do with photography and film. In fact, this film is pretty good mostly at helping us "look" at the sculpture the way Antonioni sees it.

However, I have two concerns: 1) Why did Antonioni make this? To share artwork that he likes? It seems more like he wants to connect himself visually and rhetorically with Michelangelo the sculpture... Michelangelo eye to eye. Whereas I consider Antonioni a very amazing filmmaker and Buonarroti a very amazing Renaissance artist (who doesn't on the latter point?), why compare them? 2) I don't particularly like being told how to look at something. I'm just sayin'. And while that seems like a personal point, it's for a larger argument I'm trying to make: films like this, no matter how benevolent in design, instruct viewers on how to look at something like an artwork by a Renaissance master in ways that may not be the way that other people can appreciate it. It's lovely to see someone take such joy in a piece of art, but why look here, not there, or there, not here, at whatever certain point? --PolarisDiB

Heavy Lids

[tedg · 19 February 2006]

This is fine. And if you find yourself in it, you'll find it pleasant — rather like visiting the second tier of beautiful cathedrals. You at once perceive the logic of the thing and are impressed if only because it has your exclusive attention.

But at the same time, you know there are far, far better experiences out there.

You can find this as an extra on "Eros," and you might be better off watching this first. That's because it is easy to forget that Antonioni — for the last 35 years at least — has been concerned with how the cinematic eye bends what it sees.

In this case, Antonioni walks again. And he carries sense with him as he moves, enlivening even something that inherently has life. Moses, by Michaelangelo, the original.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

A moving picture for art buffs

[David_Moran · 19 August 2008]

"Michelangelo's gaze" is a very strange and interesting little movie. it's 19 minutes long and has no story what so ever. it's just the great director Michelangelo trying to touch and connect with the great artist Michelangelo. in a mysteriously moving way, you get the feeling that this titan of modern cinema is saying goodbye to the world, goodbye to his life. as the only actor in the cast, Antonioni really gazes at himself and at the work he's done through the course of his life. and what was that work? well, as cinephiles would say, sculpting in light.

Cinema's matter is light. and photographers "sculpt in light". Antonioni sculpts the faces and other body parts of Michelangelo's big sculptures "MOSES" in a cathedral, and he is there all alone. The always "young" man in the sculpture is contrasted with Antonioni's old and rigid face, unable to move thanx to a stroke. and that's all. accompanied by wonderful cinematography that reminds us the great compositions of "L'aventurra" or "L'eclisse", this little, almost silent film, is really experimental cinema with the exception that it has a great director, a historical innovator of the art, standing behind it and in the front of the camera.

But after all, this movie will be regarded the most by Antonioni's fans and other film and art buffs. personally, I recommend it to everyone who can appreciate beauty at it's purest form.

Antonioni reminds us of his mastery

[CaptEcco · 25 August 2006]

LO SGUARDO DI MICHELANGELO is a short glimpse of Antonioni, who was confined to a wheelchair after his stroke but, "through the magic of movies," is seen walking again in a visit to Michelangelo's statue of Moses at the Church of St Peter in Chains, Rome.

Right from the opening shot, exquisitely lit and framed, it's clear that Antonioni is in complete control of this film and that the experience will be haunting you all the way home (and for a great deal of time afterward). The film's hushed and delicate construction is stunning, and the entire audience sat in their seats silently and in total awe, fearful that any sound or movement would cause the entire film to crumble.

Antonioni begins with an intricate study of the sculpture, examining it in painstaking detail while with his unmatchable composition he creates his own work of art out of it. Moses' gaze is examined and juxtaposed with Antonioni's own frail visage and it is difficult to tell whose gaze is more tortured or more beautiful.

At one point special attention is given to the crevices in the statue, the black shadows and negative space in the folds of Moses' robe and the place where his arms meet his sides. Then Antonioni begins gently caressing the sculpture, and as his hand turns toward the light we see the crevices, the negative space of the wrinkles in his palms, and we see that he has become a part of the work of art. It is a harrowing reminder of the mortality of the artist in light of the immortality of his work.

At the end of the film some vocal music from Palestrina arrives, heavenly but distant. It seems to beckon Antonioni from outside and he slowly leaves Moses and walks into the blue light coming from outside the building. The final shot is incomparably beautiful. I can describe what it is, technically - there's nothing particularly special about a wide shot of a man walking out of a church - but I can't think of any way to describe in words how precisely and assuredly it is shot. Like every other frame of the film, it is as beautiful an image as I have ever seen in the cinema, or in any visual art.