Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni, 94, July 30: Italian director Antonioni, known for art-house hits such as "L'Avventura," "The Passenger," and "Blow-Up," conveyed modern alienation with his nearly silent films and long, slow camera work. In presenting Antonioni with a lifetime-achievement... more Oscar in 1995, Jack Nicholson (who starred in "The Passenger"), said, "In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places [in] our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting." (Pero Marsili/Photomovie/Retna Ltd.)