That Bowling Alley on the Tiber: Tales of a Director

By Michelangelo Antonioni

Book Overview

In this evocative book, Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the world's greatest directors, gives us a rare glimpse inside the creative mind. "My thoughts are always about film," he says, and here he has written thirty-three richly suggestive pieces elaborating ideas for films as yet unproduced.
Beautifully translated by William Arrowsmith, That Bowling Alley on the Tiber reveals a master of cinema in a new role--that of an accomplished and sensitive writer.
"Plangent, haunting and refreshingly tough-minded... Antonioni] is asking the questions that every serious film maker will have to ask if the cinema is ever to prove as hospitable to ideas as it is to the great god Action."--The New York Times Book Review
"These writings, like his films, pair luminous landscapes with ethereal tales....These are clearly working notes, and they are as interesting for their analysis of the director's methods as for their literary content."--Library Journal
About the Author and Translator:

Michelangelo Antonioni has gained an international following with such films as L'Avventura, La notte, Blow-up and The Passenger.

William Arrowsmith is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Emory University.

BLWinner of a major Italian literary award

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195042247
• ISBN13: 9780195042245
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

a haunting tale of the ideas unrealized

This book is a collection of ideas, sketches, plots and "cuts" told by the modern master - Michelangelo Antonioni. Some of the novellas in the book (4 of them) made it into his latest movie "Beyond the Clouds"; most of the work is still to be realized on film. Reading this collection helped me to understand the Great Teatrology of the Antonioni's work - L'Aventurra, La Notte, Eclipse and Red Desert much better. Director is researching the same themes of loneliness, impossibility of love and connections in the modern world full of dehumanizing technology. Landscapes and architecture, subtle variations of mood, breeze and movement ... and sadness.