Ingmar and Michelangelo

New York, NY – How to alienate any potential rock and roll fan visiting this site?

Easy! Mention that two of my favorite filmmakers were (very sad to use the past tense) Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Both made films that bordered on the excruciatingly boring. And both have made my life much richer and less lonely. Sorry, but there it is.

Given the fact that my Dad is a clergyman and my mother the daughter of Norwegian Lutherans, it is pretty easy to understand why I’d be titillated by Bergman’s Scandinavian angst. Fanny & Alexander is probably my favorite film.

If you want to hear my best justification for being an undisciplined artist who still hasn’t found his voice after all these years, it comes in the last conversation between the stern bishop and his beautiful actress wife. “You wear many masks,” he says enviously. “Mine is branded onto me.” Of course, Dylan said it another way: “He who is not forever being born is forever dying…” Basically, I’d rather be a dilettante than atrophy in some straitjacket of my own devising.

As for Antonioni, if I try to explain why I like him I’ll just sound pretentious. Hasn’t stopped me before, but I’m more self-conscious these days.