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In a story that appeared yesterday (8.6) in La Stampa, Maria Elena Finessi reported that the late Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, who passed last July at age 94, was so bummed by "his gradual loss of sight" that he starved himself to death, but in an elegant mystical way that was a kind of "masterpiece" of finality.
Enrico Fico, Michelangelo Antonioni
Finessi got the story from Enrico Fico, the widow of the legendary helmer (L'Avventura, Blow Up, L'Eclisse). Antonioni would not have taken his life by shooting or poison "because I still represented his link with the world," Fico told Finessi. "But certainly he asked for help. To die was his only wish. To go away, in order not to fall into darkness and live as a blind man".
Fico, who married Antonioni in the mid '80s, said that with "incredible willpower" he had "simply stopped eating." He had eaten little or nothing from September 2006, [a little less than] a year before he died, she told La Stampa. "He came to the table with me, to keep me company, but only ate a few spoonfuls". He had proved that "one's body continues to live even if you go month after month without eating".
She said that like the mystics who had similarly starved themselves, Antonioni had acquired "extraordinary mental lucidity" towards the end. He had put up with his decline and illness "gloriously," but "not to be able to see was for him truly unacceptable". He had wanted to die "to free himself not so much from pain as from the body which was the origin of his suffering." She said his death "was a masterpiece as much as his cinematic works. He went in absolute peace, embracing the absolute, as if he were a mystic. He wanted to de-materialize."
Slim Pickens' spirited farewell near the end of Dr. Strangelove.
For years my ideal self-obliteration fantasy (if I was facing imminent death anyway and wanted to end it on my own terms) was to go out like William Holden's Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch. But getting shot several times (and in the back!) would hurt. It therefore might be better and kind of cooler, I used to tell myself, to go out like Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove -- vaporized in a millisecond in a hot flash of light, and so quickly that my body wouldn't have time to send the pain messages to my brain.
But I don't feel that way anymore. I believe in raging against the dying of the light and holding on to the very last. I want to go like William F. Buckley, slumped over at my computer, a sentence half-typed. Or I want to collapse on a busy street as I'm thinking about (or trying to get the attention of) a beautiful woman, like Omar Sharif in Dr. Zhivago.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 7, 2008 at 8:36 AM
comment #1
jimjonesiii says ...
or the man who loved women.
Posted by jimjonesiii at August 7, 2008 9:49 AM
comment #2
George Prager says ...
Like Nelson Rockefeller.
Posted by George Prager at August 7, 2008 9:53 AM
comment #3
mutinyco says ...
Like Andy Robinson in Hellraiser.
Posted by mutinyco at August 7, 2008 10:31 AM
comment #4
frankbooth says ...
That would smart, Mutiny.
This story makes me suspicious. I smell myth-making at work. Those Italians, always about the style.
And we know EXACTLY how Wells is gonna go out: slowly disemboweled, on national TV.
Posted by frankbooth at August 7, 2008 10:44 AM
comment #5
Adonis says ...
Notice Wells didn't say anything about fasting... because, well, we all know that's not his thing ;).
Posted by Adonis at August 7, 2008 10:49 AM
comment #6
D.Z. says ...
The real reason behind Freeman's accident?
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/morgan-freeman-discharged-from-tenn-hospital/11689
Posted by D.Z. at August 7, 2008 11:20 AM
comment #7
MilkMan says ...
I want to die like Joe Pesci at the end of Casino. Because I've been sitting at my desk since 830 this morning and I haven't done a lick of work. What I've done so far is:
Voted for the best ass in porn (my vote first went to Jenny Hendrix, then I changed it to Ashlynn Brooke).
Read numerous reviews of Pineapple Express.
Emailed my boss, asking him if I really had to do the amount of work that he wants me to do, or if he wouldn't mind if I did a little bit less, seeing as how he wants me to be retrained, since I keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Called my wife to ask her if she stopped by the P.O. box and picked up our latest Netflix (Funky Forest, Deep Water, North Dallas Forty, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home [Season 1], Heartbeeps and The Cramps: Live @ Napa State Hospital).
Went to the bathroom three times, once for a whizz, twice to drop the deuce (and where I read an article penned by Peter Watkins in a 1971 issue of Sight and Sound that I picked up at Kayo Books last week).
Read an article on Paul West and how he dictated his post-stroke memoir while suffering from a form of Global Aphasia (exp: "I talk good coffee.").
Stared at the impossibly long legs and high-heeled feet of the Japanese girl who sits across from me.
Ate a Twix.
Ate a granola bar.
Ate another Twix.
Looked at pictures of Dog Chapman and his wife crossing the street.
Looked at pictures of Kim Kardashian in a bikini.
Cleared the history on my computer.
Wrote this comment.
Posted by MilkMan at August 7, 2008 11:36 AM
comment #8
George Prager says ...
Like MIlkMan this weekend.
Posted by George Prager at August 7, 2008 11:42 AM
comment #9
Mark says ...
I always considered death by bowling pin to encompass a certain nobility. Especially right after begging for money and cursing God. I'm sort of off that fantasy now.
Posted by Mark at August 7, 2008 11:42 AM
comment #10
C-PhreekII says ...
Excuse the D.Z. like nature of this, but:
Wednesday numbers are in: PINEAPPLE set a new record of $12.M. Think those mid-$30M estimates are toast.
That makes two bad BO calls in a row, Wells.
Posted by C-PhreekII at August 7, 2008 11:57 AM
comment #11
Count Thread says ...
I want to die like Danny Z.-- from the daily soul-eating disappointment of being wrong about every single thing.
Alas, such suffering takes far too high a toll on those closest to you, who instead beg you to swallow a gun/wash a toaster/fly from a bridge, so maybe I won't imitate him after all.
Posted by Count Thread at August 7, 2008 12:20 PM
comment #12
Glenn Kenny says ...
Wow, MilkMan, you really do provide quite the exemplary portrait of Alienated Labor In Our Time.
Posted by Glenn Kenny at August 7, 2008 1:01 PM
comment #13
Mr. Buckles says ...
MILKMAN,
To channel Will Ferrell, "you made that post your bitch" "it pisses excellence."
And that is all I have to say about that.
Posted by Mr. Buckles at August 7, 2008 1:06 PM
comment #14
quitstaringatme says ...
I've come to the conclusion that the only reason I still visit H-E is the off chance that MilkMan has left a comment.
Posted by quitstaringatme at August 7, 2008 1:28 PM
comment #15
f.bush says ...
Until I read the story I thought you had a picture of John and Cindy McCain.
Posted by f.bush at August 7, 2008 1:36 PM
comment #16
Joshua Mooney says ...
Cindy ain't gonna win "Miss Buffalo Chips" with a neck like that.
Not long as I still have a vote.
Posted by Joshua Mooney at August 7, 2008 1:39 PM
comment #17
BurmaShave says ...
Yeah seriously when it was just the foreheads I thought the exact same thing.
Posted by BurmaShave at August 7, 2008 1:43 PM
comment #18
Joshua Mooney says ...
My favorite movie death is Roger Wade in "The Long Goodbye," who looked and drank like Hemingway but walked into the water like Virginia Woolf.
Posted by Joshua Mooney at August 7, 2008 1:51 PM
comment #19
frankbooth says ...
I was going to ask Milkman if he ever jerked off in the bathroom at work, but then I realized what a no-brainer it was.
Posted by frankbooth at August 7, 2008 5:01 PM
comment #20
MilkMan says ...
If you sat across from who I sit across from, Frank Booth, you would understand. Kaiya is the most beautiful girl in Los Angeles, hands down. I would put her up against anyone, celebs, models, actresses included.
Posted by MilkMan at August 7, 2008 5:13 PM
comment #21
EOTW says ...
Man, Milkman really is the king around here. I saved that post.
Posted by EOTW at August 7, 2008 5:19 PM
comment #22
cjKennedy says ...
Milkman's comment refilled the void in my soul left by my eyes passing over another DZ non-sequitur.
Posted by cjKennedy at August 7, 2008 6:41 PM
comment #23
cjKennedy says ...
p.s. Loved the Wait Till Your Father Gets Home reference.
Posted by cjKennedy at August 7, 2008 6:42 PM
comment #24
Hallick says ...
"He came to the table with me, to keep me company, but only ate a few spoonfuls". He had proved that "one's body continues to live even if you go month after month without eating".
That is utter Shit di Bull. He didn't really starve himself to death. He was grazing. I've seen lots of people eat like that, and I usually chalk it up to DEPRESSION. A renowned filmmaker losing his vision - gee, that might've spurred something like that.
But thank God he was surrounded by the sort of people who'd look at a sick man wasting away in emotional turmoil and call it an elegant and mystical masterpiece of finality. It must've been like watching a mime going through cardiac arrest and giving his corpse a standing ovation.
Posted by Hallick at August 7, 2008 9:03 PM
comment #25
D.Z. says ...
Phreek: Friday's what's really gonna make or break Pineapple Express.
Posted by D.Z. at August 7, 2008 10:48 PM
comment #26
frankbooth says ...
Happy now, C-Phreek?
Masturbate with a cheese grater, D.Z.
Posted by frankbooth at August 7, 2008 10:58 PM
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