Editing Michelangelo Antonioni (section)

=== Later career ===
[[file:Michelangelo Antonioni.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|Antonioni in the 2000s]]
In 1980, Antonioni directed ''[[Il mistero di Oberwald]]'' (''The Mystery of Oberwald''), based on [[Jean Cocteau]]'s play, ''[[L'Aigle à deux têtes]]'' (''The Eagle With Two Heads''). Featuring Monica Vitti in the lead, the film delves into an experimental approach to color enhancement through electronic treatment. The process involves initially capturing the footage on video and transferring it to 35mm film stock during post-production.

''[[Identificazione di una donna]]'' ("Identification of a Woman",) a 1982 film shot in Italy, explores the recurring themes found in his Italian trilogy. In 1983, Antonioni published the book ''[[That Bowling Alley on the Tiber]]'', which contains [[sketch story|sketch stories]] and musings he described as "nuclei" for possible films.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rohdie |first=Sam |year=1988 |title=That Bowling Alley on the Tiber: Tales of a Director |journal=Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media |issue=35 |pages=137–139 |jstor=44111651 }}</ref> In 1985, Antonioni suffered a stroke that left him [[aphasic]] and partly paralyzed. Despite his incapacity to speak or write, Antonioni continued to direct films including ''[[Beyond the Clouds (1995 film)|Beyond the Clouds]]'' (1995), based on four stories from ''That Bowling Alley on the Tiber'', for which [[Wim Wenders]] was hired as a back-up director to shoot various scenes. As Wenders has explained, "without someone else, no film of his would find insurers." During the editing, however, Antonioni rejected almost all of the material filmed by Wenders except for a few short interludes.{{sfn|Wenders|2000|p=79}} They shared the FIPRESCI Prize at the [[Venice Film Festival]] with ''[[Cyclo (film)|Cyclo]]''.

In 1994, he was given an Honorary [[Academy Award]] "in recognition of his place as one of cinema's master visual stylists." Presented to him by Jack Nicholson, the statuette was later stolen by burglars and had to be replaced. Previously, Antonioni had received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay for ''[[Blowup]]'' (1967).

Antonioni's final film, directed when he was in his 90s, was a segment of the [[anthology film]] ''[[Eros (film)|Eros]]'' (2004), entitled ''Il filo pericoloso delle cose'' (''The Dangerous Thread of Things''). The short film's episodes are framed using a series of enigmatic paintings by Antonioni, a luxury sports car that has difficulty negotiating the narrow lanes and archaic stone bridges of the provincial town setting, a bikini-clad women performing a cryptic choreography on a beach, and the song "Michelangelo Antonioni", composed and sung by [[Caetano Veloso]].<ref name="bright-lights-johnston" /> The film was not well-received internationally. In America, [[Roger Ebert]] claimed it was neither erotic nor about eroticism.<ref name="chicago-st-ebert" /> The U.S. DVD release of the film includes another 2004 short film by Antonioni, ''Lo sguardo di Michelangelo'' (''The Gaze of Michelangelo'').

Antonioni died in Rome, aged 94, on 30 July 2007, the same day as renowned Swedish director [[Ingmar Bergman]].<ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/movies/01antonioni.html|title = Michelangelo Antonioni, Bold Director, Dies at 94|last = Lyman|first = Rick|date = 1 August 2007|accessdate = 30 October 2024|newspaper = [[The New York Times]]|url-access = limited}}</ref> Antonioni lay in state at City Hall in Rome, where a large screen showed black-and-white footage of him among his film sets and behind-the-scenes. He was buried in his hometown of Ferrara on 2 August 2007.