Tonight at Cannes, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 classic “L’Avventura” is being screend as part of the Cannes Classic program. And today Screen Daily is reporting that his last completed screenplay (with noted screenwriter and Antonioni collaborator Rudy Wurlitzer), which he wrote shortly before he died in 2007, has been picked up for completion.
The movie is called “Two Telegrams” and, according to the report at Screen Daily, “was inspired by a short story and tells the tale of three people wrapped up in a passionate vortex of love and control.” You’ve gotta watch out for those vortexes, people! They’ll pull you into incredibly long takes done in black and white before you know you’re not even European.
Jaz Films’ Jeremy Wall and Zev Guber acquired the screenplay from Antonioni’s estate and his widow Enrica Antonioni. Wall says, “Michelangelo Antonioni was a brilliant and revered filmmaker for over 50 years and we are honoured to be collaborating with his long time friend and writing partner, Rudy Wurlitzer, in bringing ‘Two Telegrams’ to life.”
The promise of a posthumous Antonioni masterpiece is enough to get any cineaste salivating. Except obviously he won’t actually direct it since he’s kind of, er, dead. So they could deliver this to some hack director and we could end up with a big fat stinker (like Jaz’s hyperkinetic Japanese zombies-in-the-woods thriller “Versus”).
Still, fingers crossed for this one. – Drew Taylor