Il grido seems quite similar to my previous films in that I’m trying to probe the souls of the characters, whether they are middle-class, as in Le amiche, or working class, as in this case, but I think it’s the same sort of investigation. It’s the story of a man who can’t get a woman out of his head…
You can find my themes in Il grido, but the emotional question is presented in a different way. Whereas my characters previously wallowed in their sorrows and their emotional crises, in Il grido there is a man who reacts, who tries to do something about his unhappiness. This is why I treat this character with greater compassion.
The landscape too has a different function. While in other films I used it to better define a situation or a mood, in Il grido I wanted it to be a landscape of memory, the landscape of my childhood, seen through the eyes of someone returning home after an intense cultural and emotional experience. In Il grido, this happens in the most favourable season, winter, when the wide open horizon acts as a counterweight to the psychology of the central character of the film…
Regarding Il grido, French critics have spoken about “interior neorealism”. I had never thought of giving a name to what I had always considered a necessity. Namely, to look inside man, at his emotions, the thoughts that drive him along his pathway to happiness or unhappiness, or death. I’ve never thought about themes to translate into film. I hate schematic films. I simply tried to tell, or better, to show the events and hope that people will appreciate them even if they have a certain bitterness about them…
Of course, Il grido is a closed, difficult film, “humble with a mysterious humility” as one critic put it. And perhaps this is true. I watched it again, and I was surprised to find myself before so much nakedness, so much solitude, like those mornings when our face in the mirror terrifies us.

Michelangelo Antonioni, in My Antonioni, edited by Carlo di Carlo, Edizioni Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna 2017