As the lights go down

Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni finally lost the chess game to Death. Among those who lined up to pay respects to the masters are Chinese filmmakers, who say the pair's influence on Chinese cinema is hard to neglect.

Wu Guanping, chief editor of Film Art Bimonthly, says the two, especially Antonioni, has a great influence on the fifth and sixth generations of Chinese directors, because the two's works have always been an important course in China's film academies. The fifth generation includes directors who graduated from Beijing Film Academy around early 1980s, including Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige; the sixth generation usually refers to young directors born in the late 1960s and early 70s, such as Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai.

In Wu's opinion, however, Antonioni plays a more influential role than Bergman.