49 The Passenger

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Barmy
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#51 Post by Barmy » Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:03 pm

As I reported in the ZP thread, a new print of ZP has been struck and was recently shown at MMI in Queens. Previously the best print in circulation was a French subtitled print that was shown in NYC from time to time. I was disappointed with the new print, which did in fact show some grain. The French print, on the other hand, was impossibly gorgeous. I think ZP is by FAR MA's most beautiful film. And the ZP LD is indeed superb.

Visually I think The Passenger is mildly disappointing. The London and Barcelona scenes in particular. He shows much less "control" over such things as framing than he usually does. However once MA gets into the Spanish countryside the film is beautiful.
Last edited by Barmy on Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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kinjitsu
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#52 Post by kinjitsu » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:07 pm

matt wrote:Anyone familiar enough with this film to comment on its cinematography? I saw the re-release this past weekend and the print was incredibly grainy. I'm not really complaining--I love the grainy look--but I'm wondering if the heavy grain was intentional or a result of the print being several generations removed from the original negative.

I've never seen an Antonioni film have anything less than crisp, pristine cinematography, and Luciano Tovoli's work is usually a paragon of clarity. At the same time, though, I can see why Antonioni might have thought a rough, grainy, documentary-style look would suit the story, and it was certainly a popular stylistic trope in the mid-1970s.

I've not seen Zabriskie Point. How does its cinematography compare?


As I recall, the originals of both films were crisp and clean, however, I just watched The Passenger and was taken aback at how poor the print was. It's playing at another (more reliable) theater nearby and am planning to see it again within the next couple days.

Although my memory may be unreliable at times, I can safely say that the print of The Passenger that I saw today was weak in comparison to what I remember. The blacks in this new print are almost non-existent, the colors were off, and indeed, the print shows much too much grain throughout. The opening title sequence was deplorable and I hoped things would improve, but alas, they did not, and the final shot, too, wasn't as I recall. I can safely say that the original contained shots that were as sharp and as crisp as one might expect from an Antonioni film.

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kinjitsu
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#53 Post by kinjitsu » Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:24 pm

davidhare wrote:Kinjitsu, how did the final shot differ? (Strictly speaking the second last shot - if you mean the six minute take?) The last shot is an overhead at night outside the cantina starting with the cab taking Maria Scheider and resting on the lit doorway, with the credits rolling over the shot and the guitar music.


Yes David, I was referring to the long shot and not the end titles, which was slightly grainy in the original film as well, only more so here. And to clarify, the long take is intact. Perhaps because the entire print was so grainy this weakened the effect of the famous long take, and effectively, detracted from my enjoyment of the entire film. Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember the original prints of The Passenger being much sharper, almost photographically so.

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Lino
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#54 Post by Lino » Sun Dec 04, 2005 6:56 am

davidhare wrote:The last shot does worry me a little though. The cut from Daria driving off to the credits is very jagged and is a still shot. It certainly looks like Antonioni might have had something else there
As I understand, Antonioni didn't want it to end it that way. It was probably some hack decision over at MGM at the time that changed it at the last minute and stupidly added that Roy Orbison song that feels VERY out of context with the whole movie.

Antonioni was reported as being very furious at that kind of meddling with his picture but for some reason or another he couldn't do anything about it. It would be great if the upcoming Warner DVD changed that and gave us the option to choose between the director's cut and the original theatrical release versions.

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Barmy
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#55 Post by Barmy » Mon Dec 05, 2005 1:15 pm

Wish we could take this back to the ZP thread, but anyway, the new print of ZP I recently saw does not, thank God, have that cheesy Orbison tune at the end. Rather, the Pink Floyd music comes back, which doesn't really work for me either. Frankly, dead silence might have been best.

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Lino
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#56 Post by Lino » Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:26 am

Barmy wrote:the new print of ZP I recently saw does not, thank God, have that cheesy Orbison tune at the end. Rather, the Pink Floyd music comes back
That was I believe, Antonioni's intention all along. There's hope that this makes it to DVD.

Cinesimilitude
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#57 Post by Cinesimilitude » Sun Dec 18, 2005 2:24 pm

Sony now has a trailer out for it. links on this page...

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dx23
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#58 Post by dx23 » Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:36 am

Info about the upcoming dvd release here

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Dylan
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#59 Post by Dylan » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:15 pm

Image

Picked up the new "Passenger" DVD yesterday and I watched it for the first time last night. Even though it hasn't really left my mind, I haven't even begun to absorb it yet. It's a fascinating film, oblique in the best Antonioni fashion, and Jack Nicholson is at the height of his power. But that magnificent ending is absolutely one of the great shots in any movie ever. It forced me immediately to re-evaulate everything I had just watched, and my impression is still spinning. I do want to give it another viewing before I commit to any solid reading of the piece, as watching it a second time will likely be a richer experience, but I was wondering what other members here think of this film. Many on here, such as ellipses, have seen it more than once and I would love to read some impressions, interpretations, and thoughts.

Dylan

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franco
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#60 Post by franco » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:29 pm

Here is an excellent post on the subject. I love the author's reading of the ending; he makes me appreciate the film much more.

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Dylan
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#61 Post by Dylan » Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:05 pm

An interesting interpretation, and I agree until he gets into the spirit thing, which for me personally is too easy of a way out of it. I think what's going on is far more complex and psychological (and unsettling) than that, but then again, maybe I'm just a different kind of interpreter.*

What I think he's certainly onto, though, is that the entire final shot is the first time in the film the artist is taking us out of the plot and into his mind. The final shot is completely Antonioni's prowess, seemingly delivering the entire point of the film in an artistic and rather psychological visual statement, similar to what I believe he is doing with L' Eclisse" and "Blow-Up" (which is my favorite ending of his). But even so, this ending does feel more distant to me personally; for me it's sort of in between the endings of the aforementioned.

*ENDING SPOILER: this could also be because I found the ending rather unsettling. Locke has died exactly the same unpronounced way, in seemingly the same position, as Robertson did. A genuine chill went over me when they said Locke was dead, and that is what ultimately forced me to think about everything in the film up until the final shot again. As soon as I see it again I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say. Until then, other comments are most welcome.

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#62 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:51 am

It's a really great film -- even more timely now than when it was originally released. The key moment for me is when the interview subject takes the camera away from Nicholson and films him.

The ending is of course amazing -- obviously very much influenced by Michael Snow. But Antonioni makes it something of his very own.

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Gordon
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#63 Post by Gordon » Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:51 pm

I viewed the film again this week, acquiring the excellent Sony DVD. I find the film extraordinary on every level and was going to post a short essay on the film, but something stopped me; it was a question: Instead of stealing Robertson's identity, what should Locke have done with his life at that point?

What should have he done?
Last edited by Gordon on Sun Apr 30, 2006 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Gordon
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#64 Post by Gordon » Sun Apr 30, 2006 7:47 pm

Interesting thoughts, David - or is it Robertson? :wink:

Locke isn't living an 'authentic' life, in Sartre's sense. The only point in the film where he exerts his will power on Life, is when he swaps identities, but then he expects Fate to bring him 'riches' and peace mind. Locke needed to "go up to the mountain and get himself focused", as Grandpa Sam Reaches says of Mr Magoo in Thunderheart. Instead, Locke ends up "under the volcano" - in a labyrinth. He follows the road, but doesn't know where it ends.

Maybe, he should have made a mandala.

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ellipsis7
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#65 Post by ellipsis7 » Mon May 01, 2006 5:15 am

Doppelgangers everywhere...

There's an excised scene in Munich where Locke/Robinson walks in to a restaurant/cafe and is greeted by someone who appears to know him (as one of his personas), Locke/Robinson plays along, but at the end of their encounter it is not clear if whether either of his selves knows this person, nor is he... Beautiful!

(So the return of flixyflox?!...)

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ellipsis7
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#66 Post by ellipsis7 » Tue May 02, 2006 6:12 am

I was at boarding school in England - ultra liberal 70's coeducational - and was a projectionist for films on 16mm, while designing stage lighting for plays by Brecht, Ionesco Becket etc...... That's when my love of arthouse film over straight entertainment fare was established... I found THE PASSENGER et al fascinating, whereas the more mainstream fare served up by some Gina Lollobrigida obsessed teacher bored me...

Indeed round this time I caught Fellini's SATYRICON, which I remember really enjoying... I appreciated the overripe imagination and manifested gay sensibility (as I do now) although personally I am straight...

My copy of the new PASSENGER DVD just arrived - so am relishing it, while despatching my old Imagica disc to the discard bin... Essential also is the Grove Press book of the script, one of 16 Antonioni related books on my shelf!

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Lino
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#67 Post by Lino » Tue May 02, 2006 10:48 am

I have my doubts about Fellini's "straightness"... but there's no shadow of a doubt about my unconditional love of Satyricon! Agreed, it's one gorgeous movie and it deserves its own thread.

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#68 Post by leo goldsmith » Tue May 02, 2006 2:18 pm

In the interest of getting this thread back on topic -- and in the interest of being a turd in the Antonioni punchbowl -- I'm going to venture that I found this film profoundly boring (in the full sense of that phrase: boring in a way that borders on profound) and Nicholson to be quite ill-suited to the film. He seems to be practically yawning through his part, which may be oddly appropriate, as his character is by no means the most energized person imaginable (his proactivity in identity-theft notwithstanding). This is not to say that the film is without worth -- indeed, much of it is quite interesting -- but it strikes me as a very dated and pale cousin to many similarly themed films of the mid-70s, especially those of filmmakers like Trinh and even Mulvey and Wollen themselves. These filmmakers/theorists seem to be genuinely concerned with the politics of perspective in cinema (and the possibility of dialogue), and are not simply holed up in an effete, Western strawman's POV.

Which brings me to:
davidhare wrote:Yes the camera seems to abandon indentity and wander into another dimension. It's incredibly beautiful.
Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but does this not undermine the type of argument that Peter Wollen himself makes? Or to put it another way, can the camera abandon identity? Isn't the whole point that it cannot? And if it can't, what's the "point" of the climactic shot?

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ellipsis7
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#69 Post by ellipsis7 » Tue May 02, 2006 2:37 pm

I think the camera switches identity, or certainly changes perspective, in that closing shot, rather than abandons it (which isn't really possible)... I think that's what makes the scene so remarkable...

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#70 Post by leo goldsmith » Tue May 02, 2006 2:45 pm

ellipsis7 wrote:I think the camera switches identity, or certainly changes perspective, in that closing shot, rather than abandons it (which isn't really possible)... I think that's what makes the scene so remarkable...
Can you be more specific? Whose identity does it adopt/shift to? How does it do this (or how do you know it does this)?

Not trying to be an asshole, just curious what and how this shot conveys to people, and why they find it so goshdarn transcendent.

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ellipsis7
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#71 Post by ellipsis7 » Tue May 02, 2006 2:54 pm

It starts in Locke's space as an intimate to and sharing in that space which he appears to control, dominated and lived in by him, then moves way from the salient supposed centre of action to find other centres of action outside, before the arrival of the police car draws the camera into their space and thence back into the bedroom sharing their, the outsiders perspective (now also taken by Maria Schneider and Jenny Runacre, the 2 women in Locke/Robinson's life) looking into the space where Locke is now a stranger, an other, indeed extinct... It does this with ellipsis of of the most significant action - the death of Locke - the central character in the drama, and what happens - life goes on independently of this or any other individual existence...

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#72 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Jun 20, 2006 1:04 pm

Time Out has a nice article by Mark Peploe who worked on the film and offers his recollections making it: http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1213.html

memorable excerpt:
Many wondrous things happened along the way. On one occasion Antonioni asked me to write a piece of additional dialogue for Maria Schneider. Without reading it, she rolled it into a ball, popped it into her mouth, and ate it.

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denti alligator
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#73 Post by denti alligator » Fri May 23, 2008 12:36 am

How, exactly, was that penultimate shot achieved? Couldn't have been a set, so how'd the camera just float through those bars (or is this a naive question)?

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miless
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#74 Post by miless » Fri May 23, 2008 12:52 am

From what I've heard, they built that hotel to Mr. Antonioni's specifications (and, supposedly, it's still there). The bars were on hinges and they merely moved them away when the camera got too close to see them (this was done often in old hollywood with windows and tables often parting to make way for the dollies).

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martin
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#75 Post by martin » Fri May 23, 2008 12:59 am

EDIT: miless has already answered...

It was somewhat reminiscent of the technique used whe the camera goes through the "Rancho" sign in Citizen Kane. The shot in The Passenger was extremely complicated for a number of reasons and took eleven days to prepare.

The take is explained in detail in several Antonioni-books, like Rohdie p. 146-7.

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