Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” (ZP) – Sociology of American Humanism and Anti-humanism through Reflective Visual Images Even moral and psychological ugliness is elevated by Antonioni’s art (with its orientation on truth and the ethical impossibility to scapegoat what is a part of reality) into a monumental forms of the objective historical process. Protagonists, with all their personal uniqueness, signify certain socio-political configurations. For Antonioni people can identify with good and yet create evil but they can never personify good or evil – he objectifies their prejudices and behavior and dissolves the human emotions into his epical vision of societal life. Good and evil co-exist, more – fused with one another inside the very system of living, the very structure of social relations. It is this truth of the evil incarnated into the very flesh of our norms, values and habits (which we never consider as evil), and of good (which is never too proud of itself and is recognized by us as in sympathy and empathy) – Antonioni’s camera is especially interested in his films including ZP. But when evil is reduced into concrete categories of people, and good into what is written on the banners and in commercial advertisements – it means, we live where civilized and democratic life is barely possible. It is coming of this universe Antonioni demonstrates in his ZP. Daria/Mark is a universal archetype of the potential for love in human life that is destroyed by the indifference and violence of the very organization of life in society toward youth and love. Mark is scapegoated by a system that is only interested in accumulating money power. But Daria is saved from becoming a (passive) conformist of this power – by the highest possible cost – the death of her beloved. By watching the film we trace in detail how American democracy produces/destroys its own Romeo and Juliette. Please, visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com to read about Antonioni’s film (with analysis of shots), and other articles on films by Godard, Resnais, Bergman, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Bresson, Pasolini, Cavani, Bertolucci, Alain Tanner, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
By Victor Enyutin