The Passenger

Well, what’d you guys think?

I think it’s great that a woman started a thread about a movie!

As for the movie, I’ve never seen it.

It’s a great film and certainly one of the most interesting performances Nicholson ever gave. As of right now it’s my favorite Antonioni.

The much applauded penultimate shot is great too.

It’s also too late to be thinking about this clearly. I’ll be back later.

Easily his best English language film but not as visionary or striking as L’avventura or Red Desert

Yes, I’m a fan…

Detachment, ego, the death drive, and the doppelgänger, yet the film is less Freudian (Antonioni wasn’t so passé) than its themes, and becomes a narrative of self-awareness. Too much attention is given to Locke’s death scene, which didn’t even interest Antonioni, and not enough to Locke’s filmed interview.

Certainly the masterpiece of his late period, a film in need of a new evaluation, should be taken away from film students for a while.

I saw it one time. It wasn’t very good.

Santino — we’re back to slaps for you whenever I meet you. ;D

(Or was it a punch in the arm that I promised? Well anyway this time it will be slaps).

I thought the cinematography was great, colors amazing, composition typical Antonioni with the figures almost always dwarfed by their surroundings, somewhat De Chirico-esque at certain points in mood visually.

The story, good. But, having seen L’Eclisse this year as well, and recalling Blow Up from years ago, all different films, I started to think to myself, “not again….” regarding themes.

Of the three, I like L’Eclisse the best. Except for the ending (everyone stopping and looking, that part).

I agree with you, Ben, the last part, focusing on what is going on outside the room, was amazing.

Someone said somewhere in some not so distant discussion here on the forum (real specific, right? lol) that some artists tend to make one film over and over — i.e. with the same sorts of themes, obsessed with exploring certain ideas, perfecting what everyone knows as in this example, “Antonioni.”

Do you think this is the case with Antonioni? Anyone else out there feel at some point more than halfway through the film, “not again?”

Here’s the trailer, by the way.

Not too much humor, is there (i.e. kind of pretentious in a funny way)? Also, the narrator seems to not know what the film is about when he says the movie is about…………. identity. lol

I think it’s great that a woman started a thread about a movie

Ouch.

I first saw this film back in 2006 when it was playing cinemas across the world as a released “lost film” (whatever that means). I was holidaying in Tasmania and there it was: its presence surprised me because the theatre down in Hobart (State Theatre) does not often do old films. So I gave it a look. Very good film, and it actually improves with each viewing. But it’s probably not the sort of movie that would be released to the mainstream these days.

Look at that trailer, all those big names giving it the thumbs up…hey, there’s Penelope Gilliatt! I recognise her because she wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday!

The question is, had you been in the reporter’s position, would you have done what he did? I guess, at the very least he got to pick up Maria Schneider. And Maria Schneider, I guess, had more fun making this film than she did Last Tango In Paris.

One of the few i like from Antonioni.

“. But it’s probably not the sort of movie that would be released to the mainstream these days.”

yeh and it’s not like it did well in the 70’s either. it flopped, even with NIcholson.

“….that some artists tend to make one film over and over — i.e. with the same sorts of themes, obsessed with exploring certain ideas, perfecting what everyone knows as in this example, “Antonioni.”….Anyone else out there feel at some point more than halfway through the film, “not again?”

No, not at all and this is my least favorite Antonioni after Z.Pt.
Sameness is a function of how depressed (not necessarily clinical depression) one is, imo.

….the narrator seems to not know what the film is about when he says the movie is about…………. identity. lol
Wiki:
While the movie has been critically praised by such movie critics as Peter Travers of Rolling Stone and Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, it has also been criticized by Roger Ebert, Danny Peary and others for being slow-moving and pretentious. Ebert has since changed his stance on the film, and now considers it a perceptive look at identity, alienation, and mankind’s desire to escape oneself.

Yeah, the message of the film is, if you try to escape yourself, you’re a friggin’ loser that deserves to die! clearly!

and this is one of the most evocative 2-3 second shots in cinema that leaves you wanting more:

^^could have used a bit more of that

Joks:

Or

How can we miss you, when you wont go away?

It could’ve used some more of this…

…with a liberal amount of this:

It’s a great film, Santino. Why have you never seen it?

WANDERER: To be perfectly honest, Schreider’s performance is part of the problem i have with the film. It’s very uneven i think. She was much better in Last Tango In Paris.

she looked lovely of course, but that goes without saying.

Anyway, fans tend to argue about whether it’s top tier in the director’s filmography. To me it isn’t, but it’s superior to anything that came after it, and certainly better than his earlier acclaimed films like Il Grido and Le Amiche, which i also happen to like.

It’s worth seeing on the big screen. If you live near a film society that does old films in 35mm, there’s a good chance it’ll crop up in an Antonioni retrospective.

I’m not smart enough for Antonioni. Gimme 20 years and I’ll get back to you.

^ Oh come on, Santino. Then why’d you come here to discuss him? Huh??

You know you want to see him, underneath all the dismissal.

Sameness is a function of how depressed (not necessarily clinical depression) one is, imo.

Robert, interesting comment. So, this tendency is just more of a fact about the artist himself than anything else?

This: alienation, and mankind’s desire to escape oneself. is something that is definitely a theme in Antonioni’s work, at least what I have seen so far of his films.

Which is something that kind of make me laugh, because here he was with Jack Nicholson and a Hollywood studio doing a movie that on the surface, was a certain kind of exciting adventure, but underneath it was exploring the same sort of things his more “arty” Italian films explore. He slipped those obsessions of his in even with this.

Joks — honestly if Nicholson did that arms outstretched thing once and it wasn’t repeated by anyone else in the film I probably would have bought it more. It IS a beautiful shot but the symbolism thing kind of bothered me, particularly when Schreider did it in the car too. Antonioni can be beautifully subtle but in this case this gesture being repeated was not so much to me. Maybe he was thinking an American audience wouldn’t “get it.”

^^yeah, although it does link the characters together i guess, but i see what you mean.

How much more linked do they have to be? They’re together through more than half the movie, lol.

^^yeah but they are physically linked, not necessarily emotionally ;-)

I agree with you though. one shot was probably enough.

Ha ha ha I guess I assume that when two people are sympathetic to one another enough to get into danger together, they’re pretty linked emotionally.

She’s drifting, and he’s drifting. She’s looking for a purpose, and she wants him to as well, but he’s tired of the world and has given up. It’s all in what they do and in the dialogue.

That’s what I meant by his lack of subtlety there, perhaps again, his assumptions or the studio’s assumptions about American audiences? I don’t know.

The clip that David posted of the shot at the end elevated the whole film, and honestly, I wish it had all been at that level.

“That’s what I meant by his lack of subtlety there, perhaps again, his assumptions or the studio’s assumptions about American audiences? I don’t know.”

i don’t know Odi, even if Antonioni made that concession to the audience, for argument’s sake, perhaps it was necessary, as it’s not an easy film to follow. hell i came to it after watching 6 Antonioni films and i found it somewhat hard to watch(mostly because of what you said earlier, about it having the trappings of a quasi-genre film; a skeleton grafted on to his usual obsessions—or the other way around?—and that must have thrown me off).

Yet even then, the film is still ambiguous, and a lot of his fans didn’t even get it then, let alone a general audience, who didn’t even see it anyway.