CLASSICS
The Passenger 15
Italy | 1975 | 126 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Michelangelo Antonioni
STARRING
Jack Nicholson|Maria Schneider
We screened an earlier Antonioni film last year as the first instalment of The ABC of Cinema. That was Red Desert (1964), starring Monica Vitti and Richard Harris. The theme of alienation pervades Antonioni’s films. In the earlier film it was Monica Vitti alienated from modern life; in The Passenger it is Jack Nicholson.
Nicholson plays a washed-up war correspondent who takes the unusual step of adopting the identity of a dead man. Complete with the passport and appointments schedule of the deceased, the life of a correspondent becomes more purposeful, exciting … and dangerous. Along the new road taken, Nicholson is joined by Maria Schneider, and together they take a trip into the unknown through (red) desert country – a road-trip to disaster.
This was one of three films Antonioni made under a deal with MGM, the others being Blow Up (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970). It was released in 1975, and then it all but disappeared for the next thirty years, the rights having been transferred to Jack Nicholson in settlement of a dispute between himself and MGM. Nicholson finally agreed to a restoration and re-release in 2005, when the film also became available on DVD.
The Passenger was critically acclaimed on its first release and again on its re-release. It earned the director a Palme d’Or nomination at Cannes in 1976. This is what was said by the New York Times:
A suspense melodrama; a story so basically conventional that it isn't until you're at least half‐way through it you realize it's a magnificent nightmare, and that you are on the inside looking out.
A suspense melodrama; a story so basically conventional that it isn't until you're at least half‐way through it you realize it's a magnificent nightmare, and that you are on the inside looking out.
18 November 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
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