The Passenger
1975 ‘Professione: reporter’ Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Synopsis
David Locke is a television reporter on location in Africa's Sahara Desert. It's hot, humid, and everything seems to be dirty. Returning to his hotel after getting lost and bogged in the desert, he discovers that the man in the room next to his has died. After deciding that his own life wasn't worth living anymore, he switches identities with the dead man, taking the man's passport (with his own photo swapped in), his luggage, and his appointment schedule. Leaving Africa, he heads off to keep the dead man's appointments, hoping that his new life will be more interesting than his old one was.
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Second to last shot has to be the greatest tracking shot of all time right?
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Aside from the fantastic camerawork, what is perhaps most striking about this globetrotting existential thriller (if that's not a contradiction in terms?) is the performance of its lead, Jack Nicholson. Antonioni strips him bare of all his trademark mannerisms and 'star' act, ultimately leaving him naked as an actor. It's a Nicholson you will not have seen before, or indeed after.
A beautiful slow moving philosophical and meditative exploration of identity, alienation and the desire to escape oneself. The film concludes with a penultimate seven minute long 180 degree tracking shot that is just jaw dropping and the only end the film could have.
Trivia: This film contains the real life newsreel clip of an African firing squad execution that was also used in the final series of BBCTV's Doomwatch 'Sex and Violence' (1972); a contentious clip that meant the episode was never broadcast.
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Boring, just plain boring.
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To be sure - Antonioni's The Passenger is exceptional filmmaking. I have a blasphemous remark to make in a second, but first, to register my awe at the style (of "nothing") that Antonioni employs. A film about a guy who switches identities - a guy played by Jack Nicholson, in one of his mild-mannered acts of subdued glaze that befit him in the seventies but he has all but sold for raucous, wild-eyed mayhem of full volume scenery chewing these days. I feel for The Passenger, the fourth and weakest film I've seen of Antonioni's, about the way I feel about Gladiator: There is plenty here to distract us from the frank ordinary we are watching, but not enough to…
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‘’I’ve run out of everything – my wife...my house... an adopted child...a successful job... everything except a few bad habits I could not get rid of.’’
I am big fan of Jack Nicholson, actually scratch that, I am a huge fan of Jack Nicholson, I don’t think there is an actor whom has captured my imagination more or has truly embodied my love of film like Jack, I also believe that few actors have had as legendary a run of films like Jack had between 1970 to 1975, If you think back you will see Jack give immortal performances in films such as ‘Five Easy Pieces’, ‘ The Last Detail’, ‘Chinatown’, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’ and this film…
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Michelangelo Antonioni's brilliant thriller The Passenger, better known as Professione: reporter. Starring charismatic Jack Nickolson as reporter David Locke who assumes the identity of a dead man in the hotel where he's staying. Big mistake. Suddenly he's an arms smuggler with a whole bunch of enemies. He meets the beautiful Maria Schneider on the top of Gaudi's La Pedrera in Barcelona and falls in love, while his wife is trying to find out what happended to her husband. I won't spoil the end, but the last scene is notorious for the fact that is was filmed in a seven minute long take in and outside of a small hotelroom - through barred windows with a 180 degrees rotation outside. A shot that logically couldn't be done.
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Psychological drama about a burned out American reporter who is sent on a job to North Africa in a time of unrest. When he finds an acquaintance dead in his hotel room he decides to switch identities with the dead man. Another masterpiece from the great Michelangelo Antonioni.
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Great. Jack Nicholson was ace, as always, and Maria Schneider was darling.
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Boring, just plain boring.
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To be sure - Antonioni's The Passenger is exceptional filmmaking. I have a blasphemous remark to make in a second, but first, to register my awe at the style (of "nothing") that Antonioni employs. A film about a guy who switches identities - a guy played by Jack Nicholson, in one of his mild-mannered acts of subdued glaze that befit him in the seventies but he has all but sold for raucous, wild-eyed mayhem of full volume scenery chewing these days. I feel for The Passenger, the fourth and weakest film I've seen of Antonioni's, about the way I feel about Gladiator: There is plenty here to distract us from the frank ordinary we are watching, but not enough to…
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Heat, desert, identity theft, taperecorder, newsman, Jack N in bellbottoms w/moustache, Jack N bein’ sexy Jack, creepy German wedding, rifles, datebook, Dubrovnik, goddamn it Antonioni makes beautiful images, rebels, Barcelona, sweat, hidin’ in Gaudi, death, love, road trippin’, small towns, goddamn it Maris S is beautiful, amazing long take penultimate shot.
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Blown away by THE PASSENGER *again* this morning. A beautiful, intelligent and ambiguous study of identity & the desire to escape it. #see
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Found this boring and uneventful. Film print was very scratched which probably didn't help. Some striking vistas and a few interesting shots but largely a whole of nothing not acted very well with a conclusion that made me laugh.
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In a discussion some years ago about the Todd Haynes film Safe, someone remarked how Julianne Moore was “achieving a higher state of nothingness.” It’s a phrase that always stuck with me, and it applies here as well. David Locke (Jack Nicholson) achieves a state of double nothingness, letting everyone think he is dead while taking on the role of a man who is actually dead. Having consigned himself to this limbo that will prove irreconcilable, he tries to make himself vanish. When he’s asked what he’s thinking about, we know what the answer will be: “Nothing.” When asked what he’s running from, he can’t respond. Perhaps he is seeking freedom from himself. Antonioni is typically oblique on the matter.…
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Don't really see the big deal here. The final scene is interesting but the movie is a bore.