Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac
Signup       Login
The Passenger (film)

The Passenger (film)

Discussion
Ask a question about 'The Passenger (film)'
Start a new discussion about 'The Passenger (film)'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum
 
Encyclopedia
The Passenger is a film
Film
Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....

 directed and co-written by Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director.-Life:Michelangelo Antonioni was born into a well-to-do family of landowners in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, in northern Italy. The director explained to Italian film critic Aldo Tassone:While still a child,...

, released in 1975
1975 in film
The year 1975 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January 28 - George Lucas creates the second draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope...

, in which Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director and producer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters....

 stars as a reporter in Africa who assumes the identity of a dead stranger. The film competed for the "Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded to competing films at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film...

" award at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival
1975 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Jeanne Moreau, President, actress*André Delvaux, director*Anthony Burgess, writer*Fernando Rey, actor*George Roy Hill, director*Gérard Ducaux-Rupp, producer*Léa Massari, actress*Pierre Mazars, journalist*Pierre Salinger, writer...

.

Plot


David Locke (Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director and producer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters....

) is a television journalist looking for rebels to interview in the African Sahara desert but he keeps failing and at last his Land Rover gets hopelessly stuck on a sand dune. After a long walk through the desert back to his hotel a thoroughly glum Locke finds that an Englishman by the name of Robertson (Charles Mulvehill), who has also been staying there and with whom he had struck up a friendship, is dead. Tired of his work, his marriage and his life, Locke switches identities with Robertson, carefully cutting and swapping the photographs in their passports. As Robertson, he reports his own death and since the hotel manager has already mistaken him for Robertson, the plan goes off without a hitch.

In London, Locke's wife Rachel (Jenny Runacre
Jenny Runacre
Jenny Runacre is an actress.Runacre was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She relocated to London as a child, attended The Actor's Workshop there, and trained in the Stanislavski System....

) has been having an affair with someone else but is guilt-ridden and torn by the news of her husband's death and tries to get in touch with Robertson, to learn more about what happened. Meanwhile "Robertson" (Locke) flies to Europe with the dead man's appointment book.

Otherwise aimless, Locke swiftly learns Robertson was a gunrunner for the rebels and not liked by the government they are fighting to overthrow. Meanwhile a friend of Locke's from the BBC tries to track Robertson down on behalf of Rachel. Locke spots him on the street in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...

 and asks an architecture student (Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider (actress)
Maria Schneider is a French actress. She is best known for playing Jeanne opposite Marlon Brando in the 1972 motion picture Last Tango in Paris.- Career :...

 as the Girl) to fetch his belongings so he won't be seen at his hotel. She and Locke drive off from Barcelona and become close.

Flush with cash from a down payment on arms he cannot deliver Locke nevertheless is drawn to keep the meetings listed in Robertson's book. Locke begins skirting then fleeing from the Spanish police, whom Rachel has brought in on the search for Robertson, but the Girl is loyal and helpful.

An ever more wary and world-weary Locke sends the Girl away on a bus, saying he'll meet her in Tangiers later. Locke checks into the Hotel de la Gloria in Osuna
Osuna
Osuna is a town and municipality in Seville province, Spain, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Population in 2003 was estimated as 17,345, of whom only 48 were not Spanish citizens.*Area: 592 km²*Location: latitude 37° 14' north, longitude 5° 06' east...

, Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level. The inhabitants of the city are known as Sevillanos or...

 to keep another meeting as Robertson and is told his wife is staying in the room next to his own. In it, he finds the Girl. By now Locke seems to have lost all hope and faith in life. His assassination in the late afternoon by agents of an African government takes place off screen in a widely noted, seven minute long take
Long take
A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes...

-tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...

 which begins in his hotel room, pulls out into a dusty, run-down square and tracks back into the hotel room.

Penultimate shot


The shot was very difficult to accomplish and is widely studied by film students. Since the shot was continuous it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture as the camera left the room and went into the square. Hence the footage had to be taken in the very late afternoon near dusk, when the brightness outside was closer to that in the room.

Also, the square was windy and the crew needed stillness to ensure smooth camera movement. Antonioni put the camera in a sphere so the wind might catch it less, but this wouldn't fit through the window.

The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room and when it came outside the window, was meant to be picked up by a hook suspended from a giant crane nearly thirty metres high. A system of gyroscopes was fitted on the camera to steady it during the switch from this smooth indoor track to the crane outside. Meanwhile the bars on the window had been given hinges. When the camera reached the window and the bars were no longer in the field of view they were swung away to either side. At this time the camera's forward movement had to stop for a few seconds as the crane's hook grabbed onto it and took over from the track. To hide this, the lens was slowly and smoothly zoomed until the crane could pull the camera forward again. Antonioni directed the scene from a van by means of monitors and microphones, talking to assistants who communicated his instructions to the actors and operators.

In a DVD commentary decades later Nicholson said Antonioni built the entire hotel so as to get this widely noted shot. Although it is often referred to as the "final shot" of the film, there is one more, which shows a small driving school car pulling away in the twilight some time later, holding on the hotel as the credits begin to roll.

Reception



The Passenger has been considered remarkable for its camerawork (by Luciano Tovoli
Luciano Tovoli
Luciano Tovoli , is an Italian cinematographer, film director, and screenwriter. While the majority of the titles in his filmography are Italian, he has worked as cinematographer on several United States and French productions.His films include Michelangelo Antonioni's Professione: reporter ,...

) and acting. While the movie has been critically praised by such movie critics as Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...

 of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason.The magazine was named after the 1948 Muddy Waters song of the same...

 and Manohla Dargis of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...

, it has also been criticized by Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...

, Danny Peary
Danny Peary
Danny Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.Peary remains an important and influential figure in the film reviewing field chiefly due to his three volume Cult Movies series of oversized paperback books, all of which were...

 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.

External links