Zabriskie Point (1970)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Michelangelo Antonioni (story)
Michelangelo Antonioni (writer) ...

Release Date:

9 February 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

An epic portrait of late Sixties America, as seen through the portrayal of two of its children: anthropology...

Plot Keywords:

Student | America | Policeman | Desert | Outdoor Sex

Cast

Mark Frechette	...	Mark
Daria Halprin	...	Daria
Paul Fix	...	Cafe Owner
G.D. Spradlin	...	Lee's Associate
Bill Garaway	...	Morty
Kathleen Cleaver	...	Kathleen
Rod Taylor	...	Lee Allen

Runtime:

110 min | Spain:95 min (alternate version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:18+ (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:R (Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Iceland:16 | Argentina:16 | Norway:16 | Singapore:R21 | Finland:K-16 | Italy:VM18 | Sweden:11 | USA:R | West Germany:16 (w) | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:X (original rating) (cut)

Filming Locations:

Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

One hundred people participated in the orgy scene, half of them from Joseph Chaikin 's Open Theatre company, and the other half "made up of assorted hippies."

Quotes:

Daria: There's a thousand sides to everything - not just heroes and villains. So anyway... so anyway... so anyway... so anyway ought to be one word. Like a place or a river. "So Anyway River."

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dr. Christina of Sweden (1970)

Soundtrack:

Sugar Babe

A Rare Treat

About two hundred members of a Cleveland, Ohio USA film society, named Cinematheque, gathered on August 19, 2000 to view a pristine Cinemascope print of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film, "Zabriskie Point." Cinematheque Director John Ewing, who does a superlative job of obtaining the finest prints for his series, shared with the audience beforehand that this print was specially flown over from Italy for this one showing only.

The audience was held spellbound as the film unfolded its artisty on the huge panoramic screen. Watching this superb print, shown the way Antonioni intended, made one aware that this is indeed a modern art work. It was all the more fitting that the series is housed in the Cleveland Insititue of Art in University Circle.

Antonioni's compositions are created for the Cinemascope landscape. His beautiful balancing of images, striking use of colors, sweeping choreographic movements, all are the work of a genuine artist, using the screen as his canvas.

At last the audience could understand "Zabriskie Point." As its narrative unfolded, it became obvious that this work is not about story per se, but rather an artist's impressionistic rendering of fleeting images of his subject. The setting of some of the more turbulent activities of the sixties provides only a dramatic motor for the artist's sweeping collage.

Antonioni is not bound by conventional narrative standards, and can pause at any point to creatively embroider an event with grandiose embellishments. The audience willingly went with the flow of his remarkable imagination, as his huge images on the massive canvas held one in rapt attention. While the audience may have been only tangentially involved in character relationships, it realized the theme here is human aleination, the director's recurring theme.

It was also realized that no print any smaller or of lesser quality than this original one in Cinemascope can do justice to this particular rendering. The audience was therefore all the more appreciative of viewing "Zabriskie Point" in its original, breathtaking format, and broke into thunderous applause at the end.