Zabriskie Point

[ellipsis7]

That Cahiers special (in English) from their site - click on e-Cahiers du Cinema link on LHS, and then navigate through 'The kiosk' to the relevant Bergman-Antonioni hors-series issue for sale (@ just €6)...

[Tommaso]

It feels like a rather decadent thing to say, but all you can really do with the world is explore it and meditate upon it, and the artist who does this well, though they might not produce something dramatic or exciting enough to possess mass appeal, will provoke far more activity in the mind of the beholder, and this is the kind of art that keeps you coming back, still asking the same old questions.

I think this describes not only Henry James well, but a lot of literature and arts commonly considered to be amongst the greatest of the 20th century. I had to think of Proust, of Musil's "Mann ohne Eigenschaften" and Joyce's "Ulysses" especially. Perhaps it is not least this meditative quality that makes Antonioni such a 'chief' modernist; you of course also find the quality in Wenders, and it's perhaps one of the reasons why the two of them got along together so well. "The Passenger" especially looks like a blue-print for Wenders' road movies (but is much better, of course).

A film like ZP has this same organic quality, to an even greater extent. It’s like a symbol that doesn’t quite symbolise anything, or a type of beauty that, far from expressing truth, negates the whole idea of truth.

Yes. In this respect I was almost shocked about this little moment early in the film where what we perceive as a beautiful natural landscape is revealed a few seconds later as being not more than a painting on a fence; the colours on the painting and the way it is filmed both suggest we see reality while we don't. A good reminder that we should always question the images we see in the film, especially if they are as beautiful as these.

Thanks for the Ebert link; well, it surprises me that everything we regard as essential for the film is seen by him as something that is a fault on Antonioni's part, as a curious slip in acting, narrative, and filmic technique even. I'm baffled because he obviously stopped at the surface appaerance and didn't give Antonioni at least the benefit of the doubt, that he never even seems to think that what he criticizes could be intentional and could have a good reason. This reminds me a lot of the initial reactions to Powell's "Peeping Tom".

Ellipsis, thanks for the comments on Antonioni's political stance; I knew that he wrote a notorious laudatory review of Harlan's "Jud Süß" in the early 40s, which is certainly unforgivable from a political perspective now, but even there he basically praises the film's visuals (which is understandable). But that perhaps already indicates that his basic interests were aesthetic, not political ones. I haven't seen the China film, unfortunately, but the reactions you quote seem to indicate that there he was also primarily interested in formal questions and in a 'meditation' on the Chinese society without a message, which the Chinese authorities must have necessarily seen as a 'distortion' of what they perceived as their ideologically grounded, 'correct' reality. Perhaps it all comes down to how you define 'left-wing'; I guess you can be very much aware of social problems and against capitalism and consumerism without commiting yourself to direct political action or left-wing party politics.

[Sloper]

Thanks for the Ebert link; well, it surprises me that everything we regard as essential for the film is seen by him as something that is a fault on Antonioni's part, as a curious slip in acting, narrative, and filmic technique even. I'm baffled because he obviously stopped at the surface appaerance and didn't give Antonioni at least the benefit of the doubt, that he never even seems to think that what he criticizes could be intentional and could have a good reason. This reminds me a lot of the initial reactions to Powell's "Peeping Tom".

Yes, the superficiality is pretty typical of Ebert, as is the obsession with identifying movie clichés. But in a way I sympathise with his reaction, having had similar negative feelings about The Passenger, which I think is a pretty vapid film (though great in some ways). But I'm determined to dig deeper with that one, and will keep watching it until I damn well enjoy it.

As a teenaged film enthusiast, I grew up on critics like Ebert, Kael, Halliwell, Chris Tookey (don't judge), the various contributors to old editions of the Time Out film guide, etc, most of whom were very dismissive of Antonioni. This may have something to do with the fact that most of them came of age in the '60s, and so tend to look back on its fads with a certain scepticism/embarrassment. This is why I put off seeing MA's films for so long, but looking at them now I think they've aged better than any other '60s culture I've encountered. Zabriskie Point must have looked very different to Ebert in 1970 than it does to a twentysomething today, and I've no doubt it would appear absurd to me if I approached it as an attempt to engage with the issues of its day, rather than as a work of art which transmutes topical material into something alien and beautiful. The comparison with Powell (and Pressburger) is very appropriate: you really have to scratch the surface with these films, and attune yourself to their modes of expression - and also, I think, forget everything you know about other films of the period - otherwise they just seem silly.

[Tommaso]

But in a way I sympathise with his reaction, having had similar negative feelings about The Passenger, which I think is a pretty vapid film (though great in some ways). But I'm determined to dig deeper with that one, and will keep watching it until I damn well enjoy it.

Yeah, I'm not fully sure of "The Passenger", too. As always, it's visually striking and certainly a very good film, but I didn't have the feeling that the film had to say much that Antonioni hadn't said before in a more striking way. But I've only seen it once, and will surely have to revisit it to come to more differentiated thoughts about it. Still, like many people I think that Antonioni's art somewhat declined in his later years. "Oberwald" is an interesting experiment, but Antonioni and Cocteau together really makes for a very odd coupling; the play on which it is based is one of Cocteau's weakest and only seems to come alive when the main character is played by Marais, as in Cocteau's own film version. "Identification of a woman" didn't work very well for me either after seeing it again after some twenty years, and finally "Beyond the clouds"...oh well... I never really understood what could be the point about this film. A pale shadow of his earlier efforts even in the visual department. The best thing about that film are the Wenders-directed interludes.

Zabriskie Point must have looked very different to Ebert in 1970 than it does to a twentysomething today, and I've no doubt it would appear absurd to me if I approached it as an attempt to engage with the issues of its day, rather than as a work of art which transmutes topical material into something alien and beautiful.

Yes, and this quality of transmutation is probably responsible for the film having aged so well (or rather, it hasn't aged at all, like P&P's films), especially if I don't forget about the other films from that period. I watched Godard's "One plus One" a few weeks ago, for instance, which in some respects shares some themes with "Zabriskie" (think of the Black Panther sequences), but that film left me completely at a loss and had me laughing out loud more than once in what were probably the wrong moments. I thought to myself: "Damn, Jean-Luc, you can't be serious, this MUST be irony", but actually, I'm not so sure about this.

[accatone]

Tom, "irony" (i tend to say its something else that would take to long to describe on my mobile phone here) is a major key to JLG - if it gets discarded its very easy to be on that JLG pretentious camp". I mean, just check out La Chinoise...

[Tommaso]

I haven't seen "La Chinoise", but I suspected I was on the wrong trail with "One plus One". Well, I'm notorious for not 'getting' JLG...

[tartarlamb]

I haven't seen "La Chinoise", but I suspected I was on the wrong trail with "One plus One". Well, I'm notorious for not 'getting' JLG...

I would give La Chinoise a try. My reaction to One Plus One (and ZP for that matter) is similar to yours, and I too don't 'get' Godard. La Chinoise is one of the few of his films that I really enjoy -- it has aged pretty well both as period pop art and as comedy.

[Murasaki53]

Does anyone happen to know why there are Japanese subtitles on the US Warner release?

To the best of my knowledge, it's very rare for English speaking movies to carry Japanese subtitles on R1 DVD releases.

Is it because of the Pink Floyd connection? Or was the movie popular in Japan on its initial release?

[tojoed]

I don't know why, but on the R1 DVD of California Split there are English SDH and Japanese subs and no others.

[colinr0380]

And strangely Japanese subtitles feature on Sony's R1 disc of The Fog of War, along with Spanish, French and Portuguese, but no English subs!

[atcolomb]

Just saw the film for the first time and knowing about it in Medved's book "The 50 Worst Films of All Time" it's not that bad. Nice visuals and sound track and always nice to see Rod Taylor. The only thing i felt sorry for in the end is the cool looking house and Rod Taylor being blown up!

[so lightly here]

Haven't ripped open the dvd of "ZP" yet but I saw a great print in Paris at La Cinémathèque française when it used to be near Trocadéro. I can understand the many opinions people have about the film itself but I would think all agree it is ravishingly beautiful to watch (I do hope my dvd copy - though unfortunately not Blu-ray, which it definitely should be) will show off how good the film looks. I do remember how disappointed I was with the dvd release of "Blow Up".

[atcolomb]

Warner Bros. did a great job on the transfer, i guess they found a great print of the film. I wished they added some extras besides the trailer like commentary from Daria Halprin or documentary behind the shooting of the film.

[Sloper]

The trailer is very good, though - makes the film look a whole lot more thrilling than it actually is! There must have been some seriously disappointed patrons...

[Aletheia]

This film is finally getting a dvd release in the UK. HMV have an exclusive release date for 28-09-2009: http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDet ... &sku=27192

Expect other retailers will roll this out very soon.

[WRomanus]

Ok, I'm going really in Deep of some ZP scenes.
Talking about the "Emotionally Sick Kids Sequence" from 36:49 to 38:11 of DVD, I didn't find anything about in the net.
I think is a very interesting part of the movie.
A sense of dislocation all around...the place...desert and waste , the broken auto, the broken piano and those kids acting strange...
all accentuated from that Off Key Piano Melody played by the probably most emotionally sick of all the kids.
BTW, do you think is taht kid playing piano or was he dubbed?
And may some of you tell where's that location of the Roadhouse in the desert?

I'm searching for all the ZP locations and checking different sources like this:
http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/z ... point.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Well, In my opinion the two lines The fabulous green and gold deco tower seen through Allen’s window is the Eastern Columbia Building, 849 South Broadway are wrong.
That tower is BLACK and gold and was demolished shortly after filming that sequence.

[WRomanus]

.........................
I'm searching for all the ZP locations and checking different sources like this:
http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/z ... point.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Well, In my opinion the two lines The fabulous green and gold deco tower seen through Allen’s window is the Eastern Columbia Building, 849 South Broadway are wrong.
That tower is BLACK and gold and was demolished shortly after filming that sequence.

I think the people of movie-location site is reading this forum since they deleted the above two lines

[therewillbeblus]

I strongly disliked this when I saw it in my youth, but ten years later I'm joining its cult chorus regarding it as an unsung masterpiece. I don't know what the actual 'intention' was on Antonioni's part, but the film reads to me as incredibly pessimistic and even critical of the counterculture movement's idealism while empathizing with the plight of powerlessness usurping their theoretically valuable ideals. Even if Antonioni is didactically moralizing against capitalist America, the film's cumulative mood crushes any single moment's pandering against the System. The desert sex is a fantastically utopian version of the Flower Power lifestyle, impermanently sublime and incapable of maintaining pleasure against the gravity of 'society' pulling these principals back. Sure, one could argue that the break from the desert and return to face consequences is rooted in these youths' moral compasses, but it seems implicit that they are conditioned to return to familiarity, to conform against their ideals, not only because they feel a helplessly-imposed 'need' to, but ultimately because their vision of a perfect world is impossible to actualize and sustain, even when it's literally happening in real time.

The framing of this narrative, where nothing else is acceptable and yet nothing can match the potency of the imagination, creates a tragic imprisonment for these youth. They are impotent to fulfill their own desires-turned-needs with fragile sensitivity- partially because they cannot brings themselves to compromise (exhibited as a weakness within this milieu rather than a strength), but more disturbingly rooted in their identities being mirage projections of dreams- dreams they are too afraid to engage in or that cannot corporeally match the idea of the dream. Daria Halprin's serene smile post-forecasted-imagination of destruction is simultaneously empathetic and pathetic- she smugly returns to the car after solipsistically satisfying her desire. We may share it, but this will lead to inactive complacency- the kind that is called out at the start of the film, and yet it's also a resilience born from the futility to make dreams come true.

Maybe the best we can do is collectively dream (and for artists like Antonioni here or Tarantino to use the magic of the movies to perversely alter real life) but there's something deeply sad and troubling about that as well. The ending of this film is masterful, though less the explosions than the return to Halprin's delusional heroine, isolated and alone, ripped away from the catharsis, riding off into the sunset to live a life that is going to consist of mostly isolation and loneliness and failure to make her dreams come true, yet smiling all the same. I felt disturbed.. I pitied, resented, and felt compassion for her (and myself and those I know in my life, through all past seasons of development along the spectrum of star-eyed agency to pragmatic inactivity).. and liberated at once, but the magnetic pull grounded me back to the fatalistically melancholic paralysis that would become detrimentally sobering in the 70s, after the promise of change, and would continue to this day through countless zeitgeists and beyond.