THE PASSENGER (1975) on Blu-ray
To settle a dispute with MGM, Jack Nicholson obtained the rights to the film, and held it out of circulation, an objet d’art akin to a Picasso or Klimt hanging on one’s living room wall. Fortunately, he released the rights to Sony Pictures, who restored it, and have released it.
I have grappled with the film for many years–entranced by its beauty and its mystery. Recently, I have been reviewing Antonioni films, and found that some hold up, and others are not as grand as I recall. In particular, BLOW-UP, a film I adored as a teenage cinephile, has plummeted from favor. Twice now I have tried to watch the excellent Criterion Blu-ray, and twice I have failed to finish the film. L’ECLISSE remains my favorite of the black-and-white films, and there is a similar poetry in THE PASSENGER.
Antonioni also abandons his practice of his two previous films–RED DESERT and BLOW-UP–of enhancing the real world through painting/coloring grass, trees, phone boxes, and various other elements of reality. High modernist manipulation gives way to an objective camera (Antonioni’s term), and his art works in new modalities, as he discovers new ways for cinema to speak.
Previously, as oblique as his narratives could be (I think they are still looking for Anna), his mise en scene was precise and detailed–setting up a tension between the visual and the narrative. Unfortunately, the tension was not always a productive one, and interest would wane as the running time elapsed.
In THE PASSENGER, the world is taken as his camera finds it, a given that his characters move through. The film also possesses a narrative that refuses to obey the rules of narrative, much as its editing and mise en scene refuse to follow the rules of classical filmmaking. At last, Antonioni’s has paired a narrative that deviates from storytelling conventions, with a deviating syntax of film grammar. The previous tension of his films–narrative diffuseness vs. high Modernist precision–vanishes, as these mutual acts of aesthetic disobedience harmonize with and reinforce one another, giving rise to a new mode of cinematic speech.
The film flows wondrously, comprehensible, yet mysterious, and always inviting a viewer more deeply into its depths. Just as many people have had a George Bailey moment (or two) when they wish they had never been born, relishing an imagined I-told-you-so to others who have not appreciated them, I bet a similar number have had the fantasy (I know I have) of shedding their life, and moving into another one, living differently and (presumably) with increased happiness and freedom.
Yet, as The Girl points out (in a variation on earlier comments by Locke’s wife), what was missing from Locke’s life was a sense of commitment. It wasn’t the particulars of his life that dissatisfied him, but rather its ethic (or lack of one). The Girl urges Locke to keep Robertson’s appointments, since it is commitment rather than experience that provides meaning to a person’s life. Locke needs to live differently, not in terms of the “what” of his life, but in terms of its “why” and “how.”
Antonioni would direct two more feature films before his stroke: THE MYSTERY OF OBERWALD, a made-for-television video experiment in using color on images (he was brought to the project by Monica Vitti, at the time, a bigger name than he was), and INDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN, a late film if there ever was one. Reuniting with Carlo Di Palma, the film tells the story of a filmmaker returning to his home country of Italy, and trying to figure out what his next film will be. Antonioni returns to his old themes, but having gone through the transition (or should I say crucible) of THE PASSENGER, they acquire a more mature expression and understanding. The film has just been released in a new 4K restoration, which cools down the colors from Criterion’s not-too-shabby Blu-ray release.