Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Amazon.ca
The Passenger is one of those movies that is all about the vision of the director, in this case, screen legend Michelangelo Antonioni. Starring none other than Jack Nicholson, and featuring a plot billed as an international romantic thriller, The Passenger defies expectations by turning the genre on its head, making the characters and the story secondary to theme and tone. London-based Journalist David Locke (Nicholson) is working in North Africa when a fellow traveler by the name of David Robertson, who looks remarkably like him, happens to die suddenly. Burned out and depleted, Locke decides to assume the dead man’s identity, drops everything, and starts again as a new man with a new life. With no idea of who Robertson was or what he did for a living, Locke uses Robertson’s datebook as a guide as he travels through Europe and Africa, takes meetings with people he finds out are gun runners, and ends up falling for a beautiful young woman (Maria Schneider). As Robertson, David Locke thinks he has found an exhilirating new freedom, but the fact is he's in over his head: there are people looking for him and his life could be in danger.
The movie is a thriller in structure only. While designed for suspense, it’s just a premise for Antonioni to explore on themes of identity, humankind’s seemingly futile relationship to the world around us, and isolation. For Antonioni, the action is the means by which the image unfolds, and not the other way around. The actors and the plot are set pieces, simply smaller means to a larger end, and the image and atmosphere supersede all else. A slow pace, long, lingering shots, a focus on emptiness, and a detached, almost brutally objective point of view are the trademarks on full display here. Especially notable is the stunning seven-minute long shot in the final scene, one of the most famous in cinema history, which Nicholson, in his commentary, tags as an “Antonioni joke.” It caps a crowning achievement by one of the big screen’s most visionary directors.
On the DVD:
The commentaries are most definitely welcome guides, and those looking for a way into the movie and into Antonioni’s head will really enjoy them. Jack Nicholson provides one commentary track where he generously shares his memories of the shoot, his thoughts on the movie thirty years on, and lets out the secret of how they managed to get the camera through the bars on the window for that seven-minute shot in the last scene. On the second commentary track, journalist Aurora Irvine and screenwriter Mark Peploe offer more of a wide-angle lens view of the movie and its place in history. Both are insightful narratives—Nicholson’s is particularly enjoyable--and make excellent additions to the DVD. --Daniel Vancini
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By K. Gordon
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:VHS Tape
More accessible and less mysterious than any of the other widely known Antonioni movies, with more of a plot in a traditional sense. Nicholson plays a disillusioned, depressed reporter who switches identity with a dead man in hopes of freeing himself from his old life. But life follows anyway, in the form of his wife and producer, who want to find out what happened to him, and the men who knew the arms dealer that Nicholson has now unwittingly become. Along the way he falls in like with Maria Schnider as a young woman who seems lost herself, and who seems to be using Jack's journey to give her own life meaning.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
Seeing this very visual film on VHS isn't probably your best choice, if you have any access to DVDs.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
Seeing this very visual film on VHS isn't probably your best choice, if you have any access to DVDs.
By K. Gordon
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
More accessible and less mysterious than any of the other widely known Antonioni movies, with more of a plot in a traditional sense. Nicholson plays a disillusioned, depressed reporter who switches identity with a dead man in hopes of freeing himself from his old life. But life follows anyway, in the form of his wife and producer, who want to find out what happened to him, and the men who knew the arms dealer that Nicholson has now unwittingly become. Along the way he falls in like with Maria Schnider as a young woman who seems lost herself, and who seems to be using Jack's journey to give her own life meaning.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
By K. Gordon
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
More accessible and less mysterious than any of the other widely known Antonioni movies, with more of a plot in a traditional sense. Nicholson plays a disillusioned, depressed reporter who switches identity with a dead man in hopes of freeing himself from his old life. But life follows anyway, in the form of his wife and producer, who want to find out what happened to him, and the men who knew the arms dealer that Nicholson has now unwittingly become. Along the way he falls in like with Maria Schnider as a young woman who seems lost herself, and who seems to be using Jack's journey to give her own life meaning.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
Nicholson is lower key than usual, and very, very good; by far the most human of all Antononi's leads. His accessibility makes the film easier and more fun than most of Antonioni's movies, but somehow there's a lack of depth and resonance of the earlier, more obtuse Antonioni films. (And still that penchant for stilted, weighty dialogue).
It's not as amazingly shot as most of the earlier films, except for a shot near the end that's one of the mot amazing 'how did they...?' shots I've ever seen.
If Schnieder could act this might well have been a truly great film, but she's so wooden, especially next to Nicholson's humanity, that the central relationship doesn't carry the weight it should (and I don't buy that it's intentional).
All in all a very worthwhile, watchable film, but frustratingly seems to just miss being a true masterpiece.
Want to see more reviews on this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 52 reviews
4.2 out of 5 stars
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
