Zabriskie Point (1970, Antonioni)

6/20/2015 Zabriskie Point (1970, Antonioni): A Scene by Scene Analysis of a Troubled Masterpiece Offscreen

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Zabriskie Point (1970,Antonioni): A Scene byScene Analysis of aTroubled Masterpieceby Donato Totaro Volume 14, Issue 4 / April 2010 22 minutes(5289 words)

With its 40th anniversary just around the corner, a reassessment of ZabriskiePoint within Antonionis body of work is long overdue. Zabriskie Point was themiddle of three films Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni made for MGM:Blow-Up (1966) being the first and The Passenger (1975) the third. Of thethree American films each have had their own idiosyncratic mini-history andcultish associations. Zabriskie Point is the one which did the poorest at thebox-office (a mere $900,000 during its brief theatrical run on a budget of 7million dollars, compared to the art house success of Blow-Up) and sufferedthe most severe critical backlash. Even avid Antonioni supporters, likeSeymour Chatman, found fault with it at many levels (its overall premise, theabandonment of the political, the acting, etc.). Many of the negativecomments arose from a misconception: that Antonionis intention was to makea political film about the American Counterculture. Antonioni was on recordseveral times denying this, and arguing that he was interested in isolating twocharacters, one who was directly involved in the student demonstrations



(Mark) and one who became indirectly involved through her association withthe other, Daria. Still, it is hard to absolve Antonioni of all guilt for designinga film which, at least on the surface, would appear to be about politics.

I think that this film is about what two people feel. It is an interior film. Ofcourse, a character always has a background (Antonioni, 305).

This background can have two senses. The obvious one being the pulse ofthe late 1960s Civil Rights Movement as expressed by the studentdemonstrations against (among other things) the Vietnam War. A less obvioussense of background and the one which I will stress as being the true focusof interest for Antonioni is the actual physical landscape and urbanarchitecture of Los Angeles and the Death Valley desert. For anyone whoknows Antonionis past masterpieces this would not come as a surprise. If allgreat directors could be reduced to one major contribution to cinematiclanguage, for Antonioni it would be his uncanny ability to wed characteremotion to landscape. In my scene specific analysis of Zabriskie Point I willpay special attention to this aspect and attempt to contextualize the film withinhis earlier works, and to other allusions the film evokes for me.

In his great Italian films Antonioni dealt almost exclusively with the class heknew best, his own, the Italian middle class. I find it strangely ironic that a 57year old, middle-class Italian art director consciously or not was seen (bysome US critics) as a spokesperson and defender of the AmericanCounterculture! If there is any weight given to the negative criticism leveled atZabriskie Point it is largely because Antonioni was dealing with a class heknew very little about (working class), [2] a generation far removed from hisown, in a country (the United States) he knew little about. But in whatevercountry Antonioni worked (and he worked in many, China, England, Italy,Central Africa, Spain, Germany) he knew how to express character interioritythrough physical geography. This is something he could not forget,regardless of where he was working.

Antonioni was the sort of director who thought long and hard about howtechnical issues would impact on style, form and meaning. Ill highlight anexample using the aesthetic choices he formed around the use of camera lenstype. In his first set of feature films (Cronica du un amore, 1950, La signorasenza camelie, 1953, I Vinti, 1953, Le amiche, 1955, Il Grido, 1957)Antonioni used the wide angle lens exclusively. The wide angle lens(approximately 50mm with a 35mm camera) has the technical qualities ofopening up the field of vision, expanding space and providing a greater



depth of field. In his middle, mature period, where he made his most famousfilms, the alienation trilogy (LAvventura, 1960, La Notte, 1961, LEclisse,1962) he began to incorporate a telephoto lens (roughly 100mm with a35mm camera) with a wide angle aesthetic. The technical qualities of thetelephoto lens tends toward a closing of the field of vision, a compression ofspace, and a reduction in depth of field.

Il deserto rosso (1964) marked an important moment in Antonionis stylisticdevelopment because it was his first color film but also his first film to use thetelephoto lens exclusively; and it was his most abstract film. His decision to gowith the telephoto lens was no doubt related to this latter fact, since theparticular properties of the telephoto lens flattening the frame, throwingportions of the frame out of focus is conducive to abstraction: forcing theaudience to look for things other than subject/representational, such as form,line, color, texture, and shape, rendering a painterly quality to Il desertorosso. Antonioni resorted to a mixed lens style for Blow-up but returned to thetelephoto aesthetic for Zabriskie Point.

What is interesting is that by the late 60s the telephoto lens was associatedwith a certain aesthetic: the cinema vrit, cinema direct, observationaldocumentary/TV. The zoom lens which brought the viewer into an objectiveview of different characters, panning from one to another, zooming in/out,became a signifier for a certain newly formed (compared to earlierdocumentary) truth factor. Antonioni played with this aesthetic conventionby using it at the outset of the film, but then abandoning it for the morepainterly quality (something which no doubt shaped the critical confusionover the films lack of political continuity). What follows is a scene by scenebreakdown [2] highlighting the two central critical areas I have introduced inmy opening: the importance of landscape/architecture and the aesthetics ofthe telephoto lens.

Scene 1: Student Meeting (000-850) [3]

If I had wanted to do a picture about student dissent, I would havecontinued the direction I took at the opening with the student-meetingsequence (Antonioni, 94).



Antonioni begins the deception right from the first scene of the film,introducing the students in a typical vrit style, panning and zooming fromface to face, cutting quickly, but with the very next scene announces a shiftaway from vrit realism to an abstract expressionism, which becomesblatant if the opening is compared with the ending. The cinema vrit style ofthis opening sequence will soon be abandoned for a more poetic andsurrealist style. I would add that this style, with its foreshortened, fragmentedspace, underscores the divisions within the group rather than the sense ofunity that would be expected at a student meeting with goals of collectiveaction. The implosion of the vrit style is subtly announced in moments ofillogical spatial editing, such as when continuous dialogue is matched withsuccessive elliptical shots of Mark (Mark Frechette), starting with a zip panfrom a perturbed looking Mark, to Mark smoking a cigarette, to Markrubbing a pack of yellow matches against his mouth. So much for temporaland spatial realism.

Mark ends the meeting for both him and us with his rhetorical interjection, Im willing to die too, but not out of boredom, as he makes his dramatic exitfrom any sense of collectivity. Marks distaste for meetings and talk seemsshared by Antonioni, as there is just about more dialogue in this scene than inthe rest of the film combined!



Thats exactly what is on Marks mind

Scene 2: Introducing Daria (850-1000)

In this brief scene we are introduced to Daria (Daria Halprin) and Lee Allen(Rod Taylor), head of a land development company called the Sunny Dunes(the enemy) in the lobby of an imposing modern business complex.

Scene 3: Billboards (1000-1340)

This scene begins with a series of languid pans across large city billboardsfilling the frame completely with images of (mainly) farming. The scene thenpicks up Mark and his friend Marty driving in a pickup truck, but the vritstyle camera is misaligned with (non-diegetic?) industrial sounds reminiscentof the factory sounds from Il deserto rosso. The function of the scene is to veerthe viewer away from the pseudo-political opening to what Antonioni isinterested in: abstraction (while at the same time signaling Marks alienation



from the collective). The telephoto lens is used to create vertiginousmovement, fragmenting the space between Mark, his truck, and thebillboards. (The scene is also reminiscent of the tunnel ride in Solaris.) Welearn that Mark has a sister, Alice, seen driving by in a sports car. Markdrops his friend off to join a picket line in front of the universitysadministration building.

Scene 4: Civil Disobedience at the Police Station (1340-1700)

The physical separation of the police and the citizens (students, professors)by a grated fence symbolizes the police as a class apart from the mainprotagonists of the film. The police have nothing in common with the students,going about their job with indifference and lacking any sense of humannessor humor (a joke with the punch line Carl Marx washes over them). Thescene returns briefly to the vrit style of the opening.

Scene 4: Buying a Gun (1700-1820)

Mark and another student enter a gun shop. Their request to buy some gunsright away for self-defense is at first met with some resistance by the clerk(You can pick them up in four or five days). A simple verbal appeal tokeeping their women safe in their borderline neighborhood melts awayany gun restriction laws, and the clerk eagerly sells them a 38 caliber handgun. As they are leaving the store a second clerk gives them a tip: One otherthing about the law. You can protect your house. If you shoot him in yourbackyard be sure to drag him into the house. The scene, strangely enough,reminds me of a similar scene in the 1974 exploitation film The CandySnatchers (Guerdon Trueblood). In both scenes young protagonists withviolence in mind enter a gun shop; their request to purchase a gun is first metwith mild resistance, but then they are willingly accommodated, and evengiven advice on how to stay within the letter of the law.



Scene 5: Sunny Dunes Promo (1820- 2040)

This brief scene depicts a group of business men in a boardroom watchingpromotional video on a new housing development by Sunny Dune LandDevelopment company. The scene veers toward satire, as Antonioni cutsbetween the all-male board members and the miniature model reproductionsof the sterile housing community. The scene cuts to shots of Lee Allen drivingto the meeting. On the car radio is a report on student unrest at a universitycampus. Tellingly, neither Lee nor the person driving with him seem to takeany heed of the report.

Scene 6: Preparing for Action (2040-2130)

The sound of the radio report bridges a transition to Mark and a few otherstudents listening to the same report in a shabby apartment, as they areseemingly preparing to take some type of violent action. We see Mark placea gun between his pant leg before he leaves. As Mark drives off the shot cutsto Lees car arriving at the Sunny Dunes Development headquarters.

Scene 7: Sunny Dune Headquarters (2130-2240)

Lee arrives to join the meeting.



Scene 8: Daria on the Road (2240-2315)

This scene opens with an aerial shot of the vast LA highway and surroundingdesert landscape. It cuts to Daria in her car stopping for directions on herroad map. We learn in the next scene that she is driving to meet Lee at hisPhoenix area desert estate for a business meeting.

Scene 9: Lees Faustian Empire (2315-2540)

This is the first scene to feature Lee in his environment, his office, andAntonioni overwhelms the human with the interior/exterior juxtapositions. Weare alienated from Lee through the way Antonioni shoots him in his officespace, recalling Jacques Tati (Playtime) in its harsh, sterile, inhumanmodernity. A shot of Lees secretary frames her to the extreme right of theframe, recalling similar out of balance framing from La Notte.

An unusual (for Antonioni) low angle from below Lees desk frames his crotcharea in the middle of the frame against a modern building seen in thebackground through the large window, a playful phallic joke at thepatriarchal nature of the Sunny Dunes empire. Lee crosses his legs to form apowerful diagonal line right to left from the telephone intercom under thedesk, his legs, and the building seen through the window. The US flag at thetop of the flag pole blowing in the wind caps off the dialectical association ofthe powerful (big business/Government) and the powerless (thestudents/Counterculture). The connection between Lee/Sunny DunesDevelopment and the US Government is extended to the Law with the strikingedit to the next scene: an extreme close-up of a police officer in full riot gear.



Scene 10: Restoring Order (2540-3000)

The mask, which only exposes the officers eyes, renders a sense ofanonymity to the police, as they proceed to break up the huge crowd ofstudent demonstrators on the university grounds. William Arrowsmith in hisexcellent book on Antonioni notes that Antonioni differentiates between thepolice at work, as a group collective, where they behave violently, and whenthey are out of uniform, and in a more relaxed and playful state. Theanonymity of their uniforms, with their faces hidden behind their masks andriot gear, allows them to behave anti-socially, for the good of social order(p. 138). The vrit style returns to depict injured and bleeding students beingled away on stretchers. The tension escalates. Tear gas bombs are throwninto the school, forcing students to exit. A black man runs out of the building.The innocent gesture of tucking his shirt into his pants is interpreted as a movefor a gun and the young man is shot dead by the police. The followingsequence of edits to Mark reacting to the shooting by going for his gun and apolice officer being shot makes it clear to the viewer that the bullet that felledthe officer did not come from Marks gun. Mark runs off, but his fate has beensealed.

Scene 11: Taking to the Air (3000-3800)



In a fascinating bit of Antonioni-esque environmental subjectivity we seeMark seated on a city bus, his head bowed. The image has a green hue, shotwith a green filter. The source of this green hue is uncertain at first. The scenecuts to a closer shot of Mark and we notice that he is wearing tintedsunglasses. Are they tinted green? He disembarks and we notice that the buswindows are tinted green. Mark goes into a deli to call his friend Marty. Acouple of older blue collar workers eating at the counter reflect the theme ofgenerational tension in their silent, mutual disapproval of Mark. Marksrequest for a sandwich handout is turned down by the cook. Mark leaves thedeli and quietly walks into a hangar area and hijacks a small plane, agesture which relates to other Antonioni films in the use of flight as a form oftemporary escape (see the Leclisse clip from the Bloom essay in this issue).The plane has the words Lilly 7 written on its side, and sports a pink andbeige color pattern that foreshadows the tone and texture of the desert.When he gets high into the air Antonioni resorts for the first time to free-flowing, guitar rock music which captures Marks euphoric state, whiletypifying the music of his generation. In what can only be described as asublime edit, the shot of Mark in the cockpit, the music blaring loudly, givesway abruptly to aural silence and an in-flight aerial camera movementdescending toward the sand dunes. The camera continues to descend andpicks up Daria driving along the highway in a retro 1950s Buick coup. Softerrock music emanating from her car radio becomes audible as the cameranears her vehicle. The ethereal movement of the camera, the soft music, andthe pinkish desert sand (nature) introduces the feminine (Daria).

Scene 12: The Roadside Caf (3800-4500)

The scene cuts to Lee at his office receiving a phone call from Daria, who hasstopped at a desolate roadside caf. The scene crosscuts between them, as



Lee tries to locate her on a map to guide her to his Phoenix estate. Dariamakes small talk with the locals including a old washed up boxer and thebartender. The bartender tells her that the man she is working for is going tokill the area. The implication being that big corporations come in and lay thepast to waste. The sense of a place forgotten by time is present throughoutthis scene: the washed up boxer and comatose man in the diner; thehomeless children, the upturned car, the smashed up piano; the stairs leadingup to a porch with no home. The bartender laments a group of problemchildren that were transferred from Los Angeles to his town. This sets up astrange altercation between Daria and a horde of scavenger children outsidethe diner, a scene which has always struck me as an echo of the scene fromWelles The Trial where Anthony Perkins Josef K. character is chased by anaggressive posse of children (only here the scene has a sexual undertone, asone of the kids asks Daria, Can we have a piece of ass). Daria runs awayfrom the attacking children and drives off to safety. As her car rushes out offrame the camera remains on the diner and tracks /zooms-in to the sadimage of an old man (the one pictured in the photo above) sitting alone at thecounter with his beer and cigarette, a plaintive country song playing on thesoundtrack (shades of Edward Hopper).

The Trial

Zabriskie Point

To add to Arrowsmiths earlier point about the police collective, a similar



dynamic occurs in this strange scene where Daria is attacked by a group ofscavenger-like children outside the diner. Individually the children arepassive; as a group they threaten.

Scene 13: Cat and Mouse Game (4500-5500)

As the film nears its midway point we get the meeting of the two centralprotagonists, Daria and Mark, in the desert. A playful game of chickenensues between Marks plane and Darias car (foreplay?). Mark tosses downa red t-shirt, eventually lands his plane and they meet. When asked whereshe is heading Daria replies Phoenix, the name of the bird that rises fromthe ashes and gets reborn, foreshadowing her political awakening at thefilms end. The scene also opens on the bird-like shadow of Marks plane onthe road (and later the plane is painted like, to quote Mark, a prehistoricbird with its genitals hanging out). When she asks Mark if he really stole theplane he replies, I needed to get off the ground. They drive off together.

Scene 14: Zabriskie Point (5500-7500)

Well, as an author I claim the right to delirium, if for no other reason thantodays delirium might be tomorrows truth (Antonioni, 96).

Mark and Daria sit on a rock edge overlooking the desert expanse. As theymake small talk, the camera dollies around them in a 180 degree circulararc, a gesture which may have influenced another great Death Valley desertfilm, Gus Van Sants Gerry, where the camera dollies a full 360 degreearound Casey Afleck.



A casual line reveals Darias apolitical nature, which sets up herconversion/political awakening at the end:

Mark: Hear any news about the strike? Daria: No, I prefer music.

They eventually make their way down below and begin to make love. JerryGarcias soulful solo blues guitar wraps itself around the scene like auraldust. Just like Garcias improvisational music, Antonioni begins to improviseon reality. Phantom couples (played by members of Joe Chaikins OpenTheatre) begin to appear everywhere around Mark and Daria, play fighting,rolling in the sand, blending themselves into the landscape (aided by theflattening, compressing lens). This bizarre scene is the one that perhaps mostbaffled viewers and critics, when in fact it contains the most direct thematiclink to his earlier works and functions as a soulful antidote to the centralnegative dynamic portrayed in his alienation tetralogy: sick eros.

In his famous alienation tetralogy ( LAvventura, La Notte, LEclisse, Il DesertoRosso) Antonioni depicted the Italian middle class as emotionally andspiritually vacant. Antonioni characterized this modern, post-war Italiansociety as suffering from what he called sick eros (sex that is used to fill anemotional/spiritual void). He explained this interesting concept in a statementat the 1960 Cannes festival following the horrendous reception ofLAvventura:

Why do you think eroticism is so prevalent today in our literature, ourtheatrical shows, and elsewhere? It is a symptom of the emotionalsickness of our times. But this preoccupation with eroticism would notbecome obsessive if Eros was healthy, that is, if it were kept withinhuman proportions. But Eros is sick; man is uneasy, something isbothering him. And whenever something bothers him, man reacts, buthe reacts badly, only on erotic impulse, and he is unhappy. Thetragedy in LAvventura stems directly from an erotic impulse of thistype: unhappy, miserable, futile. To be critically aware of thevulgarity and the futility of such an overwhelming erotic impulse, as isthe case with the protagonist in LAvventura, is not enough or serves



no purpose. And here we witness the crumbling of a myth, whichproclaims it is enough for us to know, to be critically conscious ofourselves, to analyze ourselves, in all our complexities and in everyfacet of our personality. The fact that matters is that such anexamination is not enough. It is only a preliminary step. Every day,every emotional encounter gives rise to a new adventure. For eventhough we know that the ancient codes of morality are decrepit andno longer tenable, we persist, with a sense of perversity that I wouldonly ironically define as pathetic, in remaining loyal to them. Thus, themoral man who has no fear of the scientific unknown is today afraidof the moral unknown. Starting out from this point of fear andfrustration, his adventure can only end in a stalemate (MichelangeloAntonioni, 33-34).

One of the Countercultures most symbolic anti-establishment gestures was areturn to a Romanticist notion of free and natural love and sexual liberation.To return to a question many critics were probably asking back in 1970 what affinity did Antonioni have with the American Counterculture?undoubtedly Antonioni saw the energized sexuality associated with youthand the 1960s free sex mantra as an antidote to sick eros. And whatbetter to drive the scene than the music of Jerry Garcia, the leader of theband most strongly identified with the 1960s/early 70s free sex, TheGrateful Dead.

Scene 15: The Red Desert (7500-8000)

Daria and Mark return to the road, but spot a state trooper parked on theroad ahead. Mark, wanted for the stolen plane, and perhaps murder, hidesbehind one of two bright red portable toilets that appear stranded in thedesert (an homage to Il deserto rosso/??Red Desert?? ?) while Daria talks tothe state trooper. Mark takes his gun out and aims it at the trooper frombehind the stall, but luckily the situation is diffused as the trooper leaves thescene. The encounter with the state trooper in the middle of nowhere hasechoes to Marion Cranes similar encounter in Psycho (only here Daria isoutside her car). Mark decides to return the plane back to the air strip. Like



Marion Crane who decides to return the stolen money, only to be killed in theprocess, Mark will eventually be shot dead by overzealous policemen in theprocess of returning the borrowed plane. (Psycho also opens with a titlecard that situates the action in Phoenix.)

Scene 16: The Bird Soars Again (8000-9345)

Daria and Mark paint the plane a psychedelic mess of colorful slogans andpop art graffiti in preparation for its rightful return. The scene intercutsbetween Daria driving to her destination in Phoenix and Mark soaringoverhead toward the hangar, where a fleet of police officers await. As soonas he lands the plane he is chased by police cars. The police fire roundsbefore giving any warnings. The police approach the plane and find Marksinert body slouched over the steering wheel.

Scene 17: The Rebirth (9345-9500)

If I had to sum up my impressions of America, I would list these: waste,innocence, vastness, poverty (Antonioni, 92).

The scene cuts back to the desert. A radio report coming from Darias off-screen car says that Mark was shot by an unidentified cop when theirattempts to pull him over failed, but we know the facts to be different. We feelhis death as a useless loss. Like Aldo from Il Grido, Mark leaves the socialcollective only to die upon his return. The only positive his death will serve isto reawaken Daria, who does not utter a single word after the death ofMark. Her path to Lees Phoenix area desert estate is telling, a symbolicvisualization of her rebirth. She stops off at a green, cacti filled space to



meditate (what she went there for in the first place). Mournful country bluesguitar music accompanies one of the most beautiful moments in the film.Struck by the news of Marks death, a dejected Daria stands by her carlooking out aimlessly. The camera frames her from behind, the telephoto lensseparating her from the trees and greenery in the background. She sways herbody gingerly from left to right, in harmony with the blowing foliage, as if tosuggest her political sway (9330-9400).

After the thirty second long take, she turns away quickly and, with a look ofnew found determination, takes to the road. Daria finally arrives at Leesdesert estate to join him for a business meeting. She enters the home by wayof the back, going through a portal, past a swimming pool, through a womb-like granite tunnel which has conveniently a small waterfall. She stops tolook up at the waterfall and is overwhelmed by emotion. She begins to cry,then rests her face and hands against the inner wall where the water runsdown, allowing the water to fall over her body (see frame still above).Antonioni was never one to rely on symbolic imagery, but this scene is a clearinstance of it: purification/rebirth through water being a common symbolicgesture (just think of Marion Crane taking a shower after the robbery, or theshower Maria takes in Tarkovskys Mirror after confirmation that she did notmake a printing error, etc.).

Her rebirth is confirmed through her subsequent behaviour toward Lee andhis establishment home. She shows all the classic signs of being alienatedin the environment. She does not talk to Lee (compared to earlier), walksaimlessly through the estate, is framed looking through barriers, and smiles



when making telling eye contact with a member of the under-class, one ofLees servants (of Native origin). The latter gesture suggests a sense ofworking class empathy in Daria not evident in earlier scenes. The contact withthe maid serves as her cue to leave Lees luxurious estate.

Darias meandering walk in this scene make her a spiritual cousin toAntonionis earlier heroines, most notably Jeanne Moreau in La Notte orMonica Vitti in Leclisse.

Jeanne Moreau

She begins to drive away but then stops a few hundred feet from the house.The scene cuts to the meeting between Lee and potential land buyers insidethe house. After a brief, silent fantasy image of the house exploding, adistraught Daria places her troubled head against the car seat and thengently caresses the red shirt which Mark gave her (the color red is symbolicthroughout the film, suggestive of danger, death, Marks anti-conformism,and ultimately, Darias moral transformation, rather than any obvious allusionto Communism). The gesture of Daria caressing Marks shirt recalls similar



gestures by Claudia (Moncia Vitti) in Lavventura, where she caresses thedress given to her by her friend Anna, who has mysteriously disappeared,and again later with Sandros shirt.

The focus soon shifts to Darias vivid imagining of the home being blown to(literal) smithereens, leading to one of the most experimental conclusions ofany fiction film (perhaps matched only by Antonionis own Leclisse). The fiveminute sequence is marked by Eisensteinian overlapping editing (the houseexplodes over and over again), a super slow motion cinematography, [4]and the abstract properties of the telephoto lens. Artifacts of consumercapitalism (a fridge, a television set, furniture, food, laundry detergent,clothes, Wonder toast bread, etc.) are transformed into kaleidoscopic colorsand forms, accompanied by a manic rock score featuring primal screamsand searing guitar solos. The final item to be exploded is the library, withhundreds of atomized books floating toward the camera. Can Antonioni bemaking a link to the opening scene (books linked to students/university) andthe explosion of the student revolution? (The use of super slow motion in thisscene no doubt influenced Dario Argentos similar use of hyper slow motionfor the end of his giallo masterpiece Four Flies on Grey Velvet, made oneyear later in 1971.)



Recalling the earlier stark edit from noise to silence, the explosion fantasyends on a cut to silence and a close-up of Darias smiling face. Behind herthe sky is a beautiful orange, suggesting the dawn of a new era. (An ideaechoed in the lyrics of the closing Roy Orbison song So Young: Dawncomes up so young. Dreams begin so young.) As Daria drives off thecamera tilts up to frame a beautiful golden sunrise (a shot which has its twin inGerry). With such a rhetorically happy ending it is surprising that so manyAmerican critics attacked the film for being Anti-American.

Gerry and Zabriskie Point. Can you tell them apart?

While not at the level of Antonionis greatest works, Zabriskie Point is afascinating continuation of Antonionis life-long interest in the mise en sceneof human beings and physical space. With the span of time, perhaps we canfinally enjoy the film for what it is rather than what it is not.

Endnotes

1 To be fair, Antonioni did deal with the working class in some of his earlydocumentary (Gente del Po, 1947) and, most notably, in Il Grido, 1957.

2 For the sake of completeness I have decided to include every scene in thefilm, even though not each will yield productive material.



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3 The time codes are taken from the recent MGM DVD. For the sake ofneatness, in some cases the time codes were rounded out to the closestsecond. Hence they are meant to be a general guideline to the films structureand not an exact to-the-frame temporal breakdown.

4 According to James S. Williams, special cameras were used hereproducing 3000 images per second (55).

Bibliography

Michelangelo Antonioni. The Architecture of Vision. ed. Carlo di Carlo,Giorgio Tinazzi. American Edition by Marga Cottino-Jones, MarsilloPublishers, 1994.

William Arrowsmith. Antonioni: The Poet of Images. ed. Introduction andnotes by Ted Perry. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

James S. Willaims. The Rhythms of Life: An Appreciation of MichelangeloAntonioni, Extreme Aesthete of the Real. Film Quarterly (Fall 2008, 62:1):46-57.

Donato Totaro has been the editor of the online filmjournal Offscreen since its inception in 1997. Totaroreceived his PhD in Film & Television from theUniversity of Warwick (UK), is a part-time professor inFilm Studies at Concordia University (Montreal,

Canada) and a longstanding member of ACQQ (Associationqubcoise des critiques de cinma).

More by Donato Email Donato Follow @dtotaro1

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Zabriskie Point (1970, Antonioni)

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