The Passenger is not only a great Hollywood movie, it's a great movie in world cinema.
The Passenger (1975)
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Reviews Counted:63
Fresh:57
Rotten:6
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: Antonioni's classic, a tale of lonely, estranged characters on a journey though the mysterious landscapes of identity, shimmers with beauty and uncertainty.
Theatrical Release:Oct 28, 2005 Limited
Box Office: $359
Synopsis: Originally released in 1975, The Passenger is, on the simplest level, a suspense story about a man trying to escape his own life. This haunting film is a portrait of a drained journalist, played by... Originally released in 1975, The Passenger is, on the simplest level, a suspense story about a man trying to escape his own life. This haunting film is a portrait of a drained journalist, played by Jack Nicholson, whose deliverance is an identity exchange with a dead man. The film was shot on location and takes Nicholson on an incredible journey through Africa, Spain, Germany and England. As with all of Antonioni's work, however, there is another dimension. From beginning to end we are witnessing a probing study of the human condition. The protagonist's fate reflects each individual's own private thoughts about real and/or imagined destiny. The climax of the film, alone – a final sequence lasting seven minutes and taking eleven days to shoot is truly a synthesis of the movie and a tribute to the director's art. Antonioni, in talking about his motion picture, says: "I consider The Passenger my most stylistically mature film. I also consider it a political film as it is topical and fits with the dramatic rapport of the individual in today's society." The Passenger brought together two of the screen's most exciting personalities, Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, who had become an overnight sensation opposite Marlon Brando in "Last Tango in Paris." The Passenger is based on an original story by Mark Peploe and was filmed from a screenplay by Peploe, Peter Wollen and Antonioni. This preferred director's cut is the version of the film that was originally released in Europe under the title Professione: reporter. --© Sony Pictures Classics [More]
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry, Steven Berkoff, Charles Mulvehill
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Screenwriter: Michelangelo Antonioni
Story: Mark Peploe
Screenwriter: Mark Peploe
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Reviews for The Passenger
Antonioni's moviemaking panache and distinctive narrative rhythm rarely have seemed so enticing and satisfying.
There's always a sense of a ferociously quick mind working like an engine behind Nicholson's eyes, even if he's doing nothing at all.
Even when he threatens to fall into an abyss of navel-gazing, Antonioni never fails to offer up striking images.
A classic of a difficult and alienating kind, but one that really does shimmer in the mind like a remembered dream.
One of the deepest, most rigorous, and most rewarding films of its era.
To watch Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 masterpiece is to see film the way it once was and may never be again.
As usual, Antonioni's pace is langorous, but The Passenger is never less than compelling.
What in different hands would have been a bombastic psychological thriller becomes a stark study of existential alienation.
The Passenger...meanders but there is an interesting story of changed identity, international arms deals and a failed marriage.
In The Passenger, Jack Nicholson gives one of his finest performances as television journalist David Locke.
If you're willing to wait and give it a little bit of effort, Antonioni offers a life lesson
Michelangelo Antonioni's film about a man on the run from himself dazzles from first shot to last.
Thanks to Luciano Tovoli's magnificent cinematography of the African desert and the arid Spanish countryside, we gain a potent sense of Locke's internal emptiness.
Next to this film, Blowup seems a facile, though necessary, preliminary. By all means go [see it].
I admire the movie more 30 years later. I am more in sympathy with it.
Here is Nicholson's classic, post-Mitchum cool, but humanly exposed, providing the star punch in Antonioni's pensive dreamscapes.
Nicholson gives one of his best performances in this magnificently shot and lingeringly powerful thriller.
Sure, it's obstinately slow, but what an eye this man has. Every frame is fascinating.
Latest News for The Passenger
July 31, 2007:
Remembering Michelangelo Antonioni
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, who gave the world such influential films as L'Avventura, Blow-Up, and The Passenger, died Monday at the age of 94. More...
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