Zabriskie Point

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Michelangelo Antonioni

Overview

In this complex, layered portrayal of American life in the late '60s, a college radical shoots a policeman during an anti-war demonstration, and he has to flee. The film examines a myriad of social and political issues and phenomenons, including hippies, government, Vietnam, and civil rights.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/26/2009
UPC:	0883929039302
Original Release:	1970
Rating:	R
Source:	Warner Home Video
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:54:00
Sales rank:	29,721

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Mark Frechette	Mark
Daria Halprin	Daria
Rod Taylor	Lee Allen
Paul Fix	Cafe Owner
Bill Garaway	Morty
Kathleen Cleaver	Kathleen
G.D. Spradlin	Lee's Associate
Open Theater of Joe Chaikin	Lovemakers in Death Valley
Ben Hammer	Actor
Harrison Ford	Airport worker [uncredited]
Jerry Garcia	Composer
Pink Floyd	Composer
Roger Waters	Composer
David Gilmour	Composer

Technical Credits

Michelangelo Antonioni

Franco Rossetti

Sam Shepard

Tonino Guerra

Clare Peploe

Harrison Starr

Fred Gardner

Michelangelo Antonioni	Director,Screenwriter
Franco Rossetti	Screenwriter
Sam Shepard	Screenwriter
Tonino Guerra	Screenwriter
Clare Peploe	Screenwriter
Carlo Ponti	Producer
Earl McCoy	Special Effects
Harrison Starr	Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Fred Gardner	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Michelangelo Antonioni's first American film is, in many circles, a legendary debacle, an indulgence of some of the director's worst elliptical, impressionistic, and baldly absurd habits. Taken on another level, however, Zabriskie Point is a sensual, atonal fantasia on the late '60s, a film perhaps not meant to be taken too seriously. At least, one can only hope. Taken from an over-earnest script cobbled together by four writers -- including the young Sam Shepard -- and featuring a blankly attractive cast of amateurs, Antonioni's film is full of ridiculous plot lines and character traits, chief among them a counterculture hero (Mark Frechette) whose means of challenging the establishment includes answering the phone by saying "Goodbye?" But Antonioni is more interested in creating visual non-sequiturs than verbal ones, and in this respect, his film doesn't disappoint. The director's use of barren Southwestern landscapes suggests an oasis from all the urban political turmoil, however improbable, famously exemplified in Zabriskie's sand-swept orgy sequence. And the climactic, Pink Floyd-scored demolition of a bourgeois desert home, while thematically obvious, is still a treat to watch.