The Passenger

The Passenger
by Michelangelo Antonioni

The Passenger
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Category: DVD
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Ian Hendry, Jack Nicholson, Jenny Runacre, Maria Schneider, Steven Berkoff
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Brand: NICHOLSON,JACK
Cinematographer: Luciano Tovoli
Writer: Michelangelo Antonioni
Editor: Franco Arcalli
Producer: Alessandro von Norman
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Writer: Mark Peploe
Writer: Peter Wollen
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language); German (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 126 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-25
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures

Movie Reviews of The Passenger

Movie Review: Deserted life...
Summary: 5 Stars

The premise of "The Passenger" is interesting, as Jack Nicholson's character (David Locke) decides to swap identities with a dead man who is an arms dealer. This leads David on an adventure across Africa and Europe picking up where the dead man left off. This film reminded me of "The Sheltering Sky" with it's sense of hopelessness as David seems trapped in an alien world that he doesn't really understand as he drifts about without any real sense of a goal. The ending is brilliantly conceived as Antonioni shows why he is the master of the slow pan.

Summary of The Passenger

A burned-out journalist assumes the identity of a dead man and embarks on a dangerous charade, including meetings with gun runners and an affair with a mysterious young woman.

Originally released in 1975, Sony Pictures Classics re-releases Antonioni's suspenseful and haunting portrait of a drained journalist whose deliverance is an identity exchange with a dead man. He embarks on a treacherous journey through Africa, Spain, Germany, England, Spain.


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

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