Zabriskie Point (film)
Encyclopedia
Zabriskie Point is a 1970 film
by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni
, widely noted at the time for its setting in the late 1960s counterculture
of the United States
. Some of the film's scenes were shot on location at Zabriskie Point
in Death Valley
.
This was the second of three English-language films Antonioni had been contracted to direct for producer Carlo Ponti
and to be distributed by MGM. The other two films were Blowup
(1966
) and The Passenger (1975
). Although later considered a cult film
, Zabriskie Point was an overwhelming commercial failure and panned by most critics upon release. The film has been called "one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history."
) says he is "willing to die, but not of boredom" for the cause, which draws criticism from the young white radicals. Following a mass arrest
at the campus protest, Mark visits a police station hoping to bail his roommate out of jail. He is told to wait but goes to the lock-up area, asks further about bail for his roommate, is rebuffed, calls out to the arrested students and faculty and is arrested himself. He gives his name as Karl Marx
, which a duty officer types as "Carl Marx." After he is released from jail, Mark and another friend buy firearms from a Los Angeles gun shop, saying they need them for "self defense" to "protect our women."
In a downtown Los Angeles
office building, successful real estate executive Lee Allen (Rod Taylor) reviews a television commercial for Sunny Dunes, a new resort-like real estate development in the desert. Instead of actors or models, the slickly produced commercial features casually dressed, smiling mannequins. In the next scene Allen talks with his associate (G. D. Spradlin
) about the greater Los Angeles area's very rapid growth as the two drive through crowded streets.
Mark goes to a bloody campus confrontation between students and police. Some students are tear-gassed and at least one is shot. Mark reaches for a gun in his boot and a Los Angeles policeman is seen being fatally shot, although it is unclear by whom. Mark flees the campus and rides a city bus to suburban Hawthorne
where, after failing to buy a sandwich on credit from a local blue collar delicatessen, he steals a small plane and flies into the desert.
Meanwhile Daria (Daria Halprin
), "a sweet, pot-smoking post-teenybopper of decent inclinations," is driving across the desert towards Phoenix in a 1950s era Buick
automobile to meet her boss Lee, who may or may not also be her lover. Along the way Daria is searching for a man who works with "emotionally disturbed" children from Los Angeles. She finds the young boys near a roadhouse in the Mojave desert, but they tease, taunt and grab at her, boldly asking for sex. Daria flees in her car. While filling its radiator with water, she is spied from the air by Mark, who buzzes her car and then flies only fifteen feet over Daria as she lies face down in the sand. They later meet at the desert shack of an old man, where Mark asks her for a lift so he can buy gasoline for the airplane. The two then wander to Zabriskie Point where they make love and the site's geological formations seem to come alive in a dusty orgy
performed by The Open Theatre. Later a California highway patrolman suspiciously questions Daria. Hidden behind a portable toilet meant for tourists, Mark takes aim and almost shoots the policeman but Daria stands between the two of them to block this, likely saving the policeman's life before he drives away.
Getting back to the stolen plane, they paint it with sarcastic slogans and psychedelic colors
. Daria pleads with Mark to travel with her and leave the plane but Mark believes he can return it safely. He flies back to Los Angeles and lands the plane at the airport in Hawthorne, however the police along with some radio and television reporters are waiting for him. Patrol cars chase the plane down the runway. Rather than stopping, Mark tries to turn the taxiing plane around across the grass and is shot to death by one of the policemen. Daria soon learns about Mark's death on the car radio and drives to her boss Lee's lavish desert home, "a desert Berchtesgaden
" set high on a rock outcropping near Phoenix
, where she sees three affluent women sunning themselves and chatting by the swimming pool. She grieves for Mark by drenching herself in the house's architectural waterfall. Lee is deeply immersed in a business meeting having to do with the sprawling and financially risky Sunny Dunes development. Taking a break, he spots Daria in the house and happily greets her. She goes downstairs alone and finds the guest room which has been set aside for her but after briefly cracking open the door, she shuts it again. Upon the sight of a young native American housekeeper in the hallway Daria leaves without a further word. She drives off but stops to get out of the car and look back at the house, imagining it blown apart in billows of orange flame and flying consumer goods.
Harrison Ford
has an uncredited role as one of the arrested student demonstrators being held inside a Los Angeles police station.
, which had been a surprising box office hit, Antonioni saw a short newspaper article about a young man who had stolen an airplane and was killed when he tried to return it in Phoenix, Arizona
. Antonioni took this as a thread with which he could tie together the plot of his next film. After writing many drafts, he hired playwright Sam Shepard
to write the script. Shepard, Antonioni, Italian filmmaker Franco Rossetti, screenwriter Tonino Guerra
and Clare Peploe (wife of Bernardo Bertolucci
) worked on the screenplay.
Neither Mark Frechette
nor Daria Halprin
had any previous acting experience. Most of the supporting roles were played by a professional cast, notably Rod Taylor along with G.D. Spradlin in one of his first feature film roles following many appearances on national television in the U.S. Paul Fix
, a friend and acting coach of John Wayne
who had appeared in many of Wayne's films, played the owner of a roadhouse in the Mojave desert
. Kathleen Cleaver, a member of the Black Panthers
and wife of Eldridge Cleaver
, appeared in the documentary-like student meeting scene at the opening of the film.
Shooting began in July 1968 in Los Angeles
, much of it on location in the wider southern downtown area. Exteriors of the art deco
Richfield Tower
were shown in a few scenes shot shortly before its demolition in November of that year. Various college campus scenes, excluding the scene of the student meeting, were filmed on location at Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo, California. The production then moved to location shooting near Phoenix and from there to Death Valley
.
Early movie industry publicity reports claimed Antonioni would gather 10,000 extras in the desert for the filming of the lovemaking scene, but this never happened. The scene was filmed with dust-covered and highly choreographed actors from The Open Theatre. The United States Department of Justice
investigated whether this violated the Mann Act
(which forbade the taking of women across state lines for sexual purposes), however no sex was filmed and no state lines were crossed for that segment of the production, given Death Valley is in California.
During filming Antonioni was quoted as criticizing the U.S. film industry for financially wasteful production practices, which he found "almost immoral" and compared to the more thrifty approach of Italian studios.
included music from Pink Floyd
, The Youngbloods
, The Kaleidoscope
, Jerry Garcia
, Patti Page
, the Grateful Dead
and the Rolling Stones and John Fahey
. Roy Orbison sang the theme song over the credits called, "So Young".
of Pink Floyd wrote a song known as "The Violent Sequence" for inclusion in the film. Antonioni rejected the song because it was unlike "Careful with That Axe, Eugene
" and instead, synchronized a re-recording of the latter with the film's violent ending scene. Roger Waters states in Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
that while Antonioni loved the song he said it made him "feel sad. Like I'm in church." "The Violent Sequence" has never seen an official release. Eventually it was reworked into a new song known as "Us and Them" which was released as the seventh track to The Dark Side of the Moon
in 1973.
Antonioni visited the band The Doors
while they were recording their album L.A. Woman
and thought about putting them in the soundtrack. The Doors recorded the song "L' America" for Zabriskie Point, but it was not used.
throughout its production, Zabriskie Point was released in February 1970, almost four years after Antonioni began pre-production and over a year and a half after shooting began. The film was panned by most critics and other published commentators of all political stripes, as were the performances of Frechette and Halprin. The New York Times
reviewer Vincent Canby
called Zabriskie Point "a noble artistic impulse short-circuited in a foreign land." Moreover the counterculture audience MGM hoped to draw had by then shifted, the film was ignored by moviegoers and taken altogether, the outcome was a notorious box office bomb
. Production expenses were at least $7,000,000 and only $900,000 was made in the domestic release. In 1978 it was listed in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time
, a book co-authored by radio host Michael Medved
. Over 20 years after the film's release, Rolling Stone editor David Fricke
wrote that "Zabriskie Point was one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history." It was the only film Antonioni ever directed in the United States, where in 1994 he was given the Honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his place as one of the cinema's master visual stylists." Following early 21st century screenings of pristine wide-screen prints and a later DVD release, Zabriskie Point at last garnered some critical praise, mostly for the stark beauty of its cinematography and innovative use of music in the soundtrack, but outlooks on the film were still mixed. Director Stéphane Sednaoui
referenced the film in his video for "Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins
, where an ice-cream salesman steals his employer's ice-cream van, escapes to the desert, and colourfully paints the van while couples kiss in the desert.
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
, widely noted at the time for its setting in the late 1960s counterculture
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Some of the film's scenes were shot on location at Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point is a part of Amargosa Range located in east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in the United States noted for its erosional landscape...
in Death Valley
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
.
This was the second of three English-language films Antonioni had been contracted to direct for producer Carlo Ponti
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Ponti was an Italian film producer with over 140 production credits, and the husband of Italian movie star Sophia Loren.-Career:...
and to be distributed by MGM. The other two films were Blowup
Blowup
Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...
(1966
1966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
) and The Passenger (1975
1975 in film
The year 1975 in film involved some significant events, with Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws topping the box office.-Events:*March 26 - The film version of The Who's Tommy premieres in London....
). Although later considered a cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
, Zabriskie Point was an overwhelming commercial failure and panned by most critics upon release. The film has been called "one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history."
Plot summary
The film opens with a documentary-like scene in which white and black students argue about an impending student strike. Mark (Mark FrechetteMark Frechette
Mark Frechette was an American film actor. He is best known for his lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite having no previous acting experience....
) says he is "willing to die, but not of boredom" for the cause, which draws criticism from the young white radicals. Following a mass arrest
Mass arrest
A mass arrest occurs when the police apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at illegal protests. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort combat gang activity. This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result...
at the campus protest, Mark visits a police station hoping to bail his roommate out of jail. He is told to wait but goes to the lock-up area, asks further about bail for his roommate, is rebuffed, calls out to the arrested students and faculty and is arrested himself. He gives his name as Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, which a duty officer types as "Carl Marx." After he is released from jail, Mark and another friend buy firearms from a Los Angeles gun shop, saying they need them for "self defense" to "protect our women."
In a downtown Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
office building, successful real estate executive Lee Allen (Rod Taylor) reviews a television commercial for Sunny Dunes, a new resort-like real estate development in the desert. Instead of actors or models, the slickly produced commercial features casually dressed, smiling mannequins. In the next scene Allen talks with his associate (G. D. Spradlin
G. D. Spradlin
Gervase Duan "G.D." Spradlin was an American actor. He often played devious authority figures. He is credited in over 70 television and film productions, and performed alongside actors including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, and George C. Scott.-Early life:Spradlin was born in Pauls...
) about the greater Los Angeles area's very rapid growth as the two drive through crowded streets.
Mark goes to a bloody campus confrontation between students and police. Some students are tear-gassed and at least one is shot. Mark reaches for a gun in his boot and a Los Angeles policeman is seen being fatally shot, although it is unclear by whom. Mark flees the campus and rides a city bus to suburban Hawthorne
Hawthorne, California
Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. The city at the 2010 census had a population of 84,293, up from 84,112 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
where, after failing to buy a sandwich on credit from a local blue collar delicatessen, he steals a small plane and flies into the desert.
Meanwhile Daria (Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin is an American psychologist, author, dancer, and former actress known primarily for her naturalistic performances in three films of the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life:...
), "a sweet, pot-smoking post-teenybopper of decent inclinations," is driving across the desert towards Phoenix in a 1950s era Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
automobile to meet her boss Lee, who may or may not also be her lover. Along the way Daria is searching for a man who works with "emotionally disturbed" children from Los Angeles. She finds the young boys near a roadhouse in the Mojave desert, but they tease, taunt and grab at her, boldly asking for sex. Daria flees in her car. While filling its radiator with water, she is spied from the air by Mark, who buzzes her car and then flies only fifteen feet over Daria as she lies face down in the sand. They later meet at the desert shack of an old man, where Mark asks her for a lift so he can buy gasoline for the airplane. The two then wander to Zabriskie Point where they make love and the site's geological formations seem to come alive in a dusty orgy
Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party where guests engage in promiscuous or multifarious sexual activity or group sex. An orgy is similar to debauchery, which refers to excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures....
performed by The Open Theatre. Later a California highway patrolman suspiciously questions Daria. Hidden behind a portable toilet meant for tourists, Mark takes aim and almost shoots the policeman but Daria stands between the two of them to block this, likely saving the policeman's life before he drives away.
Getting back to the stolen plane, they paint it with sarcastic slogans and psychedelic colors
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
. Daria pleads with Mark to travel with her and leave the plane but Mark believes he can return it safely. He flies back to Los Angeles and lands the plane at the airport in Hawthorne, however the police along with some radio and television reporters are waiting for him. Patrol cars chase the plane down the runway. Rather than stopping, Mark tries to turn the taxiing plane around across the grass and is shot to death by one of the policemen. Daria soon learns about Mark's death on the car radio and drives to her boss Lee's lavish desert home, "a desert Berchtesgaden
Berghof (Hitler)
The Berghof was Adolf Hitler's home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany. Other than the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Hitler spent more time at the Berghof than anywhere else during World War II. It was also one of the most widely known of Hitler's...
" set high on a rock outcropping near Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, where she sees three affluent women sunning themselves and chatting by the swimming pool. She grieves for Mark by drenching herself in the house's architectural waterfall. Lee is deeply immersed in a business meeting having to do with the sprawling and financially risky Sunny Dunes development. Taking a break, he spots Daria in the house and happily greets her. She goes downstairs alone and finds the guest room which has been set aside for her but after briefly cracking open the door, she shuts it again. Upon the sight of a young native American housekeeper in the hallway Daria leaves without a further word. She drives off but stops to get out of the car and look back at the house, imagining it blown apart in billows of orange flame and flying consumer goods.
Cast
- Mark FrechetteMark FrechetteMark Frechette was an American film actor. He is best known for his lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite having no previous acting experience....
as Mark - Daria HalprinDaria HalprinDaria Halprin is an American psychologist, author, dancer, and former actress known primarily for her naturalistic performances in three films of the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life:...
as Daria - Paul FixPaul FixPaul Fix was an American film and television character actor, best known for his work in westerns. Fix appeared in more than a hundred movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career spanning from 1925 to 1981...
as Roadhouse owner - Bill Garaway as Morty
- Kathleen Cleaver as Kathleen
- Rod Taylor as Lee Allen
- G. D. SpradlinG. D. SpradlinGervase Duan "G.D." Spradlin was an American actor. He often played devious authority figures. He is credited in over 70 television and film productions, and performed alongside actors including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, and George C. Scott.-Early life:Spradlin was born in Pauls...
as Lee's associate
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
has an uncredited role as one of the arrested student demonstrators being held inside a Los Angeles police station.
Production
While in the United States for the 1966 premiere of his film BlowupBlowup
Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...
, which had been a surprising box office hit, Antonioni saw a short newspaper article about a young man who had stolen an airplane and was killed when he tried to return it in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
. Antonioni took this as a thread with which he could tie together the plot of his next film. After writing many drafts, he hired playwright Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
to write the script. Shepard, Antonioni, Italian filmmaker Franco Rossetti, screenwriter Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra is an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter who has collaborated with some of the most prominent film directors of the world.-Biography:Guerra was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna....
and Clare Peploe (wife of Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
) worked on the screenplay.
Neither Mark Frechette
Mark Frechette
Mark Frechette was an American film actor. He is best known for his lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite having no previous acting experience....
nor Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin is an American psychologist, author, dancer, and former actress known primarily for her naturalistic performances in three films of the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life:...
had any previous acting experience. Most of the supporting roles were played by a professional cast, notably Rod Taylor along with G.D. Spradlin in one of his first feature film roles following many appearances on national television in the U.S. Paul Fix
Paul Fix
Paul Fix was an American film and television character actor, best known for his work in westerns. Fix appeared in more than a hundred movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career spanning from 1925 to 1981...
, a friend and acting coach of John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
who had appeared in many of Wayne's films, played the owner of a roadhouse in the Mojave desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
. Kathleen Cleaver, a member of the Black Panthers
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
and wife of Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...
, appeared in the documentary-like student meeting scene at the opening of the film.
Shooting began in July 1968 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, much of it on location in the wider southern downtown area. Exteriors of the art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
Richfield Tower
Richfield Tower
Richfield Tower, also known as the Richfield Oil Company Building, was constructed between 1928 and 1929 and served as the headquarters of Richfield Oil. It was designed by Stiles O. Clements and featured a black and gold Art Deco façade. The unusual color scheme was meant to symbolize the "black...
were shown in a few scenes shot shortly before its demolition in November of that year. Various college campus scenes, excluding the scene of the student meeting, were filmed on location at Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo, California. The production then moved to location shooting near Phoenix and from there to Death Valley
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
.
Early movie industry publicity reports claimed Antonioni would gather 10,000 extras in the desert for the filming of the lovemaking scene, but this never happened. The scene was filmed with dust-covered and highly choreographed actors from The Open Theatre. The United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
investigated whether this violated the Mann Act
Mann Act
The White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, is a United States law, passed June 25, 1910 . It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann, and in its original form prohibited white slavery and the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes”...
(which forbade the taking of women across state lines for sexual purposes), however no sex was filmed and no state lines were crossed for that segment of the production, given Death Valley is in California.
During filming Antonioni was quoted as criticizing the U.S. film industry for financially wasteful production practices, which he found "almost immoral" and compared to the more thrifty approach of Italian studios.
Music
The soundtrack to Zabriskie PointZabriskie Point (album)
Zabriskie Point is a soundtrack album to the Michelangelo Antonioni film of the same name. It was originally released in January 1970 and is composed of songs from various artists. A 1997 re-release includes four bonus tracks each from Jerry Garcia and Pink Floyd that were used in the film, but not...
included music from Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, The Youngbloods
The Youngbloods
The Youngbloods was an American folk rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young , Jerry Corbitt , Lowell Levinger, nicknamed "Banana," , and Joe Bauer . Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was "Get Together".-Background and...
, The Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope (US band)
Kaleidoscope was an American psychedelic folk and ethnic band who recorded 4 albums and several singles for Epic Records between 1966 and 1970.-Formation:...
, Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
, Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...
, the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and the Rolling Stones and John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
. Roy Orbison sang the theme song over the credits called, "So Young".
Rejected tracks
Richard WrightRichard Wright (musician)
Richard William Wright was an English pianist, keyboardist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound...
of Pink Floyd wrote a song known as "The Violent Sequence" for inclusion in the film. Antonioni rejected the song because it was unlike "Careful with That Axe, Eugene
Careful with That Axe, Eugene
"Careful with That Axe, Eugene" is an instrumental song by the British band Pink Floyd. The studio recording was originally released as the B-side of their single "Point Me at the Sky" and is also featured on the Relics compilation album; live versions can also be found on Ummagumma and in the film...
" and instead, synchronized a re-recording of the latter with the film's violent ending scene. Roger Waters states in Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1972 film featuring Pink Floyd performing six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. It was directed by Adrian Maben and recorded in the month of October using studio-quality 24-track recorders without a live audience.The performances of...
that while Antonioni loved the song he said it made him "feel sad. Like I'm in church." "The Violent Sequence" has never seen an official release. Eventually it was reworked into a new song known as "Us and Them" which was released as the seventh track to The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released in March 1973. It built on ideas explored in the band's earlier recordings and live shows, but lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterised their work following the departure...
in 1973.
Antonioni visited the band The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
while they were recording their album L.A. Woman
L.A. Woman
The band embarked on a tour to promote the album, although it would only comprise two dates. The first was held in Dallas, Texas on December 11 and reportedly went well. The second performance took place at The Warehouse in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 12, 1970, where Morrison apparently had...
and thought about putting them in the soundtrack. The Doors recorded the song "L' America" for Zabriskie Point, but it was not used.
Critical response
Following prolonged publicity and controversy in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
throughout its production, Zabriskie Point was released in February 1970, almost four years after Antonioni began pre-production and over a year and a half after shooting began. The film was panned by most critics and other published commentators of all political stripes, as were the performances of Frechette and Halprin. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
called Zabriskie Point "a noble artistic impulse short-circuited in a foreign land." Moreover the counterculture audience MGM hoped to draw had by then shifted, the film was ignored by moviegoers and taken altogether, the outcome was a notorious box office bomb
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
. Production expenses were at least $7,000,000 and only $900,000 was made in the domestic release. In 1978 it was listed in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time
The Fifty Worst Films of All Time
The Fifty Worst Films of All Time is a 1978 book by Harry Medved, with Randy Dreyfuss and Michael Medved. This book represents choices for the 50 worst sound films ever made, in alphabetical order...
, a book co-authored by radio host Michael Medved
Michael Medved
Michael Medved is an American radio host, author, political commentator and film critic. His Seattle, Washington-based nationally syndicated talk show, The Michael Medved Show, airs throughout the U.S...
. Over 20 years after the film's release, Rolling Stone editor David Fricke
David Fricke
David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where he writes predominantly on rock music. In the 1990s, he was managing editor before stepping down.-Background:David Fricke is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
wrote that "Zabriskie Point was one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history." It was the only film Antonioni ever directed in the United States, where in 1994 he was given the Honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his place as one of the cinema's master visual stylists." Following early 21st century screenings of pristine wide-screen prints and a later DVD release, Zabriskie Point at last garnered some critical praise, mostly for the stark beauty of its cinematography and innovative use of music in the soundtrack, but outlooks on the film were still mixed. Director Stéphane Sednaoui
Stéphane Sednaoui
Stéphane Sednaoui is a French-American photographer, director and producer whose work includes music videos, art projects, photographic essays, portrait photography, fashion photography and photojournalism....
referenced the film in his video for "Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
, where an ice-cream salesman steals his employer's ice-cream van, escapes to the desert, and colourfully paints the van while couples kiss in the desert.
External links
- Zabriskie Point @ pHinnWeb
- Return to Zabriskie Point: The Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin Story at Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict