Re-released here in 2005 in its European cut, which is a few minutes longer than the original American release, The Passenger remains a great work of cinema. The third in the Italian master Antonioni’s English-language trilogy (after Blow Up and Zabriskie Point), it is also his most articulate and evocative. Nicholson was also at his first peak of broad popularity (The Passenger was made the same year as his Oscar-winning turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and co-star Schneider was just coming off her pas de beurre with Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. Nicholson plays a TV journalist who commits the ultimate identity theft when he impulsively swaps identities with the dead man in the next hotel room, and is then in for the journey of his life as he encounters unforeseen questions about self, destiny, and responsibility for one’s actions. Gorgeously filmed on location in Africa, Spain, Germany, and England, The Passenger‘s screenplay is by Antonioni, Mark Peploe, and Peter Wollen.
This article appears in December 2 • 2005.
