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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Zabriskie Point
alan_ryder — 13 years ago(July 23, 2012 03:57 PM)
I'm a 60 something and saw ZABRISKIE POINT at the theater (and I brought my own refreshments). I hadn't seen it since until I watched it on You Tube just now. Lots of trigger happy people. Rather astute comments about it when Mark and his friend bought the guns. It's still like that. The store owners still sell indiscriminately. And Mark was reckless himself. Good portrait of desperation.
When the cops shot him in the plane I thought, geez couldn't they just have shot the tires out? My next thought was about Anaheim the other night, and various other incidents. And of course when they shoot the demonstrator. Live ammo in those days. I'm not sure when they invented rubber bullets. And I thought of the Kent State demonstrations and others where there was gunplay.
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Another favorite of Antonioni's for me, THE PASSENGER, really followed this. and I am sympathetic and not unlike the characters. Some people are just not going to fit into the world. And they are going to find the quickest way out that they can. Virtual suicide, and otherwise. Apparently Frechette took some of that away from ZP. I thought THE PASSENGER was a sort of nod to another existential film. FIVE EASY PIECES , a favorite Jack Nicholson. I thought that Antonioni used Nicholson in THE PASSENGER as a sort of hint in this regard.