Thanks, NosferaDrew. This is an informative reply. Having Jack Nicholson quoting Antonioni seems to favour Antonioni procuring an execution video. As does the virtual unanimity of previous scholars on Antonioni. However, Nicholson's remembrances, not to mention his camera knowledge, may be scanter than you allow for. As is the point about whether Antonioni actually would be straight with Nicholson.
One possibility is that Antonioni selected the most Antonioniesque sequence from an earlier video.
However, I still am not convinced that this is the case. Beyond repeating my previous suggestions (legality of, rhyming with previous sequences, ease of creation), I would say that the execution video is very important to the movie as a whole for revealing the secret violence, as Antonioni often referred to it, in as graphic a way as possible (with the exception of the blurring after he is shot).
Obviously, it is highly problematic to use actual execution footage. And the sensational nature of it is a very pointed comment on the journalistic ethics of Locke. Whether something like this would have actually aired on the BBC in the early 1970s is an interesting question. I assume no.
So I return to my thesis that Antonioni himself shot the video and then, for obscure reasons, perhaps to do with the whole theme of revolution and death in the movie, pretended it had been procured.
Antonioni is a showman and he inserted a disturbing video in the middle of the film in the same way as he is related to have suppressed plot elements of Blow-Up, according to Peter Bowles.
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irenegugg15
19 years ago
I just saw this sequence in the film and I very much wish it were "staged" but I know it was not. The victim seemed so earily calm, as if he were excepting his fate, especially at the beginning of the sequence when he was speaking to the man in white. When he was shot, there were no dramatic convulsions, he hardly looked as if he were in pain. This was the most disturbing aspect of the footage to me; it is an image I will never forget. The person may very well have been a crooked politician, or someone else just as nefarious, but it doesn't seem to lessen the experience for me. In short, it was too, too good of acting for it to have been staged. There was an intangible subtleness and realism that existed that could not have been faked. Moreover, the victim looked like a local, and if Antonioni would have been able to procur such a good actor from such a remote place, I would wonder why he wasn't given international accolades or used in more films by Antonioni and others. If I were a director, I certainly would have done so.
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different-drummer
18 years ago
Whether something like this would have actually aired on the BBC in the early 1970s is an interesting question. I assume no.
Well, there was a famous incident of a prisoner being summarily executed on the streets of Saigon in front of an NBC cameraman and AP photographer Eddie Adams. I'm sure I remember seeing this on TV news at the time (BBC or ITV), though memories can be unreliable 30+ years after the event.
Having said that: I watched the first half of the film last night including the execution sequence, without realising it was possibly genuine footage. If this is really a film of an actual execution I think it's pretty sick to include it in what is ultimately a piece of entertainment.
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Krustallos
17 years ago
Well, there was a famous incident of a prisoner being summarily executed on the streets of Saigon in front of an NBC cameraman and AP photographer Eddie Adams
The Eddie Adams Saigon execution film was actually used in Bob Rafelson's "Head" (starring The Monkees) which Jack Nicholson (co-incidentally?) co-wrote. So there would not seem to be any issues about legality.
It has also certainly been shown on UK television, because I've seen it, although possibly not at the time it was filmed.
I'm not sure about the footage in "The Passenger". I've certainly heard before that it was genuine, although I can't quote chapter and verse. Either way, it fits neatly with the spectator/participant theme and draws us as audience into the equation.
I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.
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