Hi,
I'm not 100% sure as I've only just seen the film at the cinema and I'm still digesting it.
As the camera is focusing out into the street where Maria Schneider was, I got the feeling it was turning into a Bullfight scenario. You had that Spanish trumpet playing like you always hear when they show bullfights, there seemed to be a circular feel to the ground, she was standing in the middle, and the car was driving round, like a bull circling, and then the kid came in wearing the red shirt, which I thought symbolised the Matador's red cape...
Perhaps the colour scheme of the car and Locke was not a mistake, Antonioni was, apparently, very pedantic about colour and its use. Maybe the car was meant to symbolised him, clumsily being dragged into this bullring, where not only her, but the boy, the old man, whoever, this life around him, was luring him into his demise...
I don't know, all I can say is that in that scene I just got a distinct and strong impression that it was mirroring a bullfight, and all I can suggest is that the car symbolises movement, journeying, and the car (with the learner) symbolised him, trying to take control of this movement or journey through life yet it is confined to this ring (Life, perhaps) where the only option is to continually go around, until the matador draws you in to your demise. In a bullfight, the bull doesn't know what is going on, and is taunted into fighting, but the bull is ultimately killed.
The think the very final scene where we see the driving school car taking off again at dusk, relates back to what the old man said to Locke in the garden in Barcelona about how when he looks at Children, he sees the same mistakes happening all over again.
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tomscratch2004
19 years ago
Antonioni was known to freshly paint elements of on-location sets. In The Passenger, a shot was set up at an airport next to an airplane parking area. A pink commercial airliner was prominent in the middle of that area and would appear in the background of the shot. Per Jack Nicholson's commentary, the shot was held up for hours as Antonioni waited for the plane to be moved out of the shot. Antonioni was bugged that the critics etc. would see the pink plane and babble about how he had the plane painted pink. The day wore on and the plane was never moved. They finally did the shot with the pink plane in it, so the whole day wouldn't be wasted. The shot is brief, the plane is way in the background, and it is really not distracting at all. Antonioni was definitely particular about color, whether for symbolism, aesthetics, or his notions of taste.
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this_seat_taken
18 years ago
Speaking of colors, what was that small red object Locke picks up, sticks in a crack in the white wall, and then smashes with his hand?
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Krustallos
17 years ago
I think it was a flower petal.
Antonioni was definitely particular about colour, to the extent that he had the grass in a London park painted greener for "Blow Up" (as well as repainting several buildings that Hemmings drives past). For "Il Deserto Rosso" he repainted much of Ravenna. So I think the chance of the car/clothes thing being a co-incidence are approximately nil.
What it means is another story, of course, but it could be connected with Nicholson's change from red to blue shirts when Locke swaps identities with Robertson. Perhaps it has to do with his inability to properly inhabit his new identity.
I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.
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