MovieChat Forums > Professione: reporter (1975) Discussion > Now On DVD: The Ending Revisited

Now On DVD: The Ending Revisited

posted 19 years ago by tomscratch2004
17 replies | jump to latest

*Spoilers*
On certain prints on the big screen in the theater, you can actually see the reflection (clearly if you look for it) on the glass panel pushed inside the room on the right side of the screen, of the deadly visitor to Jack's room when Jack is sleeping. On VHS copies you cannot see this. I was hoping that on the DVD version, the picture would be wide enough and clear enough so the assassin would be visible. I'm sorry to report this is not the case. Though letterboxed, the picture is cut off enough on the right side so you really can't get any information off of this reflection. This might have been deliberate to keep the action obscure for the art of it, or possibly the technicians involved in the print transfer were in the dark like most of the audience, didn't see the reflection, and so didn't make an adjustment for it.
On the DVD, optional commentary, Jack Nicholson's commentary is enjoyable throughout, with lots of anecdotes about Antonioni and things that happened on the set. He calls the film his best ever experience in making a film. At the very end he reveals the secret of the camera going through the bars on the window in the long (second to) last scene, and out into the courtyard, and turning around to look back at the hotel again. He said they built the hotel as a set on a crane. The entire hotel/set splits down the middle, opening up to allow the camera to escape the interior.
REGARDS ,,, TOMSCRATCH

[–] alexjmz 19 years ago

The assassin's reflection *is* visible on the DVD--in fact the camera actually pans slightly to the right to show it. One can see a figure standing, and, just before the image slips out of view, he reaches into his jacket, presumably for a gun. I watched the DVD on my iMac; perhaps the full picture isn't displayed on a regular TV?

[–] cstoll7003 19 years ago

I agree, the reflection is visible. It remains a fairly vague, intentionally interpretive piece of visual imagery, but there's definitely something going on in that reflection.

[–] Kurtz9791 19 years ago

SPOILERS

Ok, I watched the film on DVD today for the first time since seeing it on the big screen last November. I saw the reflection this time of the black government agent, but I noticed something else:

We see Locke lying on the bed when the camera begins the long take outside the window. He is wearing a RED shirt. At the end of this shot, when the camera comes back around and they ask Locke's wife to identify him, not only can we not see his face, but he is now wearing a NAVY BLUE/DARK shirt. Big difference.

My guess: The black agent came in first to kill him (as seen in the reflection), but Locke was prepared with the gun in his suitcase that was originally Robertsons', Locke kills the first agent, waits for the second, kills him, and switches clothes and assumes his identity, just before the police come into the room.

It's probably unlikely, but the shirt change still goes unexplained, and can not possibly be a goof, considering this was all one take.

[–] tomscratch2004 19 years ago

Mr. Kurtz,
If the pants were the same, your theory might be more than just a chuckle. There just wasn't enough time to switch pants! Is your profession screenwriter?
I went back to look for the reflection of the assassin in the glass on the DVD. Still can't find it, although I clearly saw it at the cinema during it's recent theatrical release. I wonder if there is more than one legit DVD version out.
Re the shirt color change. The last shot of Jack/David/Robertson on the bed is way overlit. It is bright bright and you can see SHARP shadows on the bed; very unrealistic. There must have been 5000 watts or more pouring in there. The shirt is clearly red under this assault of the lights. In the later shot, when David's wife and the plain clothes detective are standing there, the lighting is greatly reduced and more naturalistic. When the detective is outside, the color of his suit jacket is medium to light grey. Standing next to the bed, his jacket has become very dark, closer to black/blue. Could the change in Jack's shirt color just be a result of drastically changing how they lit the shot?
It could be Antonioni just up to his old tricks, as close as he ever gets to a sense of humor...

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] amccuaig 19 years ago

I just saw The Passenger for the first time and was thrilled. The cinematography reminds me of the Greek film "Landscapes in the Mist" although the story is different.

As far as the ending is concerned, I feel it's subtle and open to interpretation but I don't think Antonioni meant to be mysterious. Upon several viewings, I think the film is quite clear. Of course I didn't catch a lot the first time and had the benefit of reading all these posts before watching again, but here's what I see: At the beginning of the long shot, Nicholson turns over and falls asleep. The assassins arrive and we see "the girl" out in the street. The black man enters the hotel and shortly after we hear the door open and see his image in the window. Locke is still asleep. The assassin is standing just inside the door, beside the bed, and when the other assassin, the white guy, approaches the window he stops when he sees his partner about to do the job. The man in the street then turns abruptly and scurries the girl away from the window. At this time the car approaches and the gun goes off -- or is it the car backfiring? (Jack Nicholson, in the new DVD, says "Was that a gun?" and you can hear the smile in his voice.) My feeling is that the car was meant to obscure the sound of the gun in the movie so that the girl, who doesn't know what's going on, doesn't hear it. But the other assassin, who knows what's happening and who is ready for the sound, clearly recognizes it as a gun because he looks back to the hotel and then, the job done, strides quickly to the car. You can hear the door to Locke's bedroom opening and closing, and you can see the assassin reaching into his coat before the gunshot sounds.

I guess what I'm saying is: Yes, he was murdered; no, he didn't switch clothes with the black assassin, after killing him, which to me is absurd! Locke had given up on life anyway, presuming he was even capable of disarming the assassin. I agree that the shirt color issue is a matter of lighting. I would not say the shirt changes from red to blue, either, but rather from a dark maroon to a gray. Locke is lying on the bed in the same manner he was when we last saw him. When his wife says she didn't know him, she means it. She's puzzled why he faked his identity and is not horrified or even saddened by his death; she never loved him. She's merely puzzled. You would think Maria Schnieder would be more upset, but then again, she hardly knew him either, and we don't even know her name! I think she had already said her goodbyes to him, in a way, and knew it was the end of the road for him.

So, I find no ambiguity in the ending as far as "was he really killed or not"--he clearly was. In the DVD, Nicholson says that Antonioni once joked that he built the tremendous last set (the hotel was constructed so a crane could pull it apart and then put it back together for the last take) because he didn't want to film the death scene. This tells me that Antonioni himself knew Locke would be killed but because he wished he didn't have to die perhaps unconsciously made the last scene more ambiguous than it had to be.

[–] diracsea 18 years ago

"Nicholson says that Antonioni once joked that he built the tremendous last set ... because he didn't want to film the death scene."

Just a little tidbit here, but I remember reading somewhere that when interviewed, Antonioni said he didn't want to film the actual killing because he thought that filming such a thing would be "boring."

As for your interpretation of the ending I wholeheartedly agree.

[–] anthonyr 18 years ago

"I went back to look for the reflection of the assassin in the glass on the DVD. Still can't find it, although I clearly saw it at the cinema during it's recent theatrical release. I wonder if there is more than one legit DVD version out."

Probably your TV set is overscanning. (Almost all TVs do.) There is more going on at the edges of your TV than you can see. If your DVD player is capable of ZOOMING OUT, you should see it. (My old Mintek player can zoom out from 1/2 to 1/3 to 1/4.) The assassin is visible on the glass panel above the one you can see Locke's legs reflected on the bed. IE, the third glass panel from the bottom. (I have the new Region 1 Sony DVD.)

[–] imdb-6078 19 years ago

The hotel does not split, just the bars on the window do, regardless of what Nicholson may say.
Antonioni used an early form of Steadycam for this famous shot. At first, the camera is hand held, then as it passes through the plane of the window it is picked up by the crane and continues to move. You can see the point of the transition - it is when the camera pans to the right once it is out in the courtyard.

You can see photos of the setup in Seymour Chatman's excellent book on Antonioni, recently published by Taschen. The hotel is quite solid.

[–] derekisdman 18 years ago

Why would Nicholson make it up? Also, I find it hard to believe when you say "at first the camera was hand held". It seems highly unlikely and almost impossible that anyone could move that slowly continuously while holding the camera so steady for four minutes. It was on a track.

I did find this little tid-bit about the final shot:

"There were a number of reasons why the shot proved so difficult and took so much time to accomplish and is so studied by film students. For one, light was a factor. The shot needed to be taken in the evening towards dusk to minimize the light difference between interior and exterior. Since the shot was continuous, it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture at the moment when the camera passed from the room to the square. As such, the scene could only be shot between 5:00 and 7:30 in the evening.

Difficulties were further compounded by atmospheric conditions. The weather in Spain was windy and dusty. For the shot to work, the atmosphere needed to be still to ensure that the movement of the camera would be smooth. Antonioni tried to encase the camera in a sphere to lessen the impact of the wind, but then it couldn't get through the window.

Then there were further technical problems. The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room, and when it emerged outside the window it was picked up by a hook suspended on a giant crane that was nearly thirty metres high. A system of gyroscopes had to be fitted to the camera to mask the change from a smooth track to the less smooth and more mobile crane.

The bars on the outside of the window were fitted on hinges. As the camera came up to the bars they were swung away at the same time as the hook of the crane attached itself to the camera as it left the tracks. The whole operation was co-ordinated by Antonioni from a van by means of monitors and microphones to assistants who, in turn, communicated his instructions to the actors and the operators.

In the DVD Commentary, Nicholson states that Antonioni constructed the entire hotel entirely so that the final shot could be accomplished, though he suggests that the entire hotel was built on hinges instead of simply the bars outside the window."

___________________
Myspace classic cinema group:
http://groups.myspace.com/cinema101

[–] aotaola 18 years ago

Why would Nicholson make it up?

I guess he doesn't want to give away Antonioni's trick, he respects the man!

If you take a look at Antonioni's Taschen book you understand how the giant crane 'fished-out' the camera that ran on celing tracks whilst inside the room. The scene took 11 days to set up!!

A shot so complex (yet seemingly so simple) that still has us going over its nuances 30 years afterwards, clearly to me, is a sign of true cinematic genious.

[–] lafongc 18 years ago

On my DVD there's a commentary track by the Screenwriter as well as one by Nicholson. The Screenwriter describes the filming of the last scene exactly as you have desribed it - ceiling track to crane.
Warning: The screenwriter may well be able to write but he cannot speak a single sentence without multiple "uhs, ums, ahs" or simply longish silent pauses! It is a trial to listen to his entire commentary.

[–] howland-3 18 years ago

I watched the DVD yesterday. One thing I noticed in the final scene was that Locke rolled to his right side--the side he will be found on--before the camera escaped out the window.

When we see him again, his head is out of view and his left hand is clutching at the bedspread. He suffered some kind of trauma --a gunshot seems most likely--and it could have been a headshot. If he was shot in the face, his wife could honestly say she doesn't know him and Maria (the girl) could say she does because she knew exactly where he was.

[–] postman123 18 years ago

Wow. I have to rent this movie at once! Sounds like one of the best shots in movie history, this might be something like the famous shot in Lawrence of Arabia...

[–] mascisman 18 years ago

(or the opening shot of Touch of evil)

[–] NickScale 18 years ago

I agree with imdb-6078, Nicholson's commentary is misleading.

Nicholson says Antonioni could mount "the entire HOTEL on a crane". I think he means "the entire CAMERA on a crane".

Then when he says it could be "broken in half", he's referring to the hotel window, or the bars in particular, which he drew our attention to at the beginning of the shot.

What would Antonioni achieve by mounting the hotel (even just a wall of the hotel) on a crane that he couldn't achieve by simply opening the metal bars?

On another issue, about the colour of Locke's sweater... Compare it with Hitchcock's Frenzy of 1972 which includes a famous shot that cranes down the stairs then backs out the front door of a house. It uses some movement of the set but mainly requires a cut to hide the transition from interior to exterior, whereas Antonioni purely uses mechanics. HOWEVER note the red carpet in the interior becomes very dark, almost black, after the transition to the exterior. Just like Jack's sweater in The Passenger... Perhaps it's related to colour saturation on daylight film stock...

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]