Professione: reporter (1975)

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

Mark Peploe (story)
Mark Peploe (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

9 April 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

I used to be somebody else...but I traded myself in.

Plot:

A frustrated war correspondent, unable to find the war he's been asked to cover, takes the risky path of co-opting the I.D. of a dead arms dealer acquaintance.

Plot Keywords:

Desert | Identity | Sahara Desert | Reporter | Journalist

Awards:

4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Jack Nicholson	...	David Locke
Maria Schneider	...	Girl
Jenny Runacre	...	Rachel Locke
Ian Hendry	...	Martin Knight
Steven Berkoff	...	Stephen
Ambroise Bia	...	Achebe
José María Caffarel	...	Hotel Keeper
James Campbell	...	Witch Doctor
Manfred Spies	...	German Stranger
Jean-Baptiste Tiemele	...	Murderer
Ángel del Pozo	...	Police inspector
Charles Mulvehill	...	David Robertson (as Chuck Mulvehill)
Narciso Pula	...	Murderer's accomplice
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Miquel Bordoy	...	(uncredited)
Jaime Doria	...	(uncredited)
Joan Gaspart	...	(uncredited)
Gustavo Re	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
Michelangelo Antonioni

Writing credits
Mark Peploe		(story)
Mark Peploe		(screenplay) &
Peter Wollen		(screenplay) and
Michelangelo Antonioni		(screenplay)

Produced by
Carlo Ponti	....	producer
Alessandro von Norman	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Ivan Vandor

Cinematography by
Luciano Tovoli

Film Editing by
Michelangelo Antonioni
Franco Arcalli

Art Direction by
Piero Poletto

Set Decoration by
Osvaldo Desideri

Costume Design by
Louise Stjernsward

Makeup Department
Adalgisa Favella	....	hair stylist
Franco Freda	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Leonhard Gmür	....	assistant production manager: Germany
Lynn Kamern	....	assistant production manager
Ennio Onorati	....	production manager
Valentín Panero	....	assistant production manager: Spain
Paolo Pettini	....	assistant production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Enrica Antonioni	....	assistant director (as Enrica Fico)
Hercules Bellville	....	assistant director
Federico Canudas	....	assistant director
Ina Fritsche	....	assistant director
Enrico Sannia	....	assistant director
Claudio Taddei	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Fausto Ancillai	....	sound mixer
Fernando Caso	....	sound effects editor
Cyril Collick	....	sound engineer
Alvaro Gramigna	....	foley artist
Alessandro Peticca	....	sound editor (as Sandro Peticca)
Franca Silvi	....	sound editor
Michael Ellis	....	sound editor (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Cesare Allione	....	camera operator
Dave Clarke	....	gaffer
Franco Frazzi	....	assistant camera
Roberto Lombardi	....	assistant camera
Michele Picciaredda	....	assistant camera
Floriano Steiner	....	still photographer

Editorial Department
Franco Letti	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Lisa Bellini	....	script supervisor
Giancarlo Giannini	....	voice dubbing: : Jack Nicholson
Leonhard Gmür	....	location manager
Lynn Kamern	....	production assistant
Adriano Magistretti	....	production assistant
Tom Moore	....	production assistant
Valentín Panero	....	production assistant

Production Companies

• Compagnia Cinematografica Champion
• CIPI Cinematografica S.A. (co-production)
• Les Films Concordia (associate production)

Distributors

• CFM Filmverhuur (1975) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1975) (USA) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1980) (USA) (TV) (broadcast premiere)
• Mongrel Media (2006) (Canada) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Classics (2005) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Classics (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006) (Germany) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006) (Italy) (DVD)
• Filmmuseum Distributie (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Alpha Filmes (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Filmes Lusomundo
• United International Pictures (UIP) (Spain)
• Warner Home Video (198?) (USA) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Cine Audio Effects  sound effects and foley design
• International Recordings  sound recorded at
• Lee Lighting  lighting

Also Known As:

The Passenger (International: English title) (UK)
El reportero (Spain)
Profession: reporter (France)
Beruf: Reporter (Austria) (Germany) (West Germany) [de]
Ammatti: Reportteri (Finland) [fi]
El pasajero (Argentina) [es]
Epangelma: Reporter (Greece) [el]
Foglalkozása: riporter (Hungary) [hu]
Profissão: Repórter (Portugal) [pt]
Yolcu (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Yrke: reporter (Sweden) [sv]
Zawód: reporter (Poland) [pl]

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some violence, nudity and language. (edited version)

Runtime:

126 min | 119 min

Country:

Italy | Spain | France

Language:

English | Spanish | German | French

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Iceland:L | Singapore:PG | Australia:M | Italy:T | Brazil:14 | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | UK:PG (video rating) (1986) | UK:A (original rating) | West Germany:12 | Netherlands:16

Filming Locations:

4 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, London, England, UK

Company:

Compagnia Cinematografica Champion

Trivia:

The execution of a prisoner in this film is not staged. It consists of actual footage of a real execution.

Quotes:

David Locke: What can you see now?
The Girl: [looking out the window] A man scratching his shoulder, a kid throwing stones, and dust. It's very dusty here.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) (TV)

Noir of Contrasting Cultures Told Brilliantly Visually in Blinding Light

"The Passenger (Professione: reporter)" is a tour de force of visual story telling. While there is more dialog and the plot makes more sense than many other Michelangelo Antonioni films, it first and foremost uses film-making as a medium to tell its story.

The camera is always our eye, taking in sweeping panoramas of the North African desert to an architectural tour of European churches and an appreciation of the variegated urban and rural landscapes of Moorish Spain, still showing relics of older invasions, where it all comes together as we literally go from dust to dust. We are the passengers on this existential trip to try and change identities through someone else's travels logging almost as many locations as an outlandish Bond film .

Because so much of the film is dispassionately observational about natural landscape and cityscape, and windswept plazas that provide imitations of nature within a city, it stands up through time, even as the 1975 clothes, hair, TV journalist technology, and, somewhat, male/female relationships, look a bit dated and we can no longer assume that African guerrilla fighters and gun dealers helping them are more noble than the corrupt inheritors of colonialism.

The camera is constantly picking out culture contrasts - camels vs. jeeps, horse-drawn carriages blocking Munich traffic, Gaudi's serpentine architecture vs. Barcelona's modern skyline, a cable car gliding over a shimmering body of water.

And, of course, the very American Jack Nicholson in a very European film, with the many layers of meaning as he plays an adventurous broadcast reporter who ironically tries to escape the truth about himself. His young, sexy, challenging self is surprisingly effective here as we believe both his ethical lapses and his obsession.

Avoiding the narration that a film today would utilize, Antonioni well takes advantage of what now looks fairly primitive tapings of the reporter's past and current interviews to convey background and flashbacks on characters through minimal explication with overlapping sound and gliding visuals. The intertwined story lines constantly re-emphasize the point of not really knowing a person or a culture from the outside, with a repeated refrain of "What do you see?".

Maria Schneider's character skirts just this side of a male fantasy cliché, though Antonioni helped to create the type, and a few subtle plot points save her from total disingenuous sex kitten femme fatale (even as her character shrugs that one plot point is "unlikely"). Nicholson's repeated refrain to her of "What the f* are you doing with me?" takes on different meanings as we know more.

I'm not sure if this 2005 re-release of the director's cut, with supposedly nine minutes that were not in the original U.S. release, is notably pristine, as it wasn't particularly sharp, but the director's trademark crystalline blue sky is still breathtaking and is a must-see in a full screen rather than on DVD. The views practically feel like the old Cinemascope.

A climactic landscape shot brings all the violent, sensual, philosophical and narrative plot and thematic points together in a marvelous way that has been much imitated but is still powerful, as the camera looks out a window at a cool distance in the heat, key events culminate back and forth frantically in front of the camera, in and out of frame, and the camera moves through the bars and is free to roam in ever more close-ups.