Professione: reporter (1975)

Director:

Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:

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

Release Date:

9 April 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | 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 | Reporter | Identity | Journalist | Hotel

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 video rights to this film were given to Nicholson by MGM as compensation for a film project that fell through.

Quotes:

David Locke: Now I think I'm going to be a waiter in Gibraltar.
The Girl: Too obvious.
David Locke: Maybe a novelist in Cairo.
The Girl: Too romantic.
David Locke: How about a gunrunner?
The Girl: Too unlikely.
David Locke: As a matter of fact, I think I *am* one.
The Girl: Then it depends on which side you're on.
David Locke: Yes.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Apocalypse Now (1979)

Re-release of a classic

Michelangelo Antonioni: The Passenger (Italy/France 1975). 128 minutes. Release by Sony Classics Pictures release. Release date: October 28, 2005. Shown at the New York Film Festival: October 8, 2005.

Thirty years later, Michelangelo Antonioni's re-released "The Passenger" is looking very good, and so are Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, as the journalist who takes a dead man's identity in the Sahara and the girl he meets in Barcelona who decides to tag along. David Locke (Nicholson) takes the passport of a man named Robertson who he's had a few drinks with in a hotel. Before that we see Locke experience frustration, giving away cigarettes to men in turbans who say nothing, abandoned by a boy guide, dumping a Land Rover stuck in the sand. Later we see films that show as a journalist he was subservient to bad men. Locke has Robertson's appointment book which leads him to Munich, then various points in Spain. He learns Robertson was a committed man taking risks: he sold arms to revolutionaries whose causes he thought were just. He gets a huge down-payment.

Then Locke's wife gets a tape of him talking to Robertson and his passport with Robertson's photo pasted into it -- and she gets the picture.

Changing your identity and using someone else's isn't just an existential act, it's also a criminal one. Locke's gambit is hopeless: he winds up fleeing from himself. The film skillfully gives its action story an existential underpinning. The chase keeps up a rapid pace, like the Bourne franchise, but it has time to contemplate Locke's old and new lives in a metaphorical story he tells Schneider about a blind man that explains how he ends up.

Antonioni is great at little incidentals -- a girl chewing bubblegum, a man reciting in a Gaudi building. And at the end, people coming and going in a desolate plaza outside a bullfighting amphitheater. The locations provide exotic glamor. The camera-work of course is wonderful. In retrospect now one can see this was definitely a culmination for Antonioni. He thought it technically his best film. This is the director's preferred European version, originally released as "Professione: Reporter."