Zabriskie Point

"How you get there depends on where you're at."

1970 1h 53m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

★7.0TMDB · 457

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Anthropology student Daria, who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert, and dropout Mark, who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot, accidentally encounter each other in Death Valley and soon begin an unrestrained romance.

“How you get there depends on where you're at.”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Cast

Mark Frechette
Mark
Daria Halprin
Daria
Paul Fix
Cafe Owner
G.D. Spradlin
Lee's Associate
Bill Garaway
Morty
Kathleen Cleaver
Kathleen
Rod Taylor
Lee Allen
Martin Abrahams
Radical Student (uncredited)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Sam Shepard, Tonino Guerra
Languages: English
Countries: Italy, United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 14% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

56 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: Italy, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, shot by Alfio Contini. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jerry Garcia. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Franco Arcalli shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin and Paul Fix carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "How you get there depends on where you're at.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Michelangelo Antonioni directs. Alfio Contini behind the camera. Jerry Garcia scores. Franco Arcalli cuts. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in Italy, United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Earned back only 14% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
256 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3International production across 2 countries: Italy, United States of America.
4Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, shot by Alfio Contini. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Jerry Garcia. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Franco Arcalli shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin and Paul Fix carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "How you get there depends on where you're at.".
9IMDB entry: tt0066601 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 10 themes, including "california", "police brutality", "free love", "students' movement".

The technical file

Cinematography: Alfio Contini
Original score: Jerry Garcia
Editing: Franco Arcalli
Production design: Dean Tavoularis
Costume design: Ray Summers
Makeup / hair: Joe McKinney
Runtime: 113 min · 1h 53m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $7,000,000
Box office: $1,000,000
Return: 14% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Zabriskie Point (1970)

Also by

Michelangelo Antonioni

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CRCulver2018-02-18
★ 8/10
In the 1960s, the director Michaelangelo Antonioni left his native Italy for a series of a films abroad. BLOW-UP, shot in 1966, captured Swinging London at the dawn of the Sixties counterculture when radical new fashion and music served as the nexus of youth innovation. But as Antonioni moved to the United States and began shooting ZABRISKIE POINT, ultimately released in February 1970, he now captured a counterculture that was tougher and politically radical, with Black liberation movements and university students advocating in-your-face or downright violent methods for effecting social change. In southern California, a young man named Mark (Mark Frechette) flees a university sit-in after shooting at one of the riot police besieging it. A young lady named Daria (Daria Halprin), who works as a secretary for a large real estate developer building out in the desert, is driving to Phoenix for a meeting. They cross paths when Mark, who proves to have some training as a pilot, steals a light plane from an airfield for a little joyride. He buzzes her car for laughs. When he finally lands, Daria quickly overcomes her fear at this aerial taunting and falls for him. They spent an afternoon together in the desert, at the eponymous point in Death Valley. Yet while these two young people in love enjoy this brief splendour far away from it all, they must eventually return to civilization, and then things come to a head. ZABRISKIE POINT was a critical failure when it was first released, and I was expecting to dislike it. However, the film's flaws are few and, among everything else the film offers, forgivable. One of those flaws is the acting during the relatively brief portion when the two leads meet. Frechette and Halprin are extremely photogenic and fashionable -- it's hard to believe they weren't established Hollywood bombshells, but rather amateurs and they had actual counterculture credentials. However, as much as they provide the film visually in moments they appear alone, during their brief time together they have zero chemistry and the dialogue they exchange is delivered clunkily. The other flaw is the characterization of Mark: by the end of the film, Daria has seen things that stir her to anger and lead her to question the conventional society in which she works. However, the script (a collaboration between Antonioni, longtime collaborator Tonino Guerra, and Sam Shepherd) never explains why Mark is so bent on destruction. The audience just feels that he's a delinquent with emotional problems, and that makes it difficult to sympathize with him. Yet in spite of those weaknesses, this is not at all an unenjoyable film. Forget the stupid interaction of Mark and Daria. Instead, just soak in Antonioni's visual poetry as captured by cinematographer Alfio Contini. The Italians must have been delighted by what they found far away from their native land. California of this era is revealed in all its peculiar grandeur, both the urban sprawl of Los Angeles (already utterly hostile to pedestrians) and the unforgiving but strangely beautiful desert. Most of Antonioni's trademark mise-en-scene from the Italian films is preserved here in this foreign location. Unexpected, however, is the savage ending -- sometimes dubbed "the violent scene" -- where the film makes its strongest blow against complacent bourgeois culture. One wonders if Antonioni had seen Jean-Luc Godard's 2 OU 3 CHOSES QUE JE SAIS D'ELLE, with its capstone unveiling of consumer products, and thought "I can one-up that." The result is a feast for the eyes. It's curious too how the passage of time can endow a film with poignant resonances beyond what the filmmaker could have intended. Antonioni shot this film in 1968-69 when the counterculture was a brave new world, but audiences today will see it as a vivid document of a past now half a century gone, and the thought that all this colour, idealism, fashion and design is long dead smarts. Antonioni's loose trilogy consisting of L'AVVENTURA, LA NOTTE and L'ECCLISE might be the best introduction to this filmmaker, but I am glad I have explored his other work, and while ZABRISKIE POINT is notably flawed compared to its predecessors, it has haunted my thoughts in the weeks after I screened it, and that says a lot to its credit.

Production companies