The Passenger

In Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 The Passenger, Jack Nicholson stars as David Locke, a burnt-out journalist who finds a dead man named Robertson in a neighboring hotel room while on assignment in Africa, and—seeing a chance for a new life—swaps passport pictures and assumes the other's identity. Deciding to keep a series of appointments found in Robertson's datebook, Locke discovers he has traded in journalism for a career in freelance espionage and gun running, along the way meeting up with an enigmatic unnamed woman (Maria Schneider) with whom he shares an equally enigmatic relationship. Enigma, of course, is a trademark of Antonioni films, and never so much so as in the justly-famous, seemingly impossible six-minute tracking shot that closes The Passenger. Boasting a fine transfer, DVD extras include a pair of commentary tracks (one from a laconic, alternately amused and reverential Nicholson—who reveals how the final sequence was filmed—and one from screenwriter Mark Peploe and journalist Aurora Irvine). Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)