Zabriskie Point

On March 8, 1967, 20-year-old Hail Thomas Hansen boarded a private plane at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and flew to Tucson for a pleasure trip. When he returned to Sky Harbor in the early hours of March 9, Phoenix police were waiting for him. Hansen was shot and killed. Antonioni used elements of this story in his screenplay. For further details on Hansen's death, see "Tucson Daily Citizen," March 10, 1967 (page 2) and March 22, 1967 (page 18).

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The house in the rocks was a real house in Carefree, Arizona. The explosion of the house was carried out by recreating a mock-up of it at the back of Southwestern Studios, also located in Carefree, Arizona. The mock-up, which cost $100,000 to build, was blown up and filmed using seventeen cameras.

BEHIND THE SCENES · SOURCED

In real life, Mark Frechette lived a counterculture life very similar to that of his character in the film. Three years after the film's premiere, he was imprisoned for his role in a bank robbery in Boston. In 1975 he died in prison when a barbell fell on his neck during weight training.

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Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin began a romantic relationship during the film's extended shooting schedule, with Mark's wife's permission. They later divorced, but Daria did not want to live in a commune the way Mark did, and they eventually separated.

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Harrison Ford fans know that his scenes were cut from this film. But look closely at the prison scene: he is standing against the back wall beside the door. Harrison Ford's scene was deleted, but his voice remained in Rod Taylor's telephone conversation scene. This (non-)appearance is in fact Ford's final, uncredited appearance in the film.

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Michelangelo Antonioni's assistant and casting director Sally Dennison first noticed Mark Frechette arguing with a woman at a bus stop in Los Angeles. Frechette was not an actor at the time but a carpenter, so when Dennison brought him to Antonioni's attention she told him, "He's twenty years old and he hates." Antonioni cast him on the spot.

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The sex party scene was attended by a hundred people, half of them from Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre company and the other half various hippies.

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Seventeen camera setups were used for the climactic explosion.

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Michelangelo Antonioni's left-wing politics made the film controversial from the start. The production was harassed by groups opposed to the film's alleged "anti-Americanism" and by FBI agents tailing cast and crew members. Shooting locations were surrounded by right-wingers protesting a scene said to desecrate the flag, though this never happened. Militant anti-establishment students worried they were being "sold out." The Oakland, California sheriff accused Michelangelo Antonioni of inciting the riots he came to film. Death Valley park rangers initially would not let Michelangelo Antonioni shoot at Zabriskie Point because they thought he planned to hold a sex party in the area; it was conceptualized but never seriously considered. The US Attorney's office in Sacramento launched grand jury investigations into both the film's alleged "anti-Americanism" and possible violations of the 1910 Mann Act, which prohibited transporting women across state lines "for immoral conduct, prostitution or debauchery," during the Death Valley shoot. When they learned that Zabriskie Point is at least 13 miles west of the California-Nevada border, the investigation was reluctantly dropped.

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The Pink Floyd members who remembered the music for this film later said that pleasing Michelangelo Antonioni was very difficult, making vague comments (quoting band members imitating Antonioni's accent) such as "It's good, but it's too slow" or "It's a bit too soft."

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In 2001, a retrospective documentary about Zabriskie Point was made, featuring interviews with many of the people involved in the troubled production. It was titled INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST - The Making of Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. It has not yet been released to this day.

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This is the second of the three English-language films Michelangelo Antonioni made for MGM and producer Carlo Ponti. The first was Blow-Up (1966), followed by The Passenger (1975). Unfortunately, both this film and The Passenger (1975) were major box-office failures, so the deal with MGM was not continued.

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The film, initially made on a budget of $7 million, grossed $900,000, making it one of the year's biggest box-office disasters.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

Michelangelo Antonioni was quite horrified by what he perceived as American excess during the making of the film. He was more accustomed to the Italian film industry's more frugal approach to filmmaking.

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Opening a month before M*A*S*H (1970), Zabriskie Point holds the distinction of being the first MPAA-approved theatrical film released by a major studio (MGM) to use the word "motherf*cker" in its dialogue.

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The old car Daria drives is a 1952 Buick Special De Luxe.

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In an early scene, Mark and a counterculture friend are driving in their old-model pickup truck. One of them gives the finger to two motorcycle cops coming from the opposite direction. This appears to be a nod to the final scenes of Easy Rider (1969), but instead it is the counterculture motorcyclists who give the finger to two Native Americans in a pickup.

EASTER EGGS & REFERENCES · SOURCED

Some scenes were actually shot at the real Zabriskie Point in Death Valley.

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Rod Taylor's dialogue was written specifically for him by Sam Shepard.

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Mark Frechette was cast after being seen on the street arguing with someone on an upper-floor balcony.

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Both lead characters were given the names of the real actors who played them: Mark and Daria. When a police officer asks Mark his name, Mark's witty reply is "Karl Marx," but the officer misspells the first name as "C-A-R-L."

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The house depicted as blown up is the Boulder Reign House in Carefree Grandview Estates in Carefree, Arizona. Built in 1968, the property spans more than 5,000 square meters on a 2.6-acre lot. As of 2023, its estimated value is about 2.2 million dollars.

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The private jet Mark first encounters at the Hawthorne, California airport was a 1968 Learjet 25 registered N942GA. It passed through numerous owners until its registration was cancelled in 1995, and it was displayed outside Alabama Aviation College in Ozark, Alabama.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

Mark Peploe, the brother of screenwriter Clare Peploe, would go on to write the screenplay for Michelangelo Antonioni's next film, The Passenger (1975).

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Sondra Locke, who was five years older than Daria Halprin, turned down the lead role.

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