Like every streaming service, the Criterion Channel refreshes its lineup every month, with the majority of titles that are new (or returning) to the service dropping on the first day of the month.
Unlike most other streaming services, however, the Criterion Channel curators assemble several new themed collections from their library every month, which is deep on traditional arthouse films, both narrative and documentary, as well as both features and shorts, along with a wealth of supplemental material.
Zabriskie Point
Now streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Screen Anarchy has covered films by Michelangelo Antonioni in the past -- I Vinti (1953), Le Amiche (1955), La Notte (1961), Red Desert (1964) -- yet I must admit that I know his films more from reputation than from experience, with his first English-language feature, Blow-up (1966), being my sole exception.
Enter the Criterion Channel, which this month features several new collections of films, including Rock Biopics That Don't Suck, which features several of my personal favorites, and Southern Gothic, which features 14 sopping wet films that make me want to take a shower, and Starring Harry Dean Stanton, a lovely, 18-film tribute to the late actor who made every film in which he appeared worth watching.
Yet it is the Desert Trips collection that first caught my eye, perhaps because I was raised in semi-arid Los Angeles, and our family often took trips into and through the American Southwest. I've always been attracted to spare landscapes, which all form an integral part of the backdrops for each of the four films in this collection: Zabriskie Point, Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, David Lynch's Wild at Heart, and Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas.
The second of three films that Antonioni made with producer Carlo Ponti and released by MGM (?!), Zabriskie Point was born after prolonged labor pains, its screenplay credited to emerging playwright Sam Shepherd, among others. The protagonist, Mark (first-time actor Mark Frechette), is to be found among students at a California college who erupt in protests that elicit a gorilla-like response from the police, leading to a police officer being shot.
With a recently-purchased gun in his pocket, Mark flees the scene, hops a bus, and ends up at a regional airport, where he casually and easily steals a private airplane. He heads vaguely eastward. Meanwhile, Daria (first-time actor Daria Halprin) is also heading east, driving her funky old car toward a meeting with her boss, Lee (Rod Taylor).
Spoilers (for a movie released in 1970).
The two meet, somewhere in the Southwest, exchange pleasantries, get to know each other, wander through the desert, somehow survive without any water, make love while rolling around naked in the sand -- surrounded in a surrealistic heat by other couples rolling around and making love in the sand, which reminds me of the slogan 'Make Love, Not War' -- walk back to the highway, and encounter a California Highway Patrolman, who grunts at them a few times.
They paint the airplane in wild psychedelic colors and say goodbye. Mark heads back to Southern California. Daria heads to Phoenix and a meeting with Lee and his establishment buddies to discuss a real-estate deal.
After the movie concluded, I shrugged. I am inherently fascinated by any movie released during the 1970s, so Zabriskie Point provides an early starting point for the decade, and reminds me that I really need to watch a bunch of other films by Antonioni to see what the fuss was all about.
(Trailers From Hell's Larry Karaszewski provides a great commentary, below, giving kudos to the gorgeous cinematography -- BTW, it looks fantastic on the Criterion Channel -- soundtrack, and its ambitious pretensions. Hmm, maybe I need to watch the movie again.)
Happily, the Criterion Channel also features the Directd by Michelangelo Antonioni collection, which features two shorts, Le Amiche, his most famous trilogy -- L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), L'eclisse (1962) -- Red Desert, and Identification of a Woman (1982).
Several of those Antonioni films are also now streaming on HBO Max: L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), and Red Desert. For buying and renting options, visit JustWatch.
Now Streaming celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal streaming services.