Opening of THE PASSENGER

Screenplay by Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen, & Michelangelo Antonioni

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > SCREENRITING > PLAYS vs. FILM > STORYTELLING > VISUAL/VERBAL > PASSENGER

'One of the themes of the film is to examine the myth of objectivity. . . . I never think in terms of this kind of conflict: between the individual and the mass. I'm not a sociologist. I never make a political thesis. I would prefer it if something like this comes out of it. If I put a character against a landscape, there is naturally a relationship.'

-- Michelangelo Antonioni

 

 

The Screenwriting section has been revised and expanded in the new paperback and Kindle edition, Playwriting Seminars 2.0.

Based on the script -- not the completed film -- here's how the opening of the story is told in the first two pages . . .

1. Image: The desert
2. Image: Village houses
3. Image: People going by
4. Image: Soldiers in the street
5. Image: A Street in the Village
6. Image: Men talking in front of a house
7. Image: An old car
8. Image: LOCKE inside the car
9. Image: Tape recorder and camera case on seat
10. Image: LOCKE watching the men
11. Image: The men uneasy with him there
12. Image: One of them leaves
13. Image: LOCKE getting out of the car
14. Image: LOCKE following the man
15. Image: Catching up to him at the corner
16. First Lines of Dialogue.
    • Longest line of dialogue: 14 words
    • Average line: about 6 words