Posted on: 06. Februar 2012
#Destruction #Deconstruction #Michelangelo Antonioni #Pink Floyd #Explosion #Film #Music #Architecture

Eine der berühmtesten Explosionen der Filmgeschichte und eines der schönsten Musikvideos (ohne eines zu sein); die Schlussszene aus Michelangelo Antonionis Film Zabriskie Point von 1970: Ein Haus explodiert. Möbel und Blumen, Kühlschränke und Lebensmittel, Kleider und Schuhe, Fernsehapparate und Bücher zersplittern am Himmel, langsam in slowmotion, mehrmals wiederholend, zum hynotischen Sound von Pink Floyd. Ein Ballet der Zerstörung. Ein Tanz der Konsumgüter. Hierfür liess Antonioni eine Villa von Architekt Hiram Hudson Benedicti in Phoenix nachbauen und filmte die Sprengung von siebzehn verschiedenen Kamerapositionen aus.

Schlussszene, Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point
«Antonioni’s A to Z of that era ended with Zabriskie Point (1970), a gallant attempt by this middle-aged European intellectual to penetrate the dreams and despairs of America’s Vietnam generation. He filmed part of it in Death Valley, California, and ended it with an explosion which sent the trophies of the consumer society flying into space. The film was perhaps a failure, but of a kind that has certainly not become less interesting with the years.» – Filmkritik aus TheGuardian

Schlussszene, Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point
Explosion der Villa von Architekt Paolo Soleri (nachgebaut für den Film), inspiriert durch das Haus in Alfred Hitchcock’s Film North by Northwest, das wiederum inspiriert wurde durch Frank Lloyd Wright’s Desert Houses.

«We rented the original house, the one in which we shot the interiors and some of the exteriors, but naturally the owner was not going to let us blow it up. So we built another one just like it not far away. I believe that the owner sat on his terrace and watched as we blew up that house that looked exactly like his own. We used 17 cameras. It was so difficult to organize the explosion, with all the wires and cameras – like a war operation, and I was the general, giving instructions for one cameraman to shoot now, and then turning quickly to another and signaling him to shoot next. I was so concerned with the practical things that I didn’t have time to feel anything else as the house exploded.» – Antonioni in an Interview with Guy Flatley

Schlussszene, Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point