Zabriskie Point (film) - Reception

Reception

Following prolonged publicity and controversy in North America throughout its production, Zabriskie Point was released in February 1970, almost four years after Antonioni began pre-production and over a year and a half after shooting began. The film was panned by most critics and other published commentators of all political stripes, as were the performances of Frechette and Halprin. The New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby called Zabriskie Point "a noble artistic impulse short-circuited in a foreign land." Moreover the counterculture audience MGM hoped to draw had by then shifted, the film was ignored by moviegoers and taken altogether, the outcome was a notorious box office bomb. Production expenses were at least $7,000,000 and only $900,000 was made in the domestic release. In 1978 it was listed in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, a book co-authored by radio host Michael Medved. Over 20 years after the film's release, Rolling Stone editor David Fricke wrote that "Zabriskie Point was one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history." It was the only film Antonioni ever directed in the United States, where in 1994 he was given the Honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his place as one of the cinema's master visual stylists." Following early 21st century screenings of pristine wide-screen prints and a later DVD release, Zabriskie Point at last garnered some critical praise, mostly for the stark beauty of its cinematography and innovative use of music in the soundtrack, but outlooks on the film were still mixed. Director Stéphane Sednaoui referenced the film in his video for "Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins, where an ice-cream salesman steals his employer's ice-cream van, escapes to the desert, and colourfully paints the van while couples kiss in the desert.