In the desert scene above, the audience is left following Locke without any indication of where he's going or what his objective is. The camera tracks along with Locke's movements in hopes the viewer feels as if they are following along with this puzzling individual. These panning and continous shots reveal the theme of hopelessness - the character is wandering around, not sure of what's to come. The lack of dialogue forces the viewer to focus on the enviorment and noises around that might imply the significance of this scene. The director is very upfront about his directing style, and we can determine that the rest of this movie will follow a similar technical pattern.
Antonioni has said that he didn’t show Locke’s death in the film because in any case “he was already dead.” That is, the reporter Locke. We are to assume that had Locke, instead of Robertson, died of a heart attack in that Chad hotel at the start of the film, his life would have had no meaning. And if the gunrunner Robertson had been killed by the assassin’s bullets in the Gloria Hotel at the end of the film, his life would have had a meaning. The director purposefully does not develop an intricate relationship between the main character and the viewer in an attempt of creating realism. Life is full of wanderers, and through the use of long shots and particular camera techniques in this film, the viewer can find a way to relate with the character because of the confusion.
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Author(savannah hink) |