18: Zabriskie Point (1970)

18: Zabriskie Point (1970) - Destruction of the house.
Michelangelo Antonioni's follow-up to his cult hit Blow Up (1968) was a fairly unguarded jab at American culture, and the second of three films which represent his non-Italian output (The Passenger was the third in 1975). MGM chief Louis F. Polk cut a great deal of anti-American material out of the film during post-production; though his successor James Aubrey restored the material, he omitted a closing shot of some sky-writing reading "Fuck You, America".

Impact: This explosion sequence runs at nearly five minutes, and for anyone who thinks that multiple-coverage shots of expensive explosions are an invention of the 1980s, this is an eye-opener. The explosion itself has no practical cause and is generally conceded to be an imaginative projection of Daria Halprin (who along with co-star Mark Frechette uses her own name for her character in the film), and a scathing comment on the materialistic creed of the USA. All the trinkets and symbols of consumer culture are shown flying about in slow-motion later on in the sequence, and Antonioni's use of music (the film features a score by Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia) turns something exciting into something very sad. These days such a sequence would have too many 'terrorist' implications to retain its whimsical sense of rebellion.

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