A Moving-Image Record

Vidal on the Screen

A film that used this desert crossroad as a location. Each entry pairs the footage with a note on how it relates to Vidal and where in the film the crossroad can be seen.

Zabriskie Point

1970

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

How it relates to Vidal

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point was shot in part at Vidal, and members of the Solar Lodge — whose Solar Ranch stood in the desert nearby — stood and watched the production at work.

In a series of scenes the film's heroine appears in Vidal, inside a cafe run by the Solar Lodge. There she speaks with Harold, described as the Solar Lodge motel's only full-time resident. By the accounts preserved with the film, Harold died quietly in his room about a year later.

The sequence is a rare moving-image record of the Vidal crossroad as it stood at the end of the 1960s — the cafe interior, the shaded storefront porch, and the townsite strung along the highway — captured incidentally by a major motion picture.

Vidal on film

A film still from Zabriskie Point inside a desert cafe: a young woman at a yellow counter holding a roll, an older man in a white cowboy hat, and a gray-haired man with a coffee cup, beneath 'Frostie' and 'Squirt' signs.
Inside the Vidal cafe run by the Solar Lodge, beneath the “Frostie” and “Squirt” signs — the film's heroine at the counter with local men.
A film still from Zabriskie Point: the young woman in an olive dress speaks across the cafe counter, with the man in the white cowboy hat seated behind her.
Another angle within the cafe, the heroine in conversation across the counter.
A film still from Zabriskie Point: a man bounds off the shaded wooden porch of a desert store into bright daylight, mountains on the horizon behind him.
Outside the store, a figure springs off the shaded porch into the desert daylight — the Vidal storefront and highway beyond.
A film still from Zabriskie Point: a wide view of the Vidal townsite along the highway, with a white water tank, a small blue building, and open desert beyond.
A wide view of the Vidal townsite along the highway — the water tank, roadside buildings, and open desert beyond.

Stills captured from Zabriskie Point (1970, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni), shown here to document the Vidal location.

Know of another film, television production, or newsreel shot at Vidal? The society is always gathering the record — reach out through the contact page.