Blow-Up

BLOW-UP is the story of a successful fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings), who, whilst scouting for fresh subjects in a park one afternoon, photographs a mysterious couple in 'flagrante delicto.' Upon returning to his studio loft later that day, he develops the pictures and discovers that he has inadvertently stumbled upon a murder. Antonioni is not interested in the details of the murder itself, as in a typical detective story, but rather with how the protagonist's perception of the world, and his relationship to it, is altered by this event.

As a fashion photographer, Thomas is a creator of illusions that define a certain kind of young urban lifestyle and Antonioni's flagrant use of the loud, splashy, attention-grabbing colors of billboard advertising -- a visual association elevated to an unholy apotheosis in his next film, ZABRISKIE POINT (1970) -- brings to the surface the transient sensation and hollow artifice that lies at the heart of all pop culture consumerism. In his previous work, RED DESERT (1964), Antonioni spray-painted both the man-made décor as well as the natural setting as a means of giving concrete expression to the heroine's neurotic state of mind and her ameliorative aestheticizing vision of a world despoiled by technology and pollution. He does the same in BLOW-UP, painting doors, fences, poles, and the façades of entire buildings to emphasize the exhilaration and alienation that characterizes life in a large modern city.

Psychedelic colors make the 'real' world of the film seem exaggerated and hyperbolic like a fantastic 'surface' reality, while the 'captured' and reconstructed world of the photographs appears ominously stark, grainy, and documentary-like -- the bare, denuded 'essence' of reality. In the central montage sequence of the film, the camera -- in place of Thomas' eyes -- slowly moves back and forth from one photograph to the next, and likewise, Antonioni cuts back and forth from the pictures to the protagonist looking at them. Since the act of looking at these enhanced images effectively reconstructs an event that the protagonist -- and the audience -- never actually saw with the naked eye in 'real life,' technology is shown to reveal a new surface of the world that is normally hidden from view. Antonioni's own particular brand of phenomenological Neorealism is concerned primarily with the process of seeing through a camera as a way of exposing an ultimate truth, or a lack thereof, that underlies the surface of the world.

The curious self-reflexivity of this scene is an epistemological hall of mirrors: Antonioni's camera looks at Thomas looking at photographs which are blown up larger and larger so that eventually they become merely an abstract collection of dots, a Rorschach test in which almost anything can be read. Like the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the tormented artist son in Pasolini's TEOREMA (1968), the received cultural baggage and semiotic referentiality of the image is eliminated until all that remains is purest subjectivity of the spectator. And so, picture-making technology mediates reality only up to a point: once the threshold of referentiality has been crossed, the suspicion of a murder in the park gleaned from a series of enlarged photographs would seem to say more about Thomas' own paranoid state of mind than what his camera may or may not have recorded.

This subtextual aspect of the film has been compared to the controversy surrounding the various interpretations of the Abraham Zapruder film as a definitive and reliable record of the Kennedy assassination -- and particularly, the mystery of the notorious 'grassy knoll.' Also, the possible incidence of adultery and The Girl's desperate efforts to retrieve the film suggest the scandalous fallout of the Profumo affair. Vanessa Redgrave, with her thick, dark brown hair and affected temptress-naïf manner, hinted at by a schoolgirl outfit and arms folded seductively over her breasts, seems meant to evoke, for a British audience at least, then-recent memories of Christine Keeler.

BLOW-UP is full of visual and verbal non-sequiturs and nearly all the scenes are composed of long-takes with plenty of 'longeurs' and 'temps mort.' This real-time approach -- often fragmented by abrupt and seemingly arbitrary cuts -- faithfully simulates Thomas' experience and the mechanical routine of his creative process and its fleeting moments of sudden inspiration and frenzied excitement. All throughout the film there is a recurrent pattern of relationships left unconsummated and work left undone. Just as he appears on the verge of establishing meaningful contact with someone or about to finally resolve himself to some efficacious deed or another, he is immediately distracted by something else that pops up.

Thomas resembles Odysseus in the way he is continually thwarted by chance encounters, which cause him to lose sight of his mission. Indeed, the film's meandering, episodic plot does seem to have elements of classical epic: the rock concert and the marijuana party afterward all suggest a ritual journey through a modern 'Land of the Lotus-Eaters.' Ironically, it is just when he discovers a sense of emotional commitment and social obligation in his life that his self-justifying cynicism and arrogant indifference toward others is replaced by a growing sense of impotence and defeat. In the final scene, speech is phased out of the film entirely, leaving only a silent form of physical communication unmediated by language and social pretensions.

BLOW-UP was the Antonioni's greatest commercial and critical triumph and the film's narrative -- an odyssey through a modern city, following the protagonist from feigned poverty to the false security of wealth and ending on a note of final lingering doubt about one's place and purpose in the world -- seems itself a trenchant comment on the nature of success and what it does to people. By transposing to 'Swinging London' the Marxist concerns of his Italian films, Antonioni demonstrates once again that this malaise of modern life is not caused by technology and consumer culture but rather by man's failure to adapt to the conditions of the new environment he has created for himself.

Blow Up is the quintessential 60' s movie with a roster of talented British actors, colourful mod fashions (now back in vogue), dreary post-war London locations and empty streets, groovy music by American composer extraordinaire Herbie Hancock and an Italian director and writer in love with the whole scene. Blow Up is the cinematic equivalent of the TR4 cabriolet, designed by Michelotti and manufactured by Triumph during the same period, and mixes the best of two rather different cultures. The movie offers the right amount of nudity, sensuality and perversion without offending the prude status quo of swinging Olde England. David Hemmings plays a character who is by all accounts snobbish, homophobic, prejudiced, rude and macho. This pseudo thriller/whodunit unwinds rather slowly and with little dialogue and, I think, is just an excuse for Antonioni to show how weird the English were. A must see flick for the ones nostalgic or who missed the 60' s completely.

I realize that this is a cinema classic, taught in cinema courses everywhere. And I recognize that there is some pretty remarkable stuff here. But some of it I found very off-putting.

First, to the good: the cinematography is almost constantly remarkable. The way scenes are framed, the constant variation of camera angles, the switches between close and far, etc. I almost would have preferred this without sound. There was so much of interest to watch.

There was little of interest to hear, however. The dialogue is inane. And the protagonist is an egotistical, selfish, thoroughly repugnant excuse for a man. Maybe he's alienated from his world. Why would I care? He does everything to demonstrate that he cares about nothing and no one but himself.

Just past the midpoint of this movie, it starts to become interesting when the photographer detects something in the background of one of his photos. When it turns out a man was murdered, he wants to know more. But why? He's never shown any interest in anything other than himself up until then?

And, finally, he seems to forget about it all.

Watch this once for the amazing camerawork. But as for the plot, the characters, and the rest, don't expect to be engaged. I certainly wasn't.

Some interpret this existential film to mean that human reality is defined in the context of the group, not the individual. Hence, in the film, to Thomas (David Hemmings), the murder did occur. But, the murder's "reality" is objective only if Thomas can verify it through someone else's experience. Otherwise, Thomas' observed event is subjective and problematic. Each individual thus sees through a glass darkly ... even when the glass is an "objective" camera lens. Ironically, the same could be said for Antonioni.

This film came out only three years after the JFK assassination. I find it hard to believe that that event did not play into this film to some extent. There are all kinds of references to the assassination: the grassy area and picket fence; photographic evidence of a "badge man" character with gun hiding in the bushes; the subsequently developed pictures having been presumably stolen or altered as part of some conspiracy. It's almost as if Thomas and his camera represent the Zapruder film component of the assassination. Indeed, the causal "reality" of the JFK murder was, and still is, to some extent a function of human perception, derived from an interpretation of what the camera sees.

"Blowup" is unlike most films. There are long takes, with minimal editing. This gives the film a slow, meandering feel. Dialogue is minimal. Natural sounds override music, throughout. And like other Antonioni films, this one is mostly visual. The cinematography is striking.

Another characteristic is that the film is not plot intensive. Nor are the characters sympathetic. Thomas is not at all likable. And other characters are mere mannequins. I question whether Antonioni needed two hours to convey his message. More of a plot might have reduced the need for so much seemingly irrelevant filler.

"Blowup" is mostly for viewers who like unconventional, arty films that impart abstruse philosophical "meaning". The film is therefore aimed at people who like to think and ponder.

Antonioni was not a director that worried too much about people completely understanding his films. In fact I'd bet that he actually hoped they didn't understand everything. So I did not find it strange or surprising when after finishing the movie I felt quite confused. But the movie made me think for a very long time, which in my opinion is what a good film should do. There are so many aspects to this film that if you give them a chance and think about them, they will keep you reeling for hours on possible interpretations. The first and probably most important aspect of this film dealt with love. From what I have seen of his films, love is Antonioni's favorite subject. But this love was different than that of past films; it is much more shallow and un-centered. Thomas, the photographer, is surrounded by women, he goes from one to the next without thinking twice, treating them like dogs the entire time. But he can do this and get away with it because he is a famous photographer and can make the women what they all desperately want to be, Beautiful. For The first half of the movie I honestly did not like his character whatsoever. Whereas in the past the director has chosen mainly to explore the ups and downs of married life, or the problems of being hopelessly devoted to one person, he now points the camera at the single, care free, over sexed, youth of the sixties. Half an hour into the movie I found myself wondering what the heart of the film was going to be. We were introduced to Thomas and his world, but there seemed to be no conflict driving the story forward. Then came the quasi-murder mystery. This is what is really interesting and unique about this film in my opinion. Antonioni for a while leads us to believe that the movie is going to turn into some suspense thriller, or murder mystery, but never seems to quite get there. He has all the elements ready to go, but never follows through with them. He introduces this alluring and mysterious woman who is in on the murder and then never brings her back. The murder victim is discovered, but his identity is never revealed, nor a motive given for his murder. Thomas, after a very energetic and exciting photo investigation seems to not really care too much as to what happens with the investigations results, only telling a couple of his friends who couldn't care less. Antonioni seems to have used this whole murder mystery convention as some sort of glue to hold the rest of the real story together. The story of a mindless, beauty obsessed, celebrity idolizing, drug addicted, and violence obsessed culture. Probably my favorite scene in the film is after fighting over the piece of broken guitar with the other fans; Thomas just discards his prize as garbage. Something that kept bugging me was the antique shop. I kept wondering what in the world it had to do with anything in the movie; it stuck out like a sore thumb. But I knew it that there was some major purpose or explanation for its existence in the film, and then it just kind of clicked. Upon his first entry into the Antique store Thomas encounters an angry old man who we eventually find out is not the stores real owner, the true owner is a beautiful young woman who is planning to sell the old place and travel the world in search of something new. All this stuff she owns, the gold of past cultures, is old and useless now. She has a hard time making a living because nobody wants the stuff any longer. Here is where I think Antonioni's major message is hidden: That is the way life is, it moves on constantly, things change, people die, cultures evolve and the only thing that remains in the end is nature itself. Antonioni finishes the film beautifully, Thomas stands alone in a large field of grass, the only thing heard is the wind and the trees, as the camera backs away slowly, he disappears leaving nothing but the grass blowing in the wind, for like all the antiques and all the people that created them in the past, eventually Thomas's life will end and so will the current popular culture in which he takes part. Change is life's only constant.