BLOW-UP Movie Review

The story appears to be simple; a photographer thinks he may have accidentally taken pictures of a murder. He “blows up” the photos, and reaches a surprising conclusion. Although his 1960 L'Avventura changed the language of movies, it was Michelangelo Antonioni's widely seen, 1966 Blow-Up that ultimately changed the expectations of moviegoers, exposing a new generation of young people to the tantalizing possibility that the cinema could offer the viewer considerably more than meets the eye. (Part of its theme, ironically, is that reality may consist of considerably less than we imagine.) Some of us were enticed into attending Blow-Up with the promise of a glimpse of the “happening” world of Carnaby Street in the 1960s, not to mention all that London-style free love with those half-naked birds—would-be cover girls—frolicking on purple paper with hopes that photographer David Hemmings would make them famous for fifteen minutes. And while we laughed knowingly and shifted in our seats as Hemmings seduced the gangly Verushka with his long lens, we baby boomers who packed into Blow-Up felt proud that we were fully understanding and keeping up with the plot of this famous foreign director's “art” movie. Even the mysterious body in the park, which showed up in Hemmings's pictures, was one part of a fascinating but very real puzzle that we were keeping up with. Then, the lights came up—and we questioned everything. Everything about the dead body, everything about that airplane propeller, everything about the Yardbirds’ anger at the nightclub, not to mention the purple paper, Vanessa Redgrave's manic nervousness, the existence of the photographs themselves and, lest we forget, the meaning of the final shot. And there were those mimes…. In retrospect, the whole mod “swinging London” aspect of Blow-Up may still get in the way of its appreciation as a modern classic, which is unjust. In asking a generation to consider how we make sense of the images we see, and how we construct—out of need and loneliness—a reality that suits our purposes, Antonioni worked a miracle. Also starring Sarah Miles, with Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills as the purple paper girls. The legendary score is by Herbie Hancock, and the Antonioni/Tonino Guerra/ Edward Bond screenplay (Oscar nominated) is based on a story by Julio Cortázar.

NEXT STOP … The Passenger, Living in Oblivion, The Crying Game

1966 111m/C GB IT David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Jane Birkin, Veruschka; D: Michelangelo Antonioni; W: Tonino Guerra, Michelangelo Antonioni; C: Carlo Di Palma; M: Herbie Hancock. Cannes Film Festival ‘67: Best Film; National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘66: Best Director (Antonioni), Best Film; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘66: Best Director (Antonioni), Best Story & Screenplay. VHS, LV, Letter-box MGM, FCT