Blowup
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| Blow-up | |
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 Blow-Up DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| Produced by | Carlo Ponti |
| Starring | Vanessa Redgrave Sarah Miles David Hemmings |
| Music by | Herbie Hancock |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
| Release date(s) |  December 18, 1966 January, 1967 |
| Running time | 111 min |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Blowup (also rendered as Blow-Up) is an award-winning 1966 British-Italian art film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and was that director's first English language film. It tells the story of a photographer's involvement with a murder case. The film was inspired by the short story "Las Babas del Diablo" by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, and by the work, habits, and mannerisms of Swinging London photographer David Bailey.
Blowup stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, and Jane Birkin. The screenplay was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with the English dialogue being written by British playwright Edward Bond. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English language films for MGM (the others were Zabriskie Point and The Passenger).
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[edit] Synopsis
The story concerns an unnamed photographer (Hemmings) who may or may not have inadvertently preserved evidence of a murder, which may or may not involve a woman (Redgrave) who visits the photographer in his studio. As is typical with Antonioni films, the story does not follow a conventional narrative structure.
As a professional photographer, who is also involved in real estate, the main character mixes with the rich and famous in the London of the sixties. One day he chances upon two lovers in a park and takes photos of them. The woman of the couple pursues him; eventually finding his apartment and desperately trying to get the film. This leads the photographer to investigate the film, making blowups (enlargements) of the photos. This process seems to reveal a body, but the director cleverly uses the heavy film grain and black and white imagery to obscure the image. This drives the photographer to keep making blowups and try to find the truth.
He does eventually find the body, but this time, unfortunately and surprisingly, he is without his camera. He tries to get a friend to act as witness but later, the body is not there any more. The viewer never learns whether there has been a real murder or not. Ultimately, the film is about reality and how we perceive it or think we perceive it. This aspect is stressed by the final scene, one of many famous ones in this film, when the photographer watches a mimed tennis match and, after a moment of amused hesitation, enters the mimes' own version of reality by picking up the invisible ball and throwing it back to the two players. Then, we see him going on watching (but we do not see the match any longer) and, suddenly, we even hear the ball being played back and forth. Another version of reality has been created. Then, at the very end, Hemmings, standing all alone in the green grass of the park, suddenly disappears, removed by his director, Antonioni. Was he really there all the time?
[edit] Celebrity appearances
The film contains appearances from various famous people of the day, and some people who would become famous later.
In a scene near the end, The Yardbirds perform, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck play side by side until Beck smashes his guitar à la The Who. Michael Palin of Monty Python's Flying Circus fame can be seen very briefly in the crowd in this scene,[citation needed] and future media personality Janet Street-Porter can be seen dancing in stripey trousers.
Antonioni had considered using the bands Tomorrow, The Who.[citation needed] He also considered The Velvet Underground, but guitarist Sterling Morrison's drug convictions prevented the band from getting work permits in the United Kingdom.[1]
[edit] Filming locations
The first scene (with the mimes acting) was filmed on the Plaza of The Economist Building (Piccadilly, London, 1959-64, project by Alison and Peter Smithson) The park scenes were filmed at Maryon Park, Charlton, south-east London and the park is little changed since the making of the film. The street with the many maroon-coloured shopfronts is Stockwell Road and the shops belonged to motorcycle dealer Pride & Clark.[citation needed]
[edit] Controversy
Blowup was controversial for its sexual content: it was the first British film to feature full frontal female nudity. MGM failed to obtain approval for it from the MPAA Production Code in America, but released anyway through their subsidiary Premier Productions, a key event in the Code's eventual collapse.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Academy Awards
- Nominated: Best Director - Michelangelo Antonioni
- Nominated: Original Screenplay - Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Edward Bond
[edit] BAFTA Awards
- Nominated: Best British Film - Michelangelo Antonioni
- Nominated: Best British Art Direction (Colour) - Assheton Gorton
- Nominated: Best British Cinematography (Colour) - Carlo Di Palma
[edit] Cannes Film Festival
- Won: Palme d'Or - Michelangelo Antonioni
[edit] Golden Globe Awards
- Nominated: Best English-Language Foreign Film
[edit] Influence
Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981), starring John Travolta, alludes to Blowup, used sound recording rather than photography as its central motif. In the DVD commentary to his 1974 film The Conversation, which is also about sound recording, Francis Ford Coppola said he, too, was inspired by Blow Up in writing the screenplay.
In Mel Brooks's film High Anxiety, a minor plotline involves a bumbling chauffeur who takes a picture showing the evil assassin (wearing a latex mask of Brooks's character's face) firing a gun at point-blank range at someone; he makes blow-ups until he can see the real Brooks's character, standing in the elevator in the background. (Although, technically speaking, the chauffeur does not make blow-ups; the joke is that he simply makes bigger and bigger enlargements until he has one the size of a wall.)
Indie filmmaker Jonathan Blitstein has said that the last scene of his 2007 film Let Them Chirp Awhile was trying to evoke the tennis ball scene at the end of Blowup. A line in the film during which actor Justin Rice as "Bobby" mentions to "Dara" played by actress Laura Breckenridge his love for the famous "tennis ball scene" was deleted from the final cut.
This film also inspired the Indian movie Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, in which two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of a city mayor on their cameras and later discover this when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is aptly named "Antonioni Park".
This film also has a heavy influence on the video for Amerie's video for "Take Control" from her 2007 album Because I Love It.
[edit] External links
- Blowup at the Internet Movie Database
- Collection of pictures taken on the set
- Alternative Film Guide in depth review of film DVD
- Where Did They Film That? — film entry
[edit] Notes
- ^ Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga, Uptight: The Story of 'The Velvet Underground.
[edit] Further information
- Brunette, Perter. Audio commentary on the 2005 DVD (Iconic Films).
- Hemmings, David. Blow-Up… and Other Exaggerations: The Autobiography of David Hemmings.
| Preceded by A Man and a Woman tied with The Birds, the Bees and the Italians |
Palme d'Or 1967 |
Succeeded by If... |
