BLOWUP Review d: Michelangelo Antonioni

BLOWUP (1966)

Direction: Michelangelo Antonioni

Cast: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Veruschka, Jane Birkin, Gillian Hills, Peter Bowles

Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Edward Bond

Oscar Movies

David Hemmings, Veruschka, Blowup

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:

Made in Great Britain in 1966, the flat-out great Blowup was Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language effort. "Inspired" by Argentinean writer Julio Cortazar's short story Las babas del diablo, Blowup was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay (Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, and Edward Bond), in addition to winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the National Society of Film Critics' Best Film Award.

Having first seen the two Hollywood films most influenced by Blowup, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Brian De Palma's Blowout (1981), I did not know quite what to expect since the former is an excellent film — arguably, Coppola's best — and the latter is a solid Hollywood thriller. Blowup, for its part, is not only a great work of art but a great work of philosophy as well, one as impressive as Antonioni's Italian masterpiece, La Notte.

Also of interest, Blowup caused a bit of a stir upon its release for its depiction of female nudity, casual sex, and drug use. Of course, forty years later this all seems a bit silly, considering how tame the scenes look to the modern viewer.

The story follows a well-known photographer (David Hemmings) who may or may not have inadvertently captured a murder on film, which may or may not involve a mysterious young woman (Vanessa Redgrave) — who looks quite a bit like the then-notorious sex kitten Christine Keeler of the Profumo scandal. I should add that despite a number of reviews referring to the two leads as Thomas and Jane, neither character is actually named in the film.

The photographer lives next door to an abstract expressionist painter, Bill (John Castle), and his girlfriend, Patricia (Sarah Miles), to whom the photographer is attracted and who seems to return his feelings. At one point, Bill says he has no intent when he starts a painting; meaning only comes later. This is the key to Blowup, or at least a warning on how viewers should take what they see.

The next day, the photographer takes some photos in the nearby park. Here's where he happens upon the Redgrave character and her silver-haired beau (Ronan O'Casey). When she sees him snapping photos, she comes to get the camera and film. He refuses her.

Later on, as he develops the film he notices the woman looking off into the distance, seemingly horrified. He follows her eyeline and blows up the photos, which eventually reveal a man with a gun lurking in the bushes. This moment suggests an homage to Alfred Hitchcock, whose films were loaded with such surprises — though Hitchcock's efforts were certainly less existential. Also, Antonioni subverts this classic mystery thriller setup by never having it pay off.

The photographer initially believes he has prevented a murder, but later he sees on one of the blowups what seems to be the silver-haired boyfriend's dead body behind the bush. He deduces all this in silence, peering at the images; it's a bravura bit showing the existential power of images and the mind's propensity to construct tales from them. It's as pure cinema as has ever been filmed: just images; no words; no musical cues to say, Aha!.

He returns to the park at night and sees the body, but he has forgotten his camera. Curiously, the body is wide out in the open — a hint that all the photographer sees may not be so. In the morning, he returns to the park, but the body is gone. And so is all his evidence, for his studio has been burglarized. Since Antonioni never allowed us to see from over his shoulder while he took his photos, we do not know how "real" the shots were to begin with.