Blowup

Plot

After spending the night at a doss house, where he has taken pictures for a book of art photographs, photographer Thomas is late for a photo shoot with model Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and frustrated with the models and walks off, leaving them and the production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage aspiring models ask to speak to him, but he brushes them off and drives off to visit an antique shop near Maryon Park.

Wandering into the park, Thomas furtively takes photographs of two lovers, an older man in his 60s and a lady in her 30s. He follows them in a secluded area in the park. Then, he leaves, but the woman, Jane, is furious at being photographed and pursues Thomas, demanding his film and attempting to take his camera. He refuses, and continues to photograph her as she runs away. Thomas then meets his agent Ron for lunch and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Thomas returns to his studio to find Jane, who asks desperately for the film. They have a conversation and flirt, but he deliberately hands her a different roll of film. She, in turn, gives him a false telephone number.

Thomas makes several blow-ups of the film of Jane and her lover, which reveal Jane appearing to look worriedly at a person lurking in the trees with a pistol. Thomas excitedly calls Ron, claiming that his impromptu photo session may have saved a man's life. He is then disturbed by a knock on the door from the teenage girls. They have a sexual encounter in the studio before he falls asleep. After awakening, he learns that the girls hope he will photograph them, but is distracted by a detail in one of his blow-ups. He tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"

Thomas examines a blurred figure on the ground under a bush in the blow-up, which he suspects is the dead body of a man shot by the gunman. As evening falls, he goes back to the park without his camera and finds the body, but is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking. He returns to his studio to find it ransacked, with all of the negatives and prints gone except for one very grainy blow-up of what is possibly the body.

After driving into town, he sees Jane and follows her into the Ricky-Tick club, where the Yardbirds are performing the song "Stroll On". A buzzing noise in guitarist Jeff Beck's amplifier angers him so much that he smashes his guitar and throws its neck into the crowd. The crowd, previously disengaged, fights over the guitar neck. Thomas grabs the neck and runs out of the club, with much of the crowd chasing after him; once he is away from the crowd, he tosses the neck away and walks on. A passer-by picks up the neck and examines it, but also discards it.

At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames, Thomas asks a cannabis-addled Ron to come to the park as a witness, but cannot convince him of what has happened. Instead, Thomas joins the party at Ron's insistence and wakes up in the house at sunrise. He then returns to the park alone, only to find that the body is gone.

Thomas watches a mime troupe perform a mock-tennis match at the park, and picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players when asked. As he watches the mimes continue to play, the sound of the ball being played is heard. His image then fades away, leaving only the grass.

Cast

• David Hemmings as Thomas
• Vanessa Redgrave as Jane
• Sarah Miles as Patricia
• John Castle as Bill
• Jane Birkin as blonde girl
• Gillian Hills as brunette girl
• Peter Bowles as Ron, Thomas's agent
• Veruschka von Lehndorff as herself
• Julian and Claude Chagrin as mimes Uncredited members of the cast include Tsai Chin as Thomas's receptionist, Susan Brodrick as the antiquarian, Ronan O'Casey as Jane’s lover/victim in park. Jill Kennington, Peggy Moffitt and Donyale Luna appear as Thomas’ models. The Yardbirds (Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, and Keith Relf) appear as themselves.

Piers Gough and Janet Street-Porter appear as uncredited extras in the nightclub sequence. Julio Cortázar, the author of the source short story, makes a cameo appearance as a homeless man. Real-life photographer Reg Wilkins, who was one of the inspirations for Thomas’ character, appears as his assistant.

Themes

Antonioni's screenplay for Blowup is a "thriller-suspense" story revolving around the efforts of a young and successful fashion photographer in his struggle to determine whether a series of photographs he takes at a public park contain evidence of a murder. As Thomas persists, his quest leads him initially to question his technical mastery over the "hidden truth" recorded by his camera, then toward a confrontation with the realities of his life of "material advantages, gained at the expense of ideals". Finally, he questions the reality of his own existence. Film historian Gordon Gow identifies the object in Antonioni's use of suspense:

In an interview at the time of the film's release, Antonioni stated that the film "is not about man's relationship with man, it is about man's relationship with reality". According to Gow, "a mystery without a solution is instrumental to the theme of disorientation" which is sustained until the final moments of the film, in which Thomas fails to resolve the contradictions and ambiguities that arise from his investigations and his own life. Thomas' fate is known and the audience's suspense is resolved, but Antonioni leaves the meaning of the film open to speculation.

Gow considers two interpretations for the ending:

Production

Inspirations and influences

The plot of Blowup was inspired by Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar's 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo", collected in End of the Game and Other Stories, which in turn was based on a story told to Cortázar by photographer Sergio Larraín. The short story was subsequently retitled "Blow-up" to connect it with the film. The life of Swinging London photographer David Bailey was also an influence on the plot.

Casting

Several people were offered the role of the protagonist, including Sean Connery (who declined when Antonioni refused to show him the script), David Bailey, and Terence Stamp, who was replaced shortly before filming began after Antonioni saw David Hemmings in a stage production of Dylan Thomas' Adventures in the Skin Trade.

Jane Birkin made her film debut as the blond girl.

Filming

Most of Blowup was shot on location throughout London. The film's opening scene was filmed on the Plaza of The Economist Building in St. James's Street, Westminster, a project by 'New Brutalist' architects Alison and Peter Smithson that was constructed between 1959 and 1964. The park scenes were filmed at Maryon Park in Charlton; the park has changed little since the film was shot, although Antonioni painted the grass green to meet his requirements. Photographer John Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place in Notting Hill to Antonioni for much of the interior and exterior filming, and Cowan's own photographic murals are featured in the film. Other locations included Heddon Street (where the cover of David Bowie's album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars would later be photographed) and Cheyne Walk in Chelsea.

The scene in which the Yardbirds perform "Stroll On" – a modified version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" with new lyrics – was filmed in a replica of the Ricky-Tick club at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire from 12 to 14 October 1966. Janet Street-Porter appears in the scene as an extra.

Actor Ronan O'Casey claimed that the film's mysterious nature is the product of an "unfinished" production. In a 1999 letter to Roger Ebert, O'Casey wrote that scenes that would have "depict[ed] the planning of the murder and its aftermath – scenes with Vanessa, Sarah Miles, and Jeremy Glover, Vanessa's new young lover who plots with her to murder me – were never shot because the film went seriously over budget." O'Casey had previously told this story to Der Spiegel in 1967, where he stated that Dyson Lovell played the part of the murderous lover. Two scenes appear to give credence to this: first when Lovell is seen apparently tampering with Thomas' car, and later when he and Jane are seen following Thomas in a Rover 2000.

Thomas' car

Thomas drives a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III 'Chinese Eye' Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupé owned by DJ and television presenter Jimmy Savile. The car was originally painted white, then painted black by the production. Only about one hundred coach built Silver Clouds IIIs were made with the unique slanted headlights, and it remains an iconic element of the film.

Release and reception

Blowup premiered at the Coronet Theater on Third Avenue in New York City on 18 December 1966.

MGM did not gain approval for the film under the MPAA's Production Code in the United States. The film was condemned by the National Legion of Decency. MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributor, Premier Productions, and it was shown widely in North American cinemas. The film's critical and commercial success played a major role in the abolition of the Production Code and its replacement with the MPAA rating system shortly thereafter.

Box office

Film writer Richard Corliss stated in 2007 that the film grossed $20 million (about $ million in ) on a $1.8 million budget and "helped liberate Hollywood from its puritanical prurience" in the process.

The film earned $5.9 million (about $ in ) in the United States and Canada in 1967.

Critical reception

Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "a mod masterpiece". In Playboy magazine, film critic Arthur Knight wrote that Blowup would come to be considered "as important and seminal a film as Citizen Kane, Open City, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour – perhaps even more so". Time magazine called the film a "far-out, uptight and vibrantly exciting picture" that represented a "screeching change of creative direction" for Antonioni; the magazine predicted it would "undoubtedly be by far the most popular movie Antonioni has ever made".

Conversely, Pauline Kael found Blowup to be vague and vacuously symbolic. She argued that these aspects led audiences to find the film artistic and intellectual.. In that regard, she likened it to Last Year at Marienbad.

Bosley Crowther, film critic of The New York Times, called it a "fascinating picture", but expressed reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blowup a "stunning picture – beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells". Even director Ingmar Bergman, who generally disliked Antonioni's work, called the film a masterpiece.

Anthony Quinn, writing for The Guardian in 2017 for the film's fiftieth anniversary, described Blowup as "a picture about perception and ambiguity", suggesting an association between elements of the film and the Zapruder film capturing the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.

According to author Thomas Beltzer, the film explores the "inherently alienating" qualities of mass media, where "the camera has turned us into passive voyeurs, programmable for predictable responses, ultimately helpless and even inhumanly dead". Bilge Eberi of Houston Press notes the contrast between "the sinewy movements of the girls, their psychedelic jumpsuits and slinky dresses and multicolored minis", and "the blurred, frozen, inchoate unknowability of the death contained within [Thomas'] image", which "is a glimpse of the eternal and elemental ... that completely reorders, or rather disorders, Thomas's world. As an artist, he can't capture it or understand it or do anything with it. As an individual, he can't possess it or consume it."

Roger Ebert described the film as "a hypnotic conjuring act, in which a character is awakened briefly from a deep sleep of bored alienation and then drifts away again. This is the arc of the film. Not 'Swinging London.' Not existential mystery. Not the parallels between what Hemmings does with his photos and what Antonioni does with Hemmings. But simply the observations that we are happy when we are doing what we do well, and unhappy seeking pleasure elsewhere. I imagine Antonioni was happy when he was making this film."

In his commentary for the DVD edition of the film, Peter Brunette connects it to the existentialist tenet that actions and experiences have no inherent meaning, but are given a meaning within a particular context. According to Brunette, this is demonstrated by the scene in which Thomas takes Jeff Beck's guitar neck out onto the street: "He's rescued the object, this intensely meaningful object. Yet, out of the context, it's just a broken piece of a guitar [...] the important point here being that meaning, and the construction we put on reality, is always a group social function. And it's contextual."

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 87% approval rating based on 54 reviews from film critics, with an average rating of 8.3/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics.

American director Martin Scorsese included Blowup on his list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker".

Films such as The Conversation, Deep Red, Blow Out, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Enemy of the State have been inspired by Blowup.

Awards and honours

Home media release

Warner Home Video released a Region 1 DVD of the film in 2004. In 2017, the Criterion Collection issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD, featuring a 4K remaster from the original camera negatives, in addition to new bonus materials.

Notes

1. Several people known in 1966 are in the film; others became famous later. The most widely noted cameo was by The Yardbirds who perform "Stroll On" in the last third. Michelangelo Antonioni first asked Eric Burdon to play that scene, but he turned it down. In an interview Sterling Morrison of The Velvet Underground claimed that Antonioni had also asked the Velvet Underground to appear in the film, and the band members were "more than willing", but due to the expense of flying the Velvets over from the US, Antonioni instead decided on an English group. As Keith Relf sings, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck play to either side along with Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty.
2. After Jeff Beck's guitar amplifier fails, he bashes his guitar to bits as The Who did at the time. Michelangelo Antonioni had wanted The Who in Blowup as he was fascinated by Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing routine.
3. Steve Howe of Tomorrow recalled and wrote "We went on the set and started preparing for that guitar-smashing scene in the club. They even went as far as making up a bunch of Gibson 175 replicas and then we got dropped for The Yardbirds who were a bigger name. That's why you see Jeff Beck smashing my guitar rather than his!"
4. Janet Street-Porter can be seen dancing in a silver coat and red and yellow striped Carnaby Street trousers during the scene inside the nightclub. A pre-Monty Python Michael Palin can also be seen in the motionless crowd watching The Yardbirds.

References

Bibliography

• Brunette, Peter (2005). DVD Audio Commentary (Iconic Films).
• Gow, Gordon. 1968. Suspense in the Cinema. Castle Books, New York. The Tanvity Press and A. S. Barnes & Co. Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 68-15196.
• Hemmings, David (2004). Blow-up… and Other Exaggerations – The Autobiography of David Hemmings. Robson Books (London). .
• Includes a translation of Cortázar's original short story.

References

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13. Gow, 1968 p. 98
14. Gow, 1968 p. 100: Thomas fails to "redress the [im]balance" And: p. 104: Thomas fails to "maintain equilibrium" between his "creative world" and the "ulcerated area of materialism and fact".
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