Blow Up

Mary Kate Gowl

Prof. Hammond

Visual Literacy

2/20/10

Blow Up Analysis

In 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni directed a controversial art film consisting of fashion photography, orgies, pot, and groupies. Blow Up is the highest-grossing art film to date, was picked as the best film of 1967 by the National Society of Film Critics, and got Oscar nominations for screenplay and direction. Today, you rarely hear it mentioned.

In the beginning of the movie you are introduced to Thomas, a good-looking young photographer with a Beatles haircut, a convertible and "birds" beating on his studio door for a chance to pose and put out for him. My first impression of him was very sleazy. I think that his weight played a major role in this because it gave the impression that he was a skinny, perverted photographer that was only after sex and money. After getting to know his character, my thoughts about his personality remained the same but I was more intrigued. He is very artistic and knows what he wants and I find that very interesting and became more involved in his life.

The second main character you meet is Jane. She is frolicking in the park that Thomas wandered into to take photographs. Thomas finds her and her companion very appealing and takes pictures of them from a distance. When Jane finds out she is enraged, but why? Is it because she is married? Is her companion married? Even after her attempts to make him stop he refuses.

Jane: What are you doing? Stop it! Stop it! Give me those pictures. You can't photograph people like that.

Thomas: Who says I can't? I'm only doing my job. Some people are bullfighters, some people are politicians. I'm a photographer.

This is when the movie becomes interesting. It pulls the audience in and starts the journey to the climax of the film.

Following his run in with Jane at the park she proceeds to follow him to his apartment where she begs for the roll of film and even strips for him. Since Thomas is an artist, and very sleazy, he misleads her into taking another roll instead. After Jane leaves he develops the film and makes a shocking discovery. He sees, or thinks he sees, a man in the bushes with a gun and it is pointing at Jane’s companion. He also sees, or thinks he sees, a body lying in the grass. Even though I watched this movie on my free time and paused and zoomed in on the picture he was probing and can’t see the gunman or the dead body. The bushes where this suspected gunman is hiding are too pixilated to see anything important. Which brings me to the understanding that he is seeing what he wants to see.

After he sees the pictures, and of course has an orgy with two young models, he goes back to the park where he shot the photos of Jane, her companion, and the possible gunman. He finds a body, but has not brought his camera and is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking. When he returns in the morning, the body has disappeared and Jane is nowhere to be found.

Whether or not there was a murder isn't the point. This film is ultimately about a character caught up in boredom with an over active sex drive, but his photographs are the only thing that truly excite him. As Thomas moves between his darkroom and the blowups of the park, we recognize the happiness of an artist lost in what behaviorists call the Process; he is not thinking about money, ambition or his own nasty personality defects, but he is lost in his work, he is lost in his blowups. His mind, hands and imagination work in rhythmic sync. He is happy with what he is doing.

All in all, as with anything that we love it all disappears. The photos, the body, Jane, and ultimately Thomas all disappear. Antonioni has described the disappearance of his hero as his "signature." It reminds him of Shakespeare's Prospero, whose actors "were all spirits, and are melted into air." This film daringly involves us in a plot that promises the solution to a mystery, and leaves us lacking even its players. Something that many movies this day can rarely do without major criticism.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Blow-Up

Danielle Salm
Prof. Hammond
Visual Literacy
February 22, 2010

Film Review of Blow Up

Blow-up takes place in the 1960’s and the main character, Thomas, is a photographer in swinger London. The movie starts off, with his everyday life of taking photographs of women in his studio. Throughout these first few scenes, he shows the audience his egotistical, materialistic and controlling tendencies. He frequently uses his male dominating characteristics to womanize the females taking part in his sessions. He is extremely controlling and mean to the woman and shows no respect. In frustration he tells them “close your eyes, stay like that, it’s good for you”. That comment can be interpreted in many different ways. First off it contributes to his lack of respect for them in saying your only good for beauty and sex so rest up because it is all they have to give in life. It also can be looked at in terms of keep your eyes shut because what you see can lead to problems that you could never foresee. The eye can take you many places when the brain tries to translate what one sees.
He then decides that he needs a change of scenery and travels over to the park. Upon entering, he takes a picture of the four pillar like trees that somewhat symbolize the pillars of a temple. He is entering the temple of an unknown world other than his own. He lives in a world where he is very sure of everything he does, says, and sees. In this world, what he sees is not always what is really there. There is a brief second where yellow flowers flashed on the screen while entering which symbolizes clarity, knowledge, and intelligence. This is done to show that something is about to unfold for him that he didn’t expect would happen. Thomas catches staged romance occurring in the park. He sees this as an ample opportunity to finish off his book of pictures that tells a story of chaos. The girl sees him taking the pictures and rushes over to get back the proof of what she has just done. He denies her the photos and leaves to go show his friend the pictures.
While showing his pictures at lunch, he spots someone that seems to have a particular eye out of him. He proceeds to try and follow this man. He loses his target because the man and woman are slyly pursuing him. The photographer arrives back at his home and is greeted by the woman from the park who continues to insist on the pictures to be put in her possession. The propeller arrives slowly after she throws herself at him desperately. He seems to have lost interest in the propeller, which seemed to have much more importance when he originally found it. He goes into the dark room and intentionally takes the wrong negatives and hands them over to the woman whom we now know as Jane. She leaves and he goes to develop the pictures to see what she was fussing about.
Once developed, the pictures are blown up and hung on a clothing line, compared side by side. While analyzing the pictures he sees something odd but out of focus behind the fence where she is looking. He then goes to re-develop that picture but more focused on the fence area. When that process is done, a faint visual of a hand holding a gun is seen. The story begins to unfold.
Girls show up at his house soon after repeatedly asking for him to take their pictures. They end up getting into a sexual play fight with Thomas’ purple paper hanging over the wall. Earlier he had the woman demanding for the pictures stand in front of this purple screen. She also had been wearing a purple shirt throughout the scenes. Purple in Thailand, the U.S and England has sometimes been portrayed as a color of mourning and can also be looked at as an unlucky color. This plays well into what is soon to be uncovered by the photographer. He proceeds to make the girls leave so he can evaluate the pictures further. A body is seen in the far background lying by a bush. That night, he goes to see if what he thinks he sees is in fact real. The body is there, cold and lifeless. He touches it and leaves, not knowing what he should do.
When he gets back home, his house has been ransacked. Thomas finds his neighbors girlfriend there who he obviously has some interest in. She came to see what was going on with him because he had stopped by her boyfriend’s house and left when he saw they were busy. He told her about seeing the body but that he didn’t really see it. She asks why he didn’t call the police and he dodges the question. He needs to figure it out on his own. He doesn’t know if this is real and needs to get to the bottom of it.
He sees the girl outside of a store called Permutit and as fast of a glimpse he saw of her, was how fast she vanished. It looks as if she disappeared out of thin air which plays even more into this imaginary world he is caught up in. He enters a club where everyone is standing zombie like listening to the band. When the broken guitar is thrown into the crowd, Thomas grabs it out of the crowd and is chased out of the building with it in hand by the rampaging audience. The guitar neck that he took symbolized something of value or worth because everyone wanted it. Once he was outside on the streets with people who weren’t at the show, the guitar neck lost its importance and he lost his attraction to it so dropped it on the floor. Someone picked it up but then put it back down because it was now merely trash. This to him symbolized his work and the confusion he had for the value of his work after he unraveled the secret behind the pictures.
He goes to his friend Ron’s where everyone is doing many drugs and socializing. The photographer tries to explain to his friend about the body but he is not taken seriously. Ron brings him to a room where he passes out and wakes up in the following morning. He looks out the window and sees the park where the murder took place. He walks down to the bush where he had been the night before and the body is gone. Now the question is, was it ever really there in the first place?
In his utter confusion he decides to take a walk. He finds school kids dressed like mimes driving around recklessly. The idea of a mime is to see something that isn’t actually there. They pass him a few times before stopping at a park. Two of the teenagers enter the tennis courts and engage in an imaginary game of tennis. He watches from the gate as they play. He sees this ball go back and forth, as the other kids watch in amusement. The imaginary ball is hit over the fence and they stare in anticipation for him to go get it. He walks over and picks up the ball and throws it over. He watches carefully to make sure that this ball got back over the fence. He now saw what was not really there. This scene ties up the theme of the movie very nicely. It portrayed the fact that through different interpretation the real world and the imaginary one can run very close together. He is stuck between the real world he lives in and the one within his photographs. One could get lost in trying to differentiate the two. It is all about how you look at things, what you focus on, and the meaning that slowly forms from those feelings.

Maggie Pringle, Blow-Up Review

Maggie Pringle

Film Review of Blow Up

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up. The plot had been explained briefly to me beforehand and it sounded like a dull plot to me, but I went into it with no premature judgments. Antonioni seems to have a bit of a reputation for scenes that seem to drag on forever. For example, Bosley Crowther from The New York Times stated, “ It is redundant and long. There are the usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings.”[1] There are indeed numerous scenes that progress at a slow rate and with minimal talking or sound. I thought Blow-Up was entertaining but the plot was a bit monotonous and I found myself annoyed that the scenes took so long to make sense and contribute to the plot.

I did not hate the film by any means, watching it was interesting because I like the time period it was set in and there was a factor of suspense. The beginning of the film was a long build-up of the main character, the photographer. It was clear that he was a sort of playboy and that the women he photographed often fell for him only to be disappointed when he kicked them to the curb after he got what he needed from them. “Everything about this feral fellow is footloose, arrogant, fierce, signifying a tiger—or an incongruously baby-faced lone wolf—stalking his prey in a society for which he seems to have no more concern, no more feeling or understanding than he has for the equipment and props he impulsively breaks.” 1 However, it took awhile for the combination of scenes to make sense to me, for it to all add up. I don’t know if it is my personality that affected my opinion of the film, seeing as how I am not a huge fan of anything slow-paced. Thank goodness the plot was not too complex, I feel that the film would have much longer if every aspect of the plot took ten minutes to explain. I will say though, the waiting creates a level of suspense that does keep you watching.

The 1960’s is a time period that I am fascinated with, I think Antonioni did a great job capturing the chaotic feeling of the 60’s in this film. I think that this film is an appropriate account of the 60’s because of its richness in sexuality. Tim Dirks says in a review that some of the most memorable scenes in the movies are: “- the photographer's erotic, photo-shoot crawl - to the point of orgasmic release and satisfaction - over the supine body of model Verushka, while he snaps fashion photos., - the woman from the park's visit to his studio, to again desperately and persistently beg for the undeveloped roll of film by becoming topless. He becomes both intrigued and suspicious. To get her to leave, he gives her a different roll of undeveloped film., - a very sexual, menage a trois romp with two wanna-be teenage models (blonde Jane Birkin and brunette Gillian Hills), who wrestle with him on a large roll of purplish-blue backdrop paper, with quick glimpses of female pubic hair after they have been stripped of their clothes.” 2 But again, the first scene where he is shooting photographs of the thin model, it is a long scene and after a couple snaps I grew tired of what I was watching and was ready for a scene transition.

There was a continuing theme that I picked up on involving Thomas and his camera. It was like in a world where he obviously didn’t love many things or people for that matter, his camera was his baby, he was most comfortable with his camera. “He is in control of himself and situations only when he is armed with his camera; without it, he is at his weakest and most vulnerable.” 3His obsession with photography interested me as he was not shown getting a wink of sleep in the movie, he was like a die-hard artist of some sorts. Of course this obsession escalated when he thought he might have caught a murder on film.

I know there is a deeper meaning to this film, it tests the ideas and limits of illusion and reality. However, even when I’m aware of a movie’s message, it does not necessarily cause me to appreciate it. Blow Up was an enjoyable experience, it had suspense, sex and sixty’s flare, but I can’t say it was great. The fast scene cuts went on and on in the beginning which I wasn’t fond of and much of the scenes in the rest of the movie were dragged out. It shall remain a significant film of the 60’s but it shall also remain as just another film in my mind.

---

[1] Crowther, Bosley. “Rev. of Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni.

__The New York Times__19 Dec 1966.

2 Dirks, Tim. “Rev. of Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni.”

3 Bowles, E. Stephen. “Rev. of Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni.”

Blow Up Reaction Paper

Robert Hubbard

February 24, 2010

Hammond

Blow Up Reaction Paper

I found blow up to be a very interesting movie. Often I am disappointed these days after leaving a theater, because the plot of the movie has no creative aspects at all. Todays fast paced movies with images and camera shots rapidly firing across the big screen often lose the art of film. Blow Up was a piece of art. There was a creative plot, making the audience think and wonder at what would happen next. This creates a more active viewing of a movie. Though the movie was old in style and had a slow pace with long camera shots, it was a gripping movie due to plot depth and artistic camera angles.

The plot was exciting. An ordinary photographer is out in a park shooting a couple, unaware of the evil unfolding beneath the surface. The strange encounter with the woman makes him ponder as to what he could have photographed. My favorite scene was when he was studying the pictures and finally discovered the man with the gun by following the woman's gaze from another picture. The movie has a sort of unresolved ending. The hero never catches the murderer and he has no proof that anything ever took place. The kids at the end of the film playing imaginary tennis are symbolic of the fact that he knows that he witnessed a murder, but to everyone else he might as well have imagined it up like a fake game of tennis.

The movie also uses a technique that is often used in film. Starting and ending the movie in a similar location or with a similar action. The kids with white face paint are at the beginning of the film running around asking for money, with no real relationship to the plot. Then they appear again at the end of the film when they ride through the park and start playing an imaginary game of tennis. This time they are showing the viewer the theme of the film. That life is how you view it.

I enjoyed watching the film and it was an interesting shot into life in England in the 60's.

Blow Up Review

Sarah McConnell
COM 232; Visual Literacy
Paper#3 – Review of Blow Up

“Nothing like a little disaster for sorting things out.” – Thomas, Blow Up

The movie Blow up is a visual buffet of superficial beauty but it also contains a twisted plot that makes you think about reality and how we attempt to control it. Is what we see really there and is what you see what you get? Taking place in London, we meet Thomas, a mod 60s photographer who is a male chauvinistic control-freak. You instantly want to hate him, but seemingly can’t resist his arrogance and nickel slick attitude. As a result, we are drawn in to a world of Thomas’ unique design; a world of deranged beauty. Within this world, only Thomas is in control and we are just along for the ride. He controls the women of his choosing, his art, and every situation that he finds appealing or attractive.

The first sign of Thomas’ control is when he is photographing the model Veruschka. Knowing she has to catch a plane to Paris, he makes her wait over an hour to be photographed and proceeds to make sure she knows he doesn’t care about his own tardiness. This lack of respect lets us know that he feels superior. He begins to bark orders at her and photographs a sexual dance that is meant only for his pleasure. However, he treats her better than he treats his other models, The Birds. Thomas forcefully poses them into the art that he wants to create. He demeans them with this tone, sarcasm, and overall rude behavior, making them appear insecure and small which is in contrast to the stereo-typical high fashion model behavior. He does not apologize for his bad behavior because if he can control their actions, he can then manipulate the vibe, the physical scenery, and the final images produced from his camera. Therefore, he is the only one who can make his art. Knowing this is very important because it sets the tone for the upcoming events that cause us to want more from this tormented man.

The park scene is pivotal when looking at the scenery and Thomas’ control issues. The park appears to be beautiful and lush, a utopian-type place to shoot the ending for his dark photography publication. During this shoot, he photographs a beautiful yet conservative woman and a middle-aged man who appear to be frolicking within the confines of Thomas’ Garden of Eden. He becomes so wrapped up in the superficial beauty of his surroundings that he cannot see that the park becomes a dangerous place of pure evil and violence as his maiden beauty is an accomplice to murder. The woman pursues and confronts him about invading her privacy during such an intimate moment, and this only adds to Thomas’ arrogance and perceived control of the situation.

Jane: Stop it! Stop it! Give me those pictures. You can't photograph people like that.
Thomas: Who says I can't? I'm only doing my job. Some people are bullfighters, some people are politicians. I'm a photographer.

By putting himself within the realm of a politician, he makes himself seem very important and therefore will do whatever he wants. When she asks for the film, he refuses her thus starting a game that he thinks he is controlling. She follows him to his studio, demands the film again and then is reduced to playfully seducing him to get what she wants. Due to his juvenile arrogance, he does not see that she is playing him. Thinking he can gain control of her, he gives her the wrong roll of film. Succumbing to his curiosity, it isn’t until he develops the film that he sees the dark side of his serene shoot. He begins to see the violence and murder as he blows up the photos and reviews them with a magnifying glass. The contrast of the park’s appearance and the dark reality taking place within is absolutely striking. It is at this moment, when he begins to lose his control.

His need to control and understand the situation causes him to go back to look at the body. During this time, Thomas’ overall demeanor and cool/collected behavior is beginning to crack. He is discombobulated, jittery, and erratic with his actions. The original photographs and negatives have disappeared. While driving he sees his lovely maiden, who disappears before his eyes. He is completely losing control over everything he knows. To help regain control, he attempts to re-photograph the body, which has long since disappeared.

This experience has physically and emotionally changed him as is shown in the final scenes with the mimes. He is now deflated, humbled, and open to the real world around him. He watches a tennis match performed by mimes and eventually realizes that what he sees may or may not be real, therefore he must open himself to all things (shown by him finally disappearing in the open field).

This film is beautifully shot with extremes and excess. However because of the excess, we realize how simple our own reality can be. Simple, yet still beautiful.

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