BLOW-UP (1966) BROKE THE FILM RULES AND BLEW OUR MINDS. There are films you watch. And then there are films that watch you, that burrow beneath your skin, colonize your dreams, and leave you wandering through parks years later, squinting at bushes, wondering what you might have missed. Highly Recommended. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” (1966) is a film of such audacious originality, such hypnotic visual power, and such unsettling philosophical depth, that five decades of imitation, homage, and critical analysis have done nothing to diminish the impact. Time has only magnified its brilliance. In an era drowning in images, with screens glowing in every pocket, and those AI-generated fake photographs flooding our feeds, surveillance cameras tracking our every move, yes this movie is Antonioni’s meditation on the nature of seeing, the treachery of evidence, and the loneliness of perception and reality, within the context of 1960s London, and has never been more urgently relevant.
Another cultural context that influenced the production and the reception of “Blow-Up”, was the on-going evolution of motion picture censorship during the 1960s. This is not merely a great film. It is a landmark, a seismic event in world cinema history that shattered the MPAA “Hollywood Studios Production Code”, and redefined the relationship between European Art Cinema and popular culture, and gifted us one of the most breathtakingly ambiguous endings ever committed to celluloid. From its “Swinging London” setting, of a free and creative youth culture, in some respects a problematic youth culture, which reached a worldwide audience in the mid-sixties. The unforgettable “The Yardbirds” cameo, also from its bravura darkroom sequence, to its haunting final shot, its unexplained storytelling, the movie instantly had cult-status, and “Blow-Up” is THE perfect film.
—
THE CONTEXT OF HOW THIS EUROPEAN MASTER REDISCOVERED CINEMA. Before “Blow-Up,” Michelangelo Antonioni was already legendary, but was legendarily difficult. His “trilogy of alienation” with “L’Avventura” (1960), “La Notte” (1961), “L’Eclisse” (1962) and then his first colour film “Il Deserto rosso” = “Red Desert” (1964) firmly established him as cinema’s preeminent poet of existential emptiness. His heroines (almost always, the magnificent Monica Vitti) drifted through modernist landscapes like ghosts, unable to connect, unable to feel, unable to be. These were films of immense beauty and profound melancholy, but they were also, and let us be honest, the films that tested audience patience. Longeurs. Silences. Characters who wandered away from the plot, like bored children.
Then came, counterculture-era London. 1965. Swinging London. The city was vibrating with something new, with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Mary Quant, David Bailey, Twiggy, Carnaby Street, the King’s Road. It was, as the journalist Christopher Booker would later write, a “revolution in English life,” and it was powered by youth, by money, by easy sex, by freedom, and by images. Michelangelo Antonioni, that most cerebral of Italian directors, dove headfirst into this huge sensory overload. He replaced Monica Vitti with David Hemmings, a baby-faced, bleach-blond actor who looked like a predatory cherub. He replaced the grey landscapes of industrial Ravenna, with the saturated colours of counterculture-era mod London. And he replaced the slow dissolution of relationships, with a (sort of) murder mystery thriller.
The result was the director’s most commercially successful film (grossing over USD$20 million on a USD$1.8 million budget), and his first Cannes Film Festival win, in the 1967 main competition of the Palme d’Or, “Blow-Up” won the festival’s highest honour. Then the film most effectively killed off, the MPAA Hollywood Production Code. When MGM couldn’t get the required MPAA seal of approval, due to the film’s actual nudity and sexual content, they simply invented a dummy shell company called “PREMIER PRODUCTIONS CO INC.” and released under the heading “A CARLO PONTI PRODUCTION” and then with the above opening credits, released the movie, to USA cinemas. The Hayes Code’s authority completely crumbled. In 1968 the MPAA ratings system was born. “Blow-Up” helped to quickly liberate Hollywood from the puritanical prurience of the Hayes Code, and did more than just break the rules, because it made the rules obsolete.
—
THE PLOT – WHAT YOU SEE OR THINK THAT YOU SEE. The bare bones of the plot, though to reduce “Blow-Up” to only the plot, is like reducing an orchestra symphony, to only its sheet music. Thomas (David Hemmings) is a mod fashion photographer at the top of his game in London. He drives an open-top Rolls-Royce vehicle. He has a sprawling white-painted studio (the actual studio workspace of a real photographer, John Cowan). He commands armies of female models, who pose and preen at his slightest gesture. He sleeps with whoever he wants, and often does, with a casual cruelty that is breathtaking. He is, in every external measure, a man who has won. But Thomas is dead inside. The counterculture-era milieu freshly presented, all of the sexual freedom and the iconoclasm of mod London, the drugs, the fashion, rock music, pot parties, all was extremely attractive to 1960s cinema audiences.
We see this in the film’s opening sequence, where “a pack of female and male mimes” (So are they university students? stoned? dangerous?) and all those actors repeatedly make loud noises, but do not speak, and when they pile out of their Land Rover, and are seen careening through, City of London streets. (British university students, dressed up, raising money for charity, in the annual ritual known as “rag week”.) Then cut to Thomas, emerging at sunrise from a flophouse, where he has spent the night photographing the homeless. He is dressed like a tramp, with tattered coat, filthy trousers, but then he climbs into his Rolls-Royce without missing a beat. The poverty he has documented is just aesthetic material. The suffering is content. He does not care about these people, he only cares about his fresh pictures of these people.
This is the central contradiction of Thomas, and of “Blow-Up” itself. The camera is his lifeline and his curse. It gives him power, money, sex, drugs, access. But it also insulates him from genuine experience. He photographs life, rather than living it. He observes rather than feels. To borrow a phrase, the perfect modern subject, mediatized, commodified, and profoundly alone. Then he wanders into Maryon Park, Greenwich, a strange, lonely green space in southeast London, with a peculiar microclimate and an almost supernatural stillness. Antonioni had the grass painted a deeper green, the pathways darkened, the fences re-coloured. Nothing is accidental here. Maryon Park becomes unexplained storytelling, with a kind of stage, a dreamscape, a place where both perception and reality begin to fray.
Thomas spots a kissing couple. The beautiful woman Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), is wearing a man’s Rolex Watch plus a slimming checked male shirt (not a blouse), and is with an older, grey-haired man. They embrace. They argue. Thomas, is hidden behind a tree, and starts clicking. The woman sees him. She panics. She demands the film. He refuses. She chases him. He escapes. Director Antonioni builds the unexpected true heart of the film, by using the tryst in the park as a setup for murder. The mystery of the death in Maryon Park, Greenwich, is the MacGuffin, because the real story of this bizarre dark mystery is the most detailed and unsettling cat-and-mouse game, ever created in cinema history.
The woman Jane, finds and enters Thomas’s studio and home. She offers money. She tries seduction. They share the unintentionally hilarious scene, in which Vanessa Redgrave seems to have never heard music before. They smoke some weed, (1967 NO drug usage, shown at any Australian Cinemas) then she takes her shirt off, and as the year is 1966 of course there is no bra, then she submits to his arrogant, almost bored sexual advances, and they probably would have “slept together”, except that they were interrupted by the delivery of the aircraft propeller, that Thomas needlessly impulse bought earlier in the day. When she tells him she has to go, he pretends to give her the original film, and she in turn pretends to give her land-line telephone number. Thomas in a moment of cold calculation, gives her a different roll of film, keeping the real one for himself. Why? He is not sure. Curiosity. Instinct. The first stirrings of something that others might be called interest.
—
BLOW-UP HAS CINEMA’S GREATEST DARKROOM SCENE. If you have never seen “Blow-Up,” prepare yourself for approximately fifteen minutes of the most mesmerizing, dialogue-free, pulse-quickening cinema. Thomas develops the film. We watch the negatives emerge in the chemical bath, ghostly images swimming into focus. He makes contact prints, which he spreads across the studio floor. Thomas picks up a magnifying glass, and starts looking closer. He enlarges his negatives, uncovering hidden details, blowing up the smaller and smallest elements, just trying to solve the puzzle. What is that? In the bushes? Behind the couple? Is that . . . a hand? Is that . . . a gun?
He makes several enlargements. The images grow grainier, more abstract, and more ominous. He pins them to the wall in sequence, creating a kind of storyboard. The camera pans across them, and as it pans, Antonioni adds the sound of wind, yes the wind from the park, the wind that was there when Thomas was photographing, but that he did not hear, because he was too busy looking. Yes, this is the film’s philosophical heart. Thomas’s camera captured more than his eyes could see. The photograph contains information that the photographer missed. The image is not a perception window onto reality, because it is a document of reality’s excess, its surplus, its terrifying abundance.
– SPOILERS – And then Thomas sees a mystery figure, hidden in the bushes. A man pointing a gun. The embrace was not an embrace? The romance was a setup? The couple was being watched, or perhaps one of them was the killer? Has Thomas photographed a murder? Or has he constructed one through the act of enlargement, of interpretation, of obsessive looking? Unexplained storytelling, because the film refuses to say. And that refusal is its greatest strength. Not intended to be solved, and the mystery is not solved during the film. – SPOILERS –
—
THE PERFORMANCES OF HEMLINGS, REDGRAVE, AND THE ART OF DISTANCE. David Hemmings was a last-minute replacement for Terence Stamp, and his casting is one of those miraculous accidents of cinema history. David Hemmings has none of Terence Stamp’s smouldering charm. He has an odd-looking—wide face, two pale eyes, with a mouth that seems perpetually on the verge of a sneer. But he moves like a predator. He has the coiled energy of someone who might strike at any moment, or might simply walk away.
Thomas is not a hero, he has pure contempt for women. He is not even particularly likeable. The sexually explicit scenes, includes the debauchery with the three-way orgy with the two teenage girl models, and moreover there were some rumours whispering about, that one could actually see female pubic hair. The two groupies are treated like sexual playthings (as played by Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills) and its controversial portrayal of nudity, by literally wrestling them to the floor, tearing at their clothes, pulling off their clothes, and then contempt when tossing them out, when he loses interest.
The decadent milieu was enormously attractive at the time. Thomas uses Veruschka (Veruschka von Lehndorff) yes the real-life supermodel, who is playing herself, with frequent cruelty as a canvas for his photographic frenzy, draping her across his studio floor, snapping away while she writhes in a state that might be ecstasy, or might be performance. By any reasonable moral and ethical standard, Thomas is a monster.
David Hemmings makes us watch him anyway. Because Thomas is also the only person in the film who wakes up. When he discovers the possible murder, something ignites behind his eyes. For the first time, he cares about something beyond the frame. He goes back to the park at night. He finds the body of the grey-haired man, lying dead in the bushes. He touches the corpse. Then Thomas goes to get his camera, and when he returns, the corpse is gone.
Vanessa Redgrave’s Jane, is the film’s other great mystery. She appears in only a handful of scenes, but she dominates every one of them. Vanessa Redgrave plays Jane as elusive, seductive, and deeply, profoundly unknowable. Unexplained storytelling, so is she the killer? A witness? A victim? She literally vanishes into a crowd, so in the one frame yes she was there, and in the next frame then she has gone, as if Antonioni has simply erased her from existence.
This is not a failure of storytelling. It is a statement of intent. In “Blow-Up,” people are not puzzles to be solved. They are presences to be experienced. And then they disappear.
—
THE VISUAL LANGUAGE, COLOUR, COMPOSITION, AND THE PAINTED CITY. The crisp look of this film, is extraordinary. Carlo Di Palma’s cinematography is a masterclass in colour theory. The fashion sequences explode with bright primary hues including reds, greens, blues, yellows, pinks, that seem almost violent in their intensity. The park scenes are cooler, greener, more organic, though even here Antonioni has intervened to achieve the colours which he required, painting the grass greener, darkening the paths. The night scenes are washed in sodium-orange street-lighting, giving London an otherworldly, almost toxic glow.
Antonioni was a control freak, and it shows. Every frame is composed with geometric precision. Characters are often placed at the edges of the frame, or seen through windows, or reflected in mirrors. The architecture included the brutalist “Economist Plaza” tower blocks at London Wall, the white-painted studio with its exposed rafters, all becoming characters in themselves, often pressing in on the human figures, dwarfing them, containing them.
The film is also fascinated by the relationship between stillness and motion. The black-and-white photographs are static, frozen moments. The film is movement, duration, flow. When Thomas arranges his enlargements on the wall, the camera animates them, turning still images into a narrative. Antonioni is reminding us that cinema is just photography that moves with time attached, and that time, like the camera, can deceive.
—
THE YARDBIRDS SEQUENCE GATHERS ROCK AND ROLL AS METAPHOR. However for Australian Cinemas, the film censorship board removed all footage concerning drugs and/or indicating drug use, including all of “The Yardbirds” sequence in the basement club. Thomas follows Jane into the basement club. The Yardbirds are playing, but with Jimmy Page on bass, and Jeff Beck on lead guitar. The song is “Stroll On,” a reworking of their smash hit song “Train Kept A-Rollin”. The entire audience stands motionless, with arms crossed, all faces blank. A seriously sullen and unenthusiastic audience, and they all look like shop mannequins, as if waiting for something.
The basement club scene, remains one of the most perfect music moments in all of cinema. When Jeff Beck’s amplifier starts feeding back, he glares at it, then he kicks it. He picks up his guitar, a replica Gibson ES-175 and begins smashing it against the stage. The crowd goes insane. They surge forward, grabbing for pieces of the broken instrument. Thomas fights his way through the melee, and seizes the guitar neck, clutching it like a trophy. He runs outside, breathless, victorious. And then, he stops. He looks at the broken piece of wood in his hands. He drops it on the pavement. He walks away. (But not seen in any Australian Cinema.)
This is the entire film in miniature. The pursuit of something, a guitar neck, a photograph, a truth, is intoxicating. But the possession of it, is meaningless. Thomas does not want the object, he wants and needs the desire for the object. Once he has it, the magic evaporates. Such as is, the tragedy of modern life in London, when living during the Swinging Sixties.
The drug-drenched party-goers, are at the marijuana-weed house on the Thames. Thomas asks the cannabis-addled Ron to come to the park as a witness, but cannot convince him of what has happened. Ron and Thomas, plus all the house party-goers smoke some marijuana-weed, Ron in particular smoking two at the same time. (1967 NO drug usage, shown at any Australian Cinemas.) Lack of context, truely explains exactly why Thomas is unable to get his drug-stoned publisher Ron, or anyone else for that matter, to care about the murder that he thinks took place. No one else has the context that Thomas does, because no one else witnessed, what he witnessed. Unexplained storytelling plot hole, as to why Thomas wastes so much time, trying to get Ron to go with him to the park, rather than just going alone to find the corpse. Thomas gives up on photographing the corpse at night, when Ron refuses to join him. However for Australian Cinemas, the film censorship board removed all footage concerning drugs and/or indicating drug use, including the whole sequence with the drug-drenched party-goers.
—
THE ENDING WITH TENNIS, MIMES, AND THE VANISHING SELF. Now we come the ending. The movie ending, that has driven audiences crazy, for sixty plus years, except in Australia. The morning after, is when Thomas now discovers that the body has disappeared, he returns to Maryon Park, Greenwich. The grass is empty. The bushes are still. There is no evidence that anything ever happened. Unexplained storytelling. Was there a murder? Was there a body? Did Thomas imagine everything?
Thomas sees the mimes from the opening sequence, a troupe of pale-white-faced performers in striped shirts. They are playing tennis, but there is no tennis ball. There are no rackets. They mime the entire tennis game, the serve, the return, the volley, the chase. Yes they are very convincing, and so very committed, that Thomas watches them, and with growing fascination. One of the mimes hits the tennis ball out of bounds. The ball lands at Thomas’s feet. He picks up the invisible ball, and throws it back. He watches the game continue. And then, ever so slowly, he walks into the frame, past the mimes, past the net. (1967 NO drug usage, shown at any Australian Cinemas). However for Australian Cinemas, the film censorship board removed all footage concerning drugs and/or indicating drug use, including all of the mimes, and their mimed tennis sequence in Maryon Park, Greenwich.
And then, Thomas very slowly walks into the green grass. The camera cranes up. Thomas grows smaller and smaller until he is just a speck. And then he disappears. Fade to black. The End. Unexplained storytelling, so what does it mean? Is Thomas accepting the illusion? Is he surrendering to meaninglessness? Is he achieving some kind of enlightenment? Perhaps he just tired, tired of searching, tired of seeing, tired of being the only person who cares?
The answer is, all of the above. Antonioni is not providing any solution, however he is posing a question. And the question is not “what happened?” but “what counts as happening?” The mimes tennis game is pure fake, but their commitment is real. Thomas’s photographs are real, but the murder they depict may be fake. The body was there, and then it was not there. The truth is elusive, perhaps non-existent. In a world saturated with images, and “Blow-Up” predicted our world with eerie accuracy, so what can we actually trust? The camera? Our eyes? Our memory? Or nothing at all?
—
THE LEGACY: FROM “THE CONVERSATION” TO “BLOW OUT” TO YOUR INSTAGRAM FEED. “Blow-Up” changed cinema, and not slowly, not subtly, but immediately and permanently.
Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” (1974) directly echoes the themes of “Blow-Up”, swapping photography for surveillance audio. Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out” (1981) is practically a “Blow-Up” remake, with John Travolta as a sound engineer who accidentally records a murder. The entire genre of “investigative thriller” owes a huge debt to Antonioni’s vision of the solitary observer, piecing together all the evidence, that may or may not be real. “Blow-Up” also inspired the Hindi film, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron” (1983) directed by Kundan Shah, with the similar plot that two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of a Bombay Municipal Commissioner on their cameras, and later discover that murder, when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is named “Antonioni Park”.
But the film’s influence extends far beyond direct homages. Every time a photographer character in a movie is portrayed as alienated, obsessive, and morally compromised such as “One Hour Photo” (2002), “Nightcrawler” (2014) the shadow of Thomas looms. Every time a film questions the reliability of visual evidence, consider “Zodiac” (2007), “The Report” (2019), and “JFK” (1991) then Antonioni’s darkroom sequence echoes.
In 2026 when deepfakes and AI-generated images have made “seeing” and “believing” functionally separate categories, “Blow-Up” feels less like a period piece, and much more like a prophecy. The meaning has flip-flopped, for some parts of the film. We are all Thomas now, scrolling through endless images, trying to find the truth in the grain, often unsure whether what we are seeing ever happened at all.
Because “Blow-Up” is not a mystery. An anti-mystery. A film about the process of investigation, but not its resolution. All about what happens when you care so much about finding the truth, that you lose the ability to distinguish real truth, from real fiction. About the loneliness of seeing what no one else can see, or thinking that you see it. And that is a much more interesting subject, than a whodunit.
—
CRITICAL RESPONSES, THEN AND NOW. The full range of reactions, greeted “Blow-Up” upon its release in 1967. Penelope Houston (1967) called it “fascinating” but complained of “inaccuracies of perception” and “shaky intellectual generalisation.” Andrew Sarris (2006) praised its “sublimity of beauty and terror.” Roger Ebert, published in his Great Movies essay, that “whether there was a murder isn’t the point. The film is about a character mired in ennui and distaste, who is roused by his photographs into something approaching passion.” Pauline Kael, expressed her negative opinions about the film’s ultimate value, but made some very valid points, and famously, hated it. She saw the film’s ambiguity as pretentious, its open-endedness as a cheat, its admirers as victims of the emperor’s new clothes. Thomas is often unlikeable.
—
THE PRODUCTION CODE, THE NUDITY, AND THE SCANDAL. We should fully address the nude elephant in the room, because the nudity as seen in “Blow-Up” was scandalous in 1967, and much was made of that nudity in 1967. The undressing-game scene with Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, with the two underage-looking models (Birkin was 19 and Hills was 22, but they played much younger) and “Blow-Up” involved actual female full frontal nudity, plus simulated sexual activity. In 1967, reportedly, this was the first British feature length movie film, to show such nudity in British Cinemas. In 1967, this was the first British feature length movie film, to show such nudity in Australian Cinemas. However for Australian Cinemas, as required by Australian Legislation, the film censorship board should have removed all footage concerning/ indicating actual female full frontal nudity. Australian Cinema Audiences, could all confirm that all adult women appearing on cinema celluloid, must not show their breasts/ nipples/ pubic hair.
The MPAA Hollywood Production Code office was quite apoplectic. They demanded huge censorship cuts. MGM refused. Instead, MGM invented “Premier Productions Co Inc.”, a shell company with no obligation to the MPAA Hollywood Production Code, and then widely released the almost uncut film in the USA, but with only a few seconds of film removed in the USA. When “Blow-Up” became a massive USA hit, the MPAA Hollywood Production Code’s authority was fatally wounded. By 1968, the entire Hays Code was gone.
Today in 2026, watching that famous nudity, it is striking about how tame and un-erotic it is. Thomas treats the two girls with unwelcome contempt, never ever asking for their consent, plus just using them for sex, then discarding them, never ever seeing them as people. The female full frontal nudity, almost has happenstance, is casual and is clinical. Antonioni is not titillating us with nudity, he is critiquing titillation. Showing us the utter emptiness at the heart of the sexual revolution, the way that kind of “freedom” can become just another form of inappropriate and offensive exploitation. This is not to excuse the scene’s very problematic elements. The power dynamics are very uncomfortable. The two girls are clearly being taken advantage of. But that still is, the point. Thomas is not a hero. He is a symptom. And the film is diagnosing the disease.
—
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS. However Antonioni did trim a few seconds, of its explicit sexual content, from the scene where the photographer observes his neighbours making love, for all the American Cinema release prints of this counterculture-era film “Blow-Up”. This was done with NO publicity, according to Variety, done ON-THE-QT and perhaps was done because of “exploitation expediency” (“MGM Prunes Print on QT.” Variety of 26th January 1967.) The tiny amount of trim, is fully documented on page 99 in the “Blow-Up” script, as attached.
For those keeping the score, the original UK cinema release ran 111 minutes. The original USA cinema release ran 110 minutes. The PAL television version runs 108 minutes. There was the notoriously butchered Australian Cinema release, that ran just 81 minutes, so at all costs, please do try to avoid that alternate version. The current Warner Bros. home video release (available worldwide from 2004 on DVD, then Blu-Ray, and 2020s streaming on-demand) is the full uncut 111 minute original British version, and looks quite stunning. CBS TV USA edited 14 minutes from this film, for its 1973 free-to-air network television première.
“Blow-Up” was also reviewed, by considering the dramaturgical perspective, by demonstrating the diverse narrative techniques, dramatic structures and genre forms used, whilst closely examining the craft of screenwriting, but with special attention given to characters’ dynamics and development. MGM’s original press releases on “Blow-Up” heavily emphasize the youth appeal of modern London, “where teenage pop singing groups have their records sold in shops owned by people their own age, and photographers who have barely started showing, drive Rolls Royces with radio-telephones.” (MGM Publicity Release).
Carlo Di Palma’s photography, has never been more luminous. The colours pop. The film grain is forever beautiful. The 1966 original mono sound design, with the wind in the trees, the hiss of chemicals in the darkroom, the feedback of Jeff Beck’s amplifier is immersive and haunting. Herbie Hancock’s fresh jazz score and soundtrack, is another highlight. Diegetic soundtrack music, since we hear jazz music coming from all the radios and record players, as located within the film’s world. But all that jazz music, superbly functions almost like a Greek chorus, commenting on the action, amplifying the mood. Herbie Hancock would go on to compose many great film scores and soundtracks (“Death Wish”, “Round Midnight”), but his jazz score on “Blow-Up” remains his most iconic.
—
MY FINAL VERDICT AND WHY 5 STARS IS JUST NOT ENOUGH STARS. I saw “Blow-Up” in the one capital-city GU cinema, more than a dozen times during 1967. “Blow-Up” watched on Laserdisc, and VHS and DVD, has been seen more than a two dozen times since 1980. Writing about it, arguing about it, dreaming about it. Fortunately every time I watch “Blow-Up”, I do notice, another something new.
In March 2026, it was the many colours of the London houses in the Rolls Royce driving scenes, bright blues and bright reds that Antonioni had painted specifically for the film, creating a London that never ever existed, but should have. This time, it was the way that Veruschka (Veruschka von Lehndorff) moves exactly like a panther, like a goddess, like a woman who knows exactly what the camera wants, and gives it anyway. This time, noticed the sound of Thomas’s footsteps on the gravel path in Maryon Park, and the way those footsteps seem to echo, even when the wind should drown them out. Unexplained storytelling “Blow-Up” became a very successful arty backdrop by the master filmmaker Antonioni, for three sexually daring scenes, including its controversial portrayal of nudity. “Blow-Up” is an art film, delivering a counterculture-era meditation, on a certain young generation. “Blow-Up” can be seen, as distractions and illusions, rather than as unambiguous representations of attractive mod London. “Blow-Up” is also a sexually explicit commercial film, containing sex, drugs, and rock and roll, with everything set in Swinging London.
“Blow-Up” is not a film that reveals all its secrets on first viewing. Or twelfth. Or fiftieth. This film withholds, teases, frustrates, and yes that precisely makes it greater. We still live in the age of unexplained storytelling. We live in an age of unexplained answers, and/or unexplained questions. Google Search knows everything, and often lies. Wikipedia has pages for everything. MacGuffins (plot-devices) are found everywhere. Spoilers (important plot developments) are found everywhere. Certainty is now a commodity.
“Blow-Up” offers no certainty, supplying just the unknown unknowns, as it offers only questions, but without answers. Is the photograph real? Is the murder real? Is Thomas real? Are we real? And in the end, does it matter? The mimes are actually mimes, who play their invisible game. The ball is invisible. But they throw themselves into it, with their total commitment. And Thomas, for a moment, joins them with his total commitment. But I can hear the sound of the two tennis rackets, hitting the tennis ball. That is the film’s final, devastating insight that “Meaning is not found. It is made.”
★★★★★★ Five stars. No, six stars. No, all the stars. Please go and watch “Blow-Up.” Watch with your friends, watch it alone, watch at night with the lights off. Watch it on the biggest screen that you can find. Watch it and then let it wash all over you, the colours, the sounds, the silences. Let it frustrate you. Let it confuse you. Let it change you. And then, when it is over, go for a long walk in a park. Bring your iPhone. Take some pictures. Look closely. Look too closely. And then ask yourself, “So what did I miss?”
—
· STARRING – Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David Hemmings, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Gillian Hills, Peter Bowles, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Julian Chagrin, Claude Chagrin
· Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
· Screenplay by Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Edward Bond (English dialogue)
· Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma
· Music by Herbie Hancock
· Running Time: 111 minutes (UK cinema version)
· Running Time: 110 minutes (USA cinema version)
· Rating: Unrated (1966 refused MPAA Hollywood Production Code seal, for the UK cinema version)
· Original Cinema Distributors: Premier Productions Co Inc., Carlo Ponti Production, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Bridge Films (now via WARNER BROS.)
My Final Recommendation – ESSENTIAL VIEWING. MASTERPIECE. LIFE-CHANGING. LIFE-CONFIRMING. — This film critic will never look at a photograph the same way again.
All original photographs are copyright to their respective owners. Intended for editorial use only. All material strictly only for educational and research and non-commercial purposes.
Music Soundtrack Listing – All compositions by Herbie Hancock except where indicated.
“Main Title from Blow Up” – 1:41
“Verushka (Part 1)” – 2:47
“Verushka (Part 2)” – 2:15
“The Naked Camera” – 3:27
“Bring Down the Birds” – 1:55
“Jane’s Theme” – 5:02 –
“Stroll On” (The Yardbirds) – 2:49
“The Thief” – 3:17
“The Kiss” – 4:17
“Curiosity” – 1:35
“Thomas Studies Photos” – 1:17
“The Bed” – 2:39
“End Title Blow Up” – 0:52
Filming Locations –
Maryon Park, Greenwich, London = The murder scenes.
Chiswick, London.
Strand on the Green, London.
Pottery Lane, Kensington, London = photography studio.
Woolwich Road, Greenwich, London = is the road with the blue/ red warehouses that Hemmings drives his Rolls-Royce along, getting to the antique shop.
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHtss48sNOc&
VIDEO | Blow-up (1966) – Film Preview Trailer |
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNPVjNwzTCg&
VIDEO | “Blow-Up” (1966) | The Model scene |
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ArHxmELYg&
VIDEO | “Blow-Up” (1966) | Photoshooted Models scene |
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zeza1xeWKM&
VIDEO | “Blow-Up” (1966) | 4.17 Yardbirds Scene |
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYyhRbQBgs&
VIDEO | “Blow-Up” (1966) | Tennis Game scene |
