Blow-Up (1966)

When I took photography at RISD I ran around Brown and RISD in my Hemmings white jeans and blazer drag.

Pure hooey. Love Redgrave in this, though.

An excellent film. I first saw this at a movie theater showing retro films in NY around 1990. I ended up buying this just recently on Criteria blu-ray.

I saw it for the first time a few years ago. Not bad, I think I just expected more from it given its reputation (plus I normally enjoy films like this, as well as other works by this director from this era). Got a bit tired of all those grey looking scenes in the park, haha. The cast were all memorable, but I wouldn't rate it as high as others have.

I could only take it to the end once, at least, I think it was the end, when they mime a tennis match in the park. It seemed to me that I had been watching the dreck for 8 hours straight. in fact it's much less than that. I don't know why these excrutiating bores pass as "masterpieces " for the het crowd. Maybe because they don't understand and don't want to feel stupid . "the king is naked " to me. it sure makes my "10 most boring movies ever made" list, up there with citizen kane, 2001 a space odissey, l'avventura, death in Venice. Give me Rosemary's baby anyday

So dreary.

A director who doesn't know the English language says there will be only SENTENCE of spoken English dialogue every 15 minutes.

All the characters were zombies. Vanessa had only a short role in it.

Visually stunning and radical, but lacks substance. Gorgeous little time capsule.

It has great, very cinematic, moments and some other very boring ones. I remember reading somewhere that the budget ran out and so there is no proper ending (hence the tennis match).

[quote] no proper ending

Antonioni doesn't believe in plots, characters or 'proper endings'.

R9, or dialogue, or acting.

The walks and photo sessions in the park especially, are very cinematic and of the era. It's just a fashion movie but not a bad one.

Mia 's first scene in this, blasts the whole blow-up mess in 5 minutes

Blow-Up (1966) is all about Models. And the World of Models.

The pose of Models, the clothes of Models, and the intellectual pursuits of Models.

It's not a competition. Yes Mia was exquisitely fashionable.

Loved this. A few years after JFK's murder, and the grainy imagery of the person in the bushes caught hold with conspiracy theorists so it got a lot of buzz. It's all about the mood. David Hemmings reminds me of Blur's Damon Albaran in this.

Loved it but I am a huge Antonioni fan. Antonioni captures the issues with the modern world better than anyone else. I would argue that he is the most influential director from the past 70 years or so.

Fantastic, imperfect film I’ve watched countless times. I’ve noticed something different each time.

I love all the long, quiet scenes in the park with the sound of trees rustling in the wind. And the scenes of him in rooms just looking at stuff and thinking. Then little bursts of activity.

Watching this film is very meditative. Like being underwater.

I also love all the scenes in the park, the whole Vanessa Redgrave sequence in Hemmings’ apartment, and the scenes of him developing the photos and the sound of the wind.

But unfortunately the mime stuff goes on too long, and there are other sequences like the antique shop scene that just feel unnecessary and drag the movie down. The good stuff makes the tedious stuff worth sitting through however.

The main role should have been played by a more fuckable actor.

R19 like Terence Stamp

Antonioni wanted David Hemmings to go full frontal in one scene, and Hemmings was prepared to do it, but the director changed his mind at the last minute.

^ probably after seeing his tiny dick

One of my favorite movies and I've never been able to pin down exactly why. I guess it's just the vibe. The way the danger that starts infecting his free-wheeling world slowly. That endless scene with the two girls in his loft is so weird. And yeah all of the park stuff is hypnotic.

“…and get rid of that bag, it's diabolical.”

I always loved this segment from an interview with Redgrave in the trivia section for the film’s IMDb listing:

Vanessa Redgrave had to work double duty while filming her role. She would shoot with Michelangelo Antonioni during the day in London while at the same time starring every night, plus two matinees a week, in the title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on stage. Despite the rough schedule, however, Redgrave found it very rewarding to work with Antonioni. "With Michelangelo the camera angle, its movement, the frame, their colour, position, and movement, whether human or inanimate, told his story," she said in her 1991 autobiography. "The dialogue was of no great significance, or certainly of secondary importance. Trained as a dancer, I was able to appreciate this. I learned to look sharply and precisely at the shapes and colours around me. Exact positions, angles of the body, the head and shoulders, exact tempo of movement, were vital to him. I had never encountered such an eye in the cinema. In English and American films, colours and shapes were part of the decoration, appropriate, but only as background to the action. In Michelangelo's films they were the action."

*autobiography

R25, she is so spot-on about Antonioni. He really changed the language of cinema. You really have to read the image when it comes to his films.

Interesting film about the idea that reality is subjective, how things are not always what they appear to be and the reliance on technology to discover the truth. The film clearly influenced Brian de Palma's Blowout and as someone else posted the film seems somewhat inspired by how the Zapruder film was used to analyze the assassination of JFK.

Scene at a London party

Hemmings: I thought you were in Paris

Veruschka: (smoking a joint) I am in Paris

Blow Up is an empty bombon. Antonioni is the most overrated director of the 20th Century.

What is a bombon? The Monica Vitti films are AOK in my book. Cerebral, arty, and chic artifacts of a time. He may be a bit overrated but depends how your contextualize. In some views, the movies are very good.

I recall The Yardbirds performed when Jeff Beck and Jimmy Paige (pre-Led Zeppelin) were in that band.

The Yardbirds recorded "Stroll On", a reworking of Tiny Bradshaw's "Train Kept A-Rollin'", for Michelangelo Antonioni's critically acclaimed film Blow-Up. Their appearance in the film came after the Who declined and the In-Crowd were unable to attend the filming. Andy Warhol "Factory" band The Velvet Underground were also considered, but were unable to acquire UK work permits. Antonioni instructed Jeff Beck to smash his guitar in emulation of the Who's Pete Townshend. The guitar that Beck destroys in the film was a cheap Höfner instrument.

You have to put it in the context of the time...it is one of my favorite movies ever...I saw it in a theater in London that played it 24hrs in 1968...to me the silence of some if the scenes is brilliant...when he is in the park...all you here is wind...

[Quote]Blow Up is an empty bombon. Antonioni is the most overrated director of the 20th Century.

Blow-Up is more interesting, thought provoking, compelling and challenging than Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Aquaman, Spiderman . . .will ever be and certainly no one will be studying them or discussing them 50 years after their release.

I don't care much for superhero movies but I must give some of them credit for having some interesting political and psychological subtext hidden under all the CGI and I disagree that nobody will be talking about them in the future. Much as it may be hard to accept, those movies have influenced a entire generation as much as the films from our youth influenced us. Fifty years from now they'll be talking about them as we talk about Hitchcock today.

I once drove all the way to Woolwich to see that park - it was exactly the same. The antique shop was gone though.

The 1967 Mad magazine movie parody, THROW UP

De Palma’s BLOW OUT was a direct homage

This film is a time capsule. I was around for the debut in theaters and I'll watch it any time I see it listed. I recall being surprised to see pubes on screen. This wasn't the norm back in those days. I found Hemmings to be attractive but impishly petite, physically. Maybe it was smart to have kept the pants on. I loved the park scenes, especially with the wind playing such a provocative role. It really does play into the JFK theorists. The tennis match was a tad too long but managed to make sense of the film as a whole. The idea that the Yardbirds were loudly rocking their asses off to a room of hipster, fashionista types with dour expressions, being very careful not to move with the music or display any enjoyment, really captured a moment in time from that era. Well done. Verushka - - What can be said about this unattractive human stick other than she exemplified the fantasy look for every other female of this time period?

"De Palma’s BLOW OUT was a direct homage"

You mean it was a title rip-off as well as a rip-off of everything Dario Argento.

[quote] The main role should have been played by a more fuckable actor.

They wanted Terence Stamp. He said he was interested after reading the outline.

Terence Stamp later found out the "outline" was in fact the final shooting script. He said he didn't train at a very expensive Academy of Dramatic Art to appear as a mute in a silent movie.

[quote] David Hemmings reminds me of Blur's Damon Albaran in this.

His appearance? His sexual addiction? His silence? His lazy eyes?

[quote] ...all you here is wind...

OK.

[quote] I would argue that he is the most influential director from the past 70 years or so.

Oh R16, you need to 'argue' a bit more to make that big statement credible.

[quote] You have to put it in the context of the time.

Sensible people put everything in the context of the time. Fashions in art, behavior and sex are getting turned upside-down every decade.

[quote] I recall being surprised to see pubes on screen

Chuck Heston claimed he was the first to show pubes. In 'Planet Of TheApes'.

No one's quoted the "queers with poodles" line.

So, Italiano Antonionioni hated the homosessuali.

Maybe he hated poodles as well R49 or was that just the character?

Lady Redgrave was annoyed and irritated by this silly movie as much as I was.

But she was particularly annoyed and irritated that baby Vanessa exposed her miniature dugs to the camera.

One of my favorite movies to rewatch now and then and I still don’t understand parts of it. There is a bookend pair of scenes with young merrymakers at the beginning and end that many film historians also don’t understand.

That bookend pair of scenes means nothing. It was the capricious editor.

Is Zabriskie Point worth slogging through?

Not with that attitude, young man.

[quote] Is Zabriskie Point worth slogging through?

No it isn't.

Antonioni was lost in 'in Blow-Up' trying to deal with the English language.

But he was thoroughly alienated by Americana and he treated Americans as if they were Martians.

Which is why Zabriskie Point is well worth watching R56!

It's our favorite movie.

Some Pole (or Czech) thought 'Zabriskie Point' worth slogging through.

^ At least the male lead in 'Zabriskie Point' had some sex appeal.

The male lead in 'Blow-Up' looked like a cum-dump prostitute rejected by Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.

[Quote]Is Zabriskie Point worth slogging through?

no. It's a dud

Here's the stars on Dick Cavett with Rex Reed and Mel Brooks. The interview is like pulling teeth

Zabriskie Point does make America seem like another universe...and not necessarily in a good way.

In the Julio Cortazar story from which "Blow-Up" was adapted, the photo features a woman trying to lure a young teen boy on the street for an older man waiting in a car nearby. Some commentators have described the depiction of the older man as stereotypical and the contextualization of the procurement as homophobic.

R63 that's creepy.

I reckon Antonioni was a sex-mad heterosexist.

Women were were used as sex-objects in ALL his movies. Men looking at nubile young women was more important than things likes plot, and characterisation.

Blow-Up is VERY similar to 'Peeping Tom'.

[Quote]Blow-Up is VERY similar to 'Peeping Tom'.

How so?

It's all about Obsessive Men LOOKING at Passive females and either masturbating or killing them them.

Well, they were both made in England R66 but otherwise . . .

Peeping Tom

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Blow-Up

A fashion photographer discovers he may have captured a murder on film.

[quote] No one's quoted the "queers with poodles" line.

I wanted to, because there's the exact same joke in JOHN AND MARY, but I thought none of you guys had seen that movie anyway. Basic homophobic sixties joke

[quote] Lady Redgrave was annoyed and irritated by this silly movie as much as I was. But she was particularly annoyed and irritated that baby Vanessa exposed her miniature dugs to the camera.

I wonder how she reacted when Vanessa told her she was divorcing her husband because she had found him in bed with her father ? was lady Redgrave annoyed and irritated much ?

R67 That’s not what BLOW UP is about at all, not even symbolically. You clearly haven’t seen it.

However that is what PEEPING TOM is about.

Very different films.

Verushka is such a fascinating cipher to me.

She looks really great now:

I love an aged natural face with spectacular bone structure.

^ in which alterrnate universe is this considered attractive ? she was nasty then, is nasty now. Freak

I was fascinated with Picnic At Hanging Rock, much like Blow Out. I heard they were 'arty' films, and I did love them both, for many different reasons. The mood created, something creepy lurking around the corner, made them irresistible, and yet all these years later, I still don't know what they really about.

left out were above

I always thought REAR WINDOW and BLOW UP were basically about the same thing. Similar but different (and with different resolves).

Have you seen it R67?

Blow-Up, as you might have heard, is about Thomas (David Hemmings), a photographer in Swinging Sixties London who accidentally takes a picture of a murder. Sort of: He’s photographed an amorous couple during a rendezvous in the park and, as he later looks through the images, he discovers, fuzzily hovering in the edges of his frame, a figure with a gun. Then he discovers, even more blurry and indistinct, a dead body in the background. A narrative briefly seems to form in the photographs. The couple he’s captured clearly did not want to be seen. VILLAGE VOICE

Have you seen it R70?

Blow-Up, as you might have heard, is about Thomas (David Hemmings), a photographer in Swinging Sixties London who accidentally takes a picture of a murder. Sort of: He’s photographed an amorous couple during a rendezvous in the park and, as he later looks through the images, he discovers, fuzzily hovering in the edges of his frame, a figure with a gun. Then he discovers, even more blurry and indistinct, a dead body in the background. A narrative briefly seems to form in the photographs. The couple he’s captured clearly did not want to be seen. VILLAGE VOICE July 25 2017

Verushka was/is, a freakish figure. She was never pretty during her modeling years, and she looks like something from a horror film now. She is 83. At the time she modeled, at around 20, she was 6'3" and about 130 lbs. Imagine being that tall at that weight. She had a very strange bone structure. Her head has that eastern European bulbous knob thing on her forehead. She reminds me of a preying mantis.

Verushka was not put over as beautiful. She was patently an emaciated freak. Putting her down as a freak misses the point of the glamour that was being sold. If you want pretty girls please continue to leaf through your vintage Sears and Monkey Wards catalogs.

Sarah Miles drinks her own pee.

Peekaboo

I watch this movie whenever it's on. It's such a great time capsule of the times...the fashion, mod pop culture and music. I enjoy it for the nostalgia alone.

Hipsters, avant la lettre

[quote] Hipsters

Vanessa has no hips.

Veruska was seen as a great beauty. People were skinnier then, especially young people. Also people smoked alot and food wasn't a thing. You ate to live not vice versa. So being skinny was the norm in hip circles.

...Verushka...

...Veruschka...that has to be right!

[quote] being skinny was the norm

Models must be skinny! They cultivate bulimia in order to be skinny

The skinny model in the movie 'In & Out' says she "doesn't have time. I promised to do that photo shot this afternoon. I have to shower and vomit".

I loved the rotary phone bit, r90.

R51, R69

Lady Redgrave's memoir says she discussed this issue prior to her marriage in '35. She knew "Michael had a wandering eye and was out a great deal". She said they "reached a turning point in our marriage" in 1948 when both of them were indulging in adultery.

Antonioni was obsessive.

This tree had to be painted before Antonioni could photograph it

he's a master of film architecture

[quote] he's a master of film architecture

What is "film architecture"? (I can't see it on Google)

Does it move or is it still? Does the movie camera move or is it still?

Needs a re-make with Lizzo in the Vanessa Redgrave role.

I love that film and have seen it a dozen times. But after awhile, what really stood out was the contempt for women, and their subservient status throughout, and how no one questioned that until years later. It is still amazing cinema. Zabriskie Point is not as powerful, but also well worth seeing, more so, in fact than easy Rider, to which it has been compared. I love all the late 60s films.

[quote] the contempt for women

Yes, the main character was a parasite.

[quote] he's a master of film architecture

Has any director since Antonioni changed film as much as he did with his movies? Maybe Kubrick or someone like Tarkovsky but that's all I can think of.

Design and composition R95

[quote] Has any director since Antonioni changed film as much as he did with his movies? Maybe Kubrick or someone like Tarkovsky…

Kubrick and Tarkovsky are both dead ends.

Suitable only for intellectual-wannabes.

A character in "Red Desert" says—

[quote] There's something terrible about reality, but I don't know what it is.

^ Is that profound?

Existentialist?

Nihilist?

Or, perhaps, meaningless?

R96 or better yet, in the Jane Birkin role. Can you imagine her rolling around the floor naked tearing the clothes off another girl?

R101, I admit l love Kubrick but I find Tarkovsky very difficult to like. Very tedious to me.

Fan of Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) one of the few Kubrick films that is emotionally devastating and Lolita (1962) a one of the few outstanding comedies of the 60s.

Paths of Glory⬇️⬇️⬇️

Kubrick = 3 interesting movies out of 20 attempts.

Lolita ⬇️

R108 Kubrick directed 13 feature films and Paths of Glory, Lolita, 2001, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket and The Killing are accomplished films admired by critics, audiences and film historians.

Not to mention The Shining

R110, don't bother, some people just want to be contrarian.

R110 Why don't you include 'Spartacus'?

Though far from the general consensus at 3hrs17mins I'm not a fan and agree with the Times review

NY Times

It is a spotty, uneven drama in which the entire opening phase representing the basic-training program in a gladiatorial school is lively, exciting and expressive, no matter how true to history it is, and the middle phase is pretentious and tedious, because it is concerned with the dull strife of politics.

[quote] Lolita (1962) a one of the few outstanding comedies of the 60s

'Strangelove' is much more funny.

(though funny movies don't belong in a thread devoted to the deathly, nihilist Antonioni)

R114 Is that talking about Spartacus.

I read a convincing piece on a Jewish website saying 80% of Spartacus' makers were Jewish and they made Spartacus into a very good, persuasive drama about Jewish oppression.

R115 I actually find Lolita funnier which along with Dr. Strangelove and B&C&T&A one of the few notable comedies of a decade filled with belabored, trite Doris Day, Jack Lemon. Tony Curtis and Neil Simon comedies.

Yes, R116 it's from Bosley Crowther's review of Spartacus

Bosley Crowther is intelligent, analytical and not at all contrarian, Mr R112!

A damn good movie, I actually saw it for the first time recently. When it came out I was too young to see it, and by the time I was old enough to watch R-rated movies, it had been largely forgotten. But I finally found it on streaming!

Excellent movie, and I love the theme of someone young and ultra-cool being confronted by an ugly reality for the first time, and finding that he still had innocence to lose. Someone could definitely do a modern remake, about a successful social media "influencer", living a life of being seen everywhere fashionable and curating online content, until they see...

Herbie Hancock did the score? I had no idea he’d been around that long.

R35 no one is talking about that disposable empty-headed garbage now!