Of all the new foreign film classics coming new to DVD, Michelangelo Antonioni’s
Blow-Up (1966) is the one to see. It was the famous Italian director’s
first film made in English. It’s essential for a number of reasons, but
the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the movie is how repugnant
and egotistical the character of Thomas is. And yet his contempt for other people
is so wickedly funny.
The movie is so deadpan and carefree about its plot. There really isn’t
any introduction to a plot until the end of the first thirty-minutes, rather
it drolly observes Thomas (David Hemmings) from one casual interlude to the
next. First, Thomas is seen coming out of a soup kitchen for the poor where
we see him dressed in rags. After we’ve suspected this character to be
a down-and-out street person, we’re surprised to see him hop into his
Rolls Royce convertible which looks as if it’s never spent a day in a
car wash. The raggedy clothes may have been some kind of ruse possibly to get
into an undercover assignment, but the movie is not so preoccupied to tell us
that from the start.
Not that it matters. Thomas arrives in his own private studio to do a photo
shoot with a sexy model that we can see is anorexic. First she complains about
his tardiness and that she’s desperate to catch a plane. Thomas is hardly
concerned with her needs. Once at work, their photo-shoot turns into some kind
of erotic dance. Seductively, Thomas feeds her clumps of compliments and risqué
remarks. He moves the camera closer and closer in, until he’s on top of
her while she’s slivering on the floor. He abruptly finishes his roll
of film, and she’s still slivering on the floor because performing makes
her feel hot.
Nothing ever fazes Thomas because he is used to shooting and bedding models.
He even has groupies that come around and beg for him to photograph them or
sleep with them. He constantly refers to women as “birds” (today
he’d likely call them “honeys” according to our pop vernacular).
His conceit is enormous because he always gets his own way. Audiences were captivated
when the film was first released because of the notorious orgy scene that involves
two girls wrestling around in crumpled backdrop paper playfully tearing each
others clothes off. Today it’s a tad tame in a relative way of how the
nudity remains discreet and the film only shows the prelude to the action.
The film still has the enduring ability to shock you and crack you up by how
cavalier it treats everything even when the film has a serious tone. The film
however is always above all other things a character study. And yet the ego
of the character inspires one to admire Thomas’ merciless tactics at controlling
people and rebuke his greediness at the same time. Watching Blow-Up today,
it’s easy to see how it influenced the photo session scene at the end
credits of Austin Powers which brilliantly lampooned the character Thomas.
In fact, Mike Myers probably saw himself as the ugly version of David Hemmings
and saw great comic opportunity to riff on the character for his Austin Powers
movie.
Blow-Up reveals a time and place when people casually avoided emotional
attachments. The film is a time capsule of mod London and grotesque fashions
of that era and is an indication of a new way of sexual free-spiritedness –
or sex without meaning. The action and behavior is always treated with breezy
and nonchalant aloofness. You could say that Antonioni the director is like
Thomas the character in the way that he’s non-judgmental and indifferent
about how he approaches the material. Although it’s obvious that Antonioni
has critical concerns about Thomas the character, it doesn’t concern him
to resolve the film with tidy explanations. Antonioni made a different film
from what another director would have made about this character. Thomas doesn’t
have something as easy as an epiphany to redeem his character’s personality
flaws. Instead, Thomas has an awakening after he’s plunged into a trap
of mysterious events which he has photographed.
Thomas staggers through a park with his camera trying to find something interesting
to photograph. He’s contributing to a book on modern art photography and
he’s looking for something worthy for his final appendage. He sees at
a distance a man and a woman. They’re engaging in something either passionate
or hostile. Are they playing? Are they struggling? This scene where Thomas snaps
a roll of photos is where the plot takes off. The woman (Vanessa Redgrave) chases
him and demands to have the film back. She’ll pay him. He refuses her.
He returns to his London flat and sees that the woman has followed him. The
fact that the woman is so desperate to have the photos back gives him precedence
to toy with her. She undoes her blouse and offers to be photographed nude for
his enjoyment and then offers her body as collateral. Antonioni films much of
Redgrave from behind to make a point of not exploiting his actress in the scene.
Instead, we’re curious about this demure tug of war between them that
has more to do with power struggle than it has to do with sex. Eventually Thomas
sends her away with the wrong roll.
He prints the photos and then sees something hazy but suspicious about them.
Thomas blows up the photos larger and larger. Antonioni cuts back and forth
between the photos, close-up shots and larger blowups, until we see a dramatic
arrangement to them. The audience begins to suspect exactly what Thomas begins
to suspect without ever voicing it aloud. It becomes possible in the revealed
pictures that Thomas may have photographed a murder taken place. This is the
transition for the character. Until now, we’ve seen Thomas the talented
but conceited photographer breeze his way through job to job but now he’s
awakened by a challenge that will put his artistry to the test. Can he prove
there is a murder simply by the way he can print and frame the negatives of
what he photographed?
Of course his investigation is interrupted by the arrival of those two nubile
girls who engage in orgy sex as aforementioned. It serves as a temporary distraction
before Thomas can tersely send them away and get back to his investigation.
He prints up more and more photos. The bigger the blowups the more abstract
the image becomes. The pictures become questionable illusions of dots and blurs,
but it looks conceivable that a gunman is hiding behind the bushes. Maybe but
maybe not.
He returns to the park to see if there’s anything he missed. Behold, he
finds a dead body. This isn’t the part that upsets him. It only confirms
that his suspicions were true. When he returns home he finds that all of his
blowups have been removed and all the negatives have been stolen. Thomas possibly
is involved in a conspiracy and only now does he seek help. Thomas seeks counsel
with his neighbor (Sarah Miles) who is intimately engaged with her boyfriend.
This seems to upset Thomas more than anything else judging by his reaction on
his face but he silently lets himself out of the house. Although the two of
them only shared two brief scenes in the movie up to this point, it is suggested
that Thomas trusts her for counsel more than anyone else (it is never revealed
outright but is it possible that Thomas sees her as the only emotional connection
in his life?) Thomas anyhow must seek someone else to join him in his investigation.
Thomas drives his convertible through London streets and just happens to spot
Redgrave standing on the sidewalk. He gets out of the car to find her, but it
turns out to be just one of the film’s red herrings. Thomas stumbles into
a rock show where the musicians look positively peeved by the club’s bad
sound equipment. One of the guitarists slams his instrument into the floor and
the crowd goes wild to collect the remains as a souvenir. Thomas grabs one of
the instrument pieces and runs out of the club. A temporary distraction until
he gets back to his investigation. He goes to a “fab” party where
there’s lots of drinking and marijuana-smoking (American films up to this
point in cinema history had never filmed such taboo). He seeks out to find one
of his associates whom he can talk to about the murder. Thomas’ friend
is too stoned to follow what he’s saying and what’s left is another
dead end.
Whether there is an explanation to the murder is beside the point. The compelling
material of the film is concerned with Thomas stumbling onto a rare phenomenon
– a possible murder – and never can enlist anyone to assist him
on his quest. Thomas is alone with his investigation. He returns to the park
in the morning and finds that the body has been removed. With all evidence stolen
and destroyed and no other witness it means that no conclusion can be made so
what course of action can Thomas take?
Was there enough evidence in the first place to prove that a murder took place?
Maybe, but it’s circumstantial. What happened? Blow-Up is a definitive
avante-garde film because it doesn’t provide such tidy explanations and
we’re left with more questions than answers at the end. We are left to
speculate about what happened, but more importantly, we’re left to speculate
how this incident changed Thomas’ attitude while it lasted. Thomas is
a bored, know-it-all photographer at the beginning with scenes of him kicking
a girl’s legs apart in his studio when she isn’t posed the way that
he wants. By the end, he’s awakened into a new appreciation for his profession,
aroused by his gift of creativity and momentarily unconcerned by money or ambition.
It’s a small step for Thomas, but he becomes accommodating enough to humor
a bunch of college students who are posing as mimes in the final sequence. The
mimes are playing tennis with an imaginary ball and he’s asked to throw
an imaginary ball over the fence. And as ridiculous as it seems, he does. The
miracle is that a self-absorbed character like Thomas momentarily becomes unconcerned
by his own art and engaged in their performance art. And he has abandoned his
contempt for others and actually is overcome by how happy he feels.
The extras on the DVD are skimpy, but there’s some useful and valuable
commentary on the disc by film critic Peter Brunette. A well-respected expert
on Antonioni, this film critic seems to have a comprehensive knowledge on the
esoteric director. The disc comes with two stroboscopic theatrical trailers
(psychedelic, man!) and has a music-only track for those viewers out there that
like figuring out cinematic puzzles with no sound. Movie: **** Extras: ***
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