The story is set within the contemporary mod subculture of Swinging London,[5] and follows a fashion photographer (Hemmings) who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film. The screenplay was by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond.[6] The cinematographer was Carlo di Palma. The film's non-diegetic music was scored by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, and the English rock group The Yardbirds are seen performing "Stroll On".
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 walks off, leaving the models and 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.
Wandering into Maryon Park, Thomas furtively takes photographs of two lovers. 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 through the park. Thomas then meets his agent Ron for lunch and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Back at his studio, Jane arrives, asking desperately for the film. She and Thomas 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 worriedly looking at a third 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. Thomas is then disturbed by a knock on the door. It is the two teenage girls again, with whom he has a sexual encounter in his studio before falling asleep. After awakening, he learns that the girls hope he will photograph them, but realises that there may be more to the photograph in the park. He tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"
Further examination of a blurred figure on the ground under a bush in one of the blow-ups makes Thomas suspect the man in the park may have been murdered after all. As evening falls, Thomas goes back to the park and finds the body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking. Thomas 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 buzz in guitarist Jeff Beck's amplifier angers him so much that he smashes his guitar on stage and then 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 before anyone can snatch it from him; once he is away from the crowd chasing him, he tosses it onto the pavement and walks away. A passer-by picks up the neck but leaves it on the pavement, not realising its significance.
At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames, Thomas finds Veruschka, who had told him that she was going to Paris; when confronted, she says she is in Paris. 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 and wakes up in a bedroom of the house at sunrise. He 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 and his image fades away, leaving only the grass.
Antonioni's screenplay for Blow-Up 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 snapshots he takes at a public park contain evidence of a murder. As Thomas persists in his role as amateur detective, 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—a life of "material advantages, gained at the expense of ideals". Finally, the conflicted young man questions the reality of his own existence.[11] Film historian Gordon Gow identifies the object in Antonioni's use of suspense:
"In the case of Blow-Up, the mystery [i.e. whether a murder took place] is relevant to the film, but the solution of it is not. Indeed, the absence of a solution is part of the point: life's uncertainty...the true suspense resides not in the mystery of the photographic blow-ups, but in the instability of Thomas himself."[12]
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".[13] Indeed, Gow observes that "a mystery without a solution is instrumental to the theme of disorientation in Antonioni's Blow-up.[14]
The theme of uncertainty is sustained until the final moments of the Blow-Up, when Thomas attempts to resolve the contradictions and ambiguities that arise from his investigations and from his own life, but fails to integrate them.[15]
In the final sequence of Blow-Up, a "garishly attired" mime troupe arrives at the park, escapees from the real world. Thomas joins them in their fantasy play, and like the non-existent ball he "sees" during the troupes' faux match, he dissolves from view: "As a creature of the factual world, he no longer exists."[16] Thomas' fate is known and the audience's suspense is resolved, but Antonioni leaves the meaning of the film open to speculation.[17]
Gordon Gow considers alternate interpretations for the film's ending:
"Since Blow-Up is not resolved happily, but rather in a total surrender to fantasy and consequently to oblivion, we can take it either as an exhortation to come to terms with reality, or as a cautionary tale in which the pursuit of material gain is a threat to humanity."[18]
Several people were offered the role of the protagonist, including Sean Connery, who declined when Antonioni refused to show him the script, the photographer David Bailey, and Terence Stamp, who was replaced shortly before filming began after Antonioni found David Hemmings in a stage production of Dylan Thomas's Adventures in the Skin Trade.[21]
This is also Jane Birkin's first film role, in which she appears naked in a threesome sex scene[22]
The opening mimes were filmed on the Plaza of The Economist Building in St. James's Street, London, a project by 'New Brutalists' Alison and Peter Smithson that was constructed between 1959 and 1964.[23] The park scenes were filmed at Maryon Park, Charlton, south-east London, and the park has changed little since the film,[24] although Antonioni painted the grass green to meet his requirements.[25] Photographer John Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place to Antonioni for much of the interior and exterior filming, and Cowan's own photographic murals are featured in the film.[26][27] Other locations included Heddon Street[28] where the cover of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album would be photographed,[29] and Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea.
The rock club scene featuring the Yardbirds performing "Stroll On" – a modified version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" with new lyrics – was filmed at Elstree Studios, from 12 to 14 October 1966.[30] English broadcaster, journalist and writer Janet Street-Porter appears in the scene as a dancing extra in a silver coat and red-and-yellow striped trousers.
An example of a rare 'Chinese Eye' Silver Cloud III DHC as used in the film
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."[31] 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.[32] Two scenes in particular give credence to this theory: the first in the restaurant when the new lover's character (played by Lovell),[33] is seen apparently tampering with Thomas' car, and the second when Glover and Redgrave are glimpsed together in a Rover 2000 following Thomas' Rolls-Royce.
MGM did not gain approval for the film under the MPAA's Production Code in the United States.[5] The film was condemned by the National Legion of Decency. The code's collapse and revision was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributor, Premier Productions, and Blow-Up was shown widely in North American cinemas.[8]
Box office
Writing about Antonioni for Time in 2007, the film writer Richard Corliss stated that the film grossed $20 million (about $139 million in 2023) on a $1.8 million budget and "helped liberate Hollywood from its puritanical prurience".[2]
The film earned $5.9 million (about $41.2 million in 2023) in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada in 1967.[36]
Critical reception
Film critic Andrew Sarris said the movie was "a mod masterpiece". In Playboy magazine, film critic Arthur Knight wrote that Blow-Up would be "as important and seminal a film as Citizen Kane, Open City, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour – perhaps even more so".[37]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".[38]
Bosley Crowther, film critic of The New York Times, called it a "fascinating picture",[5] but expressed reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blow-Up 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".[5] Even film director Ingmar Bergman, who generally disliked Antonioni, called the film a masterpiece.[39]
The conscience of Thomas in Blow-Up is not troubled by any sense of obligation or responsibility to the girl [Vanessa Redgrave as Jane] he has photographed in the park. Human relationships do not go very deep with Thomas. Selfish and self-tormented, he draws what confidence he can from the mastery he has over his camera. Yet his blow-ups of the pictures from the park disclose that the camera has possibly functioned independently [of him], in the sense that there is more in the photographs than Thomas realized when he took them. Thus his mastery is called into question.
—Film historian Gordon Gow, Suspense in the Cinema (1968)[40]
According to author Thomas Beltzer, the film explores the "inherently alienating" qualities of our media, where "the camera has turned us into passive voyeurs, programmable for predictable responses, ultimately helpless and even inhumanly dead".[4] 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 his image," explaining that the photograph "is a glimpse of the eternal and elemental – the dead body and the gun are both in the bushes, almost like a natural fact – 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."[9]
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."[41]
In his commentary for the DVD edition of the movie, Peter Brunette connects the film to the existentialist tenet that actions and experiences have no meaning per se, but are given a meaning within a particular context; this is especially borne out by the disposal of the broken guitar after the rock show: "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."[42]
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.[43] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics.[44]
American director Martin Scorsese included Blow-Up on his list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker".[45]
^ 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.[55] As Keith Relf sings, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck play to either side along with Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty.
^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!"[57]Michelangelo Antonioni also considered using The Velvet Underground (signed at the time to a division of MGM Records) in the nightclub scene, but according to guitarist Sterling Morrison, "the expense of bringing the whole entourage to England proved too much for him".[58]
^ abvbcsc03l@vax.csun.edu (snopes) (25 May 1993). "Re: The MPAA". The Skeptic Tank. Archived from the original on 18 August 2017. Retrieved 1 August 2012.((cite web)): CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Gow, 1968 p. 100: See here for Gow's profile of the Thomas character both socially and sexually, emphasizing Thomas’ cynicism-misanthropy, and "at the same time reaching out rather blindly for toward spiritual fulfillment".
^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.
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). ISBN978-1-861-05789-1.
Huss, Roy, ed. (1971). Focus on Blow-Up. Film Focus. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. p. 171. ISBN978-0-13-077776-8. Includes a translation of Cortázar's original short story.
