Blowup

Year: 1966 (UK)
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Directed: Michelangelo Antonioni
Stars: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Gillian Hills, Peter Bowles, Veruschka von Lehndorff
Production: Bridge Films


Oddly enough, my first thought after watching Blowup (1966) was the song “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). The film wasn’t a musical by any stretch of the imagination and it wasn’t sweetly decadent. In fact the music in the film is diegetic, that is to say, only on when a character actively plays it; and unlike Willy Wonka, Blowup can be rather unpleasant to watch. Still I was strangely attracted to the film and it’s subtle, ever changing reality.

The story of Blowup takes place in 1960’s London. A well-off photographer (David Hemmings) thinks he may have photographed a homicide but is not quite sure. What he does know is the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) who he initially photographed wants the negatives he took of her and another man in the park. Who is this man? We only know of his possible demise but he may be her former lover.

Don't mind me, just bird watching

We never really know a lot of things in this film. While the photographer’s friends and models are named: Bill (John Castle), Patricia (Sarah Miles), Veruschka (Veruschka von Lehndorff) etc. the photographer himself is never named. Throughout the film pieces of dialogue fills the audience in then obfuscates objectivity once more. The photographer may or may not be married, he may or may not have children, he may or may not have romantic feelings towards Patricia.

The death toll could have been lower if anyone cried for help

Many believe the lack of clarity is supposed to be an artistic take on the limits and failures of communication. Snapping away at his models, the photographer struggles to tell them exactly what he wants. When he asks the meaning of Bill’s abstract painting, Ron explains meaning comes after the fact. All the characters for the most part act too lackadaisical to tell each other anything of substance; even when being blunt. “I saw a dead body in the park,” says the photographer. “Are you sure?” says Patricia.

Yet I’m not convinced Michelangelo Antonioni’s main point stems from humanities inability to connect. The dialogue is willfully abstruse to force audience members to read between the lines. Like the photographer’s Kantian response to justify buying a propeller for decoration, “It’s completely useless”. We’re meant to be observers, voyeurs if you will, not eavesdroppers. Like poetry or Bill’s painting, the meaning comes after the fact and without a context, we’re meant to decipher significance for ourselves.

It’s a movie about perspective, or rather the breakdown of one’s perspective to assume another. The photographer believes he has witnessed a murder yet his suspicions have been verified by no one. His evidence, when put in a context via ever expanding blowups, the man who follows him when he sees his agent (Peter Bowles), the behavior of the woman who comes to visit him, etc. creates the indication that a murder took place but without every piece of the puzzle things start to fall apart.

If you look closely, the photos that the photographer shot were not the ones he developed. The angle is slightly askew to where he was watching the couple. You can tell because at one point, David Hemmings snaps a shot from behind a fence with a spindly young tree blocking a partial view. When the photos are developed there is no tree; a mistake? I tend to think the director knowingly did this to play with the audience and his character. It sneaks in facets of Antonioni’s perspective while informing us of the faults in our own. Can it give credence to the theory that the photographer is going crazy? Perhaps.

One of these things is not like the other...

You can never be too sure what Antonioni’s motivations are with Blowup, though there are two scenes I believe put the communication/perspective debate to rest. Ironically they’re the parts in the movie that confuses the most amounts of people; the scenes involving the mimes that bookend the film. Anglophiles would know that 1: British people are weird, and 2: the mimes are actually part of a tradition known as “The Rag”. Student Rag groups dress up and act like lunatics running around with coin cans for charity. While this isn’t an expressly mimed tradition, Rag groups have been known to practice miming during these events.

Rag raid then and now

At the beginning of the film, the photographer puts a few coins in their cans so they’ll get away from his car. He’s late for a photo shoot and has no time to assume their reality. At the end of the film however he watches the rags play an invisible tennis match in the park. They mime the ball going over the fence and beseech him to go and get it. When he does so he not only accepts the notion that the ball exists and accepts their perspective, he follows the first rule of improv, never deny your partner’s reality. If they say there’s a ball there, you throw it back.

Our reality is we think we're funny after 20 years

Perspective and context can make a broken guitar neck an impossibly valuable artifact or a useless piece of garbage. It can make the controversial scene between David Hemmings, Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills seem like the scurrilous acts of a deviant opportunist or a fun roll in the hay. It can make Willy Wonka relatable to Blowup by the power of each film’s imagination. In the words of Veruschka when approached about going to Paris in a pot-addled haze, “I am in Paris.” I suppose if you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.

Final Grade: B+