OVO Zootropo / Trailer _ Blow Up (1966) Extended Version.

Blowup (as shown in the screen credits, also rendered as Blow-Up on promotional and packaging materials) is a 1966 British-Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, that director's first English language film. It tells the story of a photographer's accidental and incidental involvement with a murder. The film was inspired by the 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo" (i.e. "The devil's drool/drivel") by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar[1], and by the work, habits, and mannerisms of Swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, although the music is mimetic as it is played on a record by the main character. Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Grand Prix.

Blowup stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills. 1960's supermodel Veruschka is also credited, with a memorable scene considered by Premiere Magazine as "the sexiest cinematic moment in history". The screenplay was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with the English dialogue being written by British playwright Edward Bond. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English language films for MGM (the others were Zabriskie Point and The Passenger).

The plot is set in a day in the life of Thomas (Hemmings), a professional fashion photographer. It begins the day after spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos he hopes to publish. He is late for a photo shoot at his studio with 60's supermodel Veruschka, which in turn makes him late for another photo shoot with many other models later in the morning. He grows bored and walks off the shoot (also leaving the models and production staff in the lurch). Exiting the studio, two girls, aspiring teenaged models (Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills), ask to speak with him but Thomas drives off to look at an antiques shop which he might buy. He then wanders into nearby Maryon Park where he sees two lovers and takes photos of them. The woman (Redgrave) is nettled at being photographed and Thomas is startled when she somehow stalks him back to his studio, asking for the film. This makes him want the film even more, so he misleads her into taking another roll instead. He makes many blowups (enlargements) of the black and white photos. These blowups have very rough film grain but nonetheless seem to show a body lying in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. Thomas is frightened by a knock on the door but it is only the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, although they hope he will photograph them then and there, he tells the girls to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Come back tomorrow!"

As evening falls Thomas goes back to the park and indeed finds a body but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. At a drug-drenched party at a house on the Thames River near central London he finds both the French model (who tells him she is in Paris) and his publishing agent (Peter Bowles), the latter whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, Thomas cannot put across in meaningful words what he has photographed. Waking up in the same, now stilled house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone but the body is gone.

Befuddled, he watches a group of university students playing and watching a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up their unseen, make-believe ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mimed match, the sound of a ball being played back and forth is soon heard. As the photographer watches this alone on the lawn he fades away, leaving only the green grass as the film ends.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• OVOZootropo
• Blow
• Up
• Trailer
• 1966
• Extended
• Version

[unclealand]

I AM in Paris. What a great line!