Blowup
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The famous scene in Blow-Up -- carefully excised in many countries -- in which two stray London "birds" finally involve the photographer in casual sex on the floor. The glimpse of pubic hair was unprecedented. Film as a Subversive Art, 1974, Amos Vogel |
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Blowup (also rendered as Blow-Up) is an award-winning 1966 British-Italian art film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It tells the story of a photographer's involvement with a murder case. The film was inspired by the short story "The Droolings of the Devil" by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, and by the work, habits, and mannerisms of Swinging London photographer David Bailey.
Blowup stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, and Jane Birkin. 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).
Controversy: end of the production code, start of MPAA film rating system
Blowup was the first mainstream (and British) film to feature a brief glimpse of female pubic hair — in this case, Jane Birkin's, this occurs when David Hemmings is frolicking with two models; the film also includes a simulated orgasm and Vanessa Redgrave topless.
The American release of the counterculture-era film with its explicit content (by contemporary standards) by a major Hollywood studio was in direct defiance of the Production Code and it was denied approval, but MGM released it anyway. Its subsequent outstanding critical and box office success proved to be one of the final events (along with the release of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) that led the code to be finally abandoned in 1968 in favour of the MPAA film rating system.
Plot
After spending the night at a doss house, where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos, 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 departs the studio, two teenaged girls who are aspiring models ask to speak to him, but Thomas drives off to visit at an antique shop.
Wandering into Maryon Park, Thomas takes photos of two lovers. The woman, Jane, is furious at being photographed, and pursues Thomas, demands his film, and ultimately tries to snatch his camera. He refuses and photographs her as she runs away through a meadow. 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 film roll. She, in turn, writes down a false telephone number and gives it to him.
Thomas, curious, makes multiple zooms of the black-and-white film of Jane and her lover. They reveal Jane worriedly looking at a third person lurking in the trees with a pistol. Thomas excitedly calls Ron, claiming his impromptu photo session may have saved a man's life. Thomas is disturbed by a knock on the door, and it is the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, he finds they hope he will photograph them, but he realizes there may be more to the photographs in the park. He tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"
Further examination of a blurred figure under a bush makes Thomas suspect the man in the park may have been murdered after all, during the time Thomas was arguing with the woman around the bend.
As evening falls, the photographer goes back to the park and finds the body of the man, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. Thomas returns to find his studio ransacked. All the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup of what is possibly the body.
After driving into town, he sees the woman and follows her into a club where The Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar and Keith Relf on vocals, are seen performing the song "Stroll On". A buzz in Beck's amplifier angers him so much, he smashes his guitar on stage, then throws its neck into the crowd. A riot ensues. The photographer grabs the neck and runs out of the club before anyone can snatch it from him. Then, he has second thoughts about it, throws it on the pavement, and walks away. A passer-by picks up the neck and throws it back down, not realizing it is from Beck's guitar. Thomas never locates the elusive woman.
At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, the photographer finds Veruschka, who had told him that she was going to Paris; when confronted, she says she is in Paris. Thomas asks Ron to come to the park as a witness, but cannot convince him of what has happened because Ron is incredibly stoned. Instead, Thomas joins the party and wakes up in the house at sunrise. He returns to the park alone, only to find that the body is gone.
Befuddled, Thomas watches a mime troupe perform a tennis match, is drawn to it, after a bit picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. As he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard and his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends.
See also
