BLOW-UP
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
Starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles
Released 1966
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
Starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles
Released 1966
As I write this, a story has just broken that Mitch Lowe, head of a company called MoviePass, intends to lower his company's movie theater subscriptions to just under ten dollars per month. MoviePass will reimburse movie theaters for any loss in revenues. To subsidize what MoviePass expects to be a considerable loss in their own earnings, the company sold off a majority of their holdings to a pair of New York data management companies who intend to use their new film enterprise as a way of gathering information about what kind of movies ticket-buyers want to see. This adventurous undertaking occurs at an interesting time in the evolution of movie-goers inasmuch as at least one generation of film enthusiasts has likely never seen a good movie at the cinema. But the money men behind the studios don't actually concern themselves with financing films that will last the ages. Their concern is what will bring in the ticket-buyers today. Theatrical releases have been so uniformly bad over the last fifteen years that (especially) young people haven't anything released in their lifetimes to draw conclusions from regarding good or bad or mediocre film work.
If you are lucky enough to remember with even minimal clarity the first movie you watched in a cinema, chances are you were simply happy to be where you were watching what you watched. The screen loomed large, the sound was better than home or the drive-in, and you could even rely on the people around you to cue you in on when to laugh, when to scream, and when to shut up and stare. Throughout your teenage years and into young adulthood, if you watched enough of these theatrical releases in honest to goodness movie houses, you began to discern the differences between movies that had been over-hyped on bus stop signs and those that were actually worth your time and money. No doubt you even observed within the various film genres that certain directors or actors attached themselves to better quality horror, science fiction or romantic comedies, just as some could be counted on to rip you off.
With the ascension in the mid-1970s of the blockbuster movie, television advertising gained preeminence in influencing preconceived notions of the value of attending a given picture. And once they got you in the theater, well, Hollywood may have long ago stopped supplying warm-up newsreels and cartoons, but they never missed a chance to whet our appetites with Coming Attractions. By the early part of this century, the money men had mastered the process. Spiderman comes out on a Friday. The Coming Attractions take up ten minutes with three new films scheduled for release in two weeks, plus two films already showing in the multiplex. If the C/A's fail to drive increased attendance to the two movies already showing, those two films will be pulled by the following Wednesday.
How many art films have you seen advertised on television or in Coming Attractions?
The ideal art movie, of course, would be one that has some commercial appeal. You could argue that many of Stanley Kubrick's movies were art films, just as the same could be said of Oliver Stone or even (yes) Martin Scorsese. If you have watched an art film recently, however, chances are excellent that you saw it through some type of streaming service. The movie was probably even filmed with that platform in the director's mind.
Mitch Lowe's plan for reinvigorating cinema attendance notwithstanding, I predict that only two types of movie house films will survive: the aforementioned blockbuster and--sucking the hind teat but never starving--the art film. The latter will lose its hold on services such as Film Struck, while relying on the largesse (or is it noblesse oblige?) of benevolent patrons.
The first movie I ever watched that I knew in advance to be an art film was Blow-Up. A local theater owner ran a rare double feature of that movie followed by Brian De Palma's Blow Out. I wanted to watch Blow-Up because I'd heard The Yardbirds were in one of the scenes (which turned out to be true. I also noted that even as a young man in his early twenties, Jimmy Page already looked to be a hundred and seven).
In the years that followed, I discovered that regarding Antonioni's movie, two equally loud camps had formed. One camp, led by The New York Times, celebrated Blow-Up as a great film that young people could experience as being on their side. The other camp, championed by Pauline Kael, considered it to be self-indulgent garbage.
Both views have merit.
Thomas is a successful fashion photographer obsessed with what Veblen called conspicuous consumption. He buys all sorts of things that he will store on the walls of his home for no other reason than impulse. In fact, the less practical value something has (such as a large plane propeller), the more likely he is to need it. His lifestyle, even when on the job, is that of the Swinging London disaffected hedonist with money to burn.
During one of his random outdoor photo shoots, he happens upon Vanessa Redgrave smooching it up in a park with some older gentleman. When Redgrave observes that Thomas has been snapping his camera in their general direction, she chases after him and insists that he give her the film. He refuses, out of sheer petulance. Thomas may be nouveau bourgeois, but he still enjoys antagonizing the other members of his class.
After he develops the film, he spots something unusual that leads him to enlarge certain frames. Eventually he realizes that he has photographed a murder. He returns to the park and sure enough the dead guy is still there--at least for the moment.
What I have related thus far is only the conventional part of the film. Before and after this we are shown Thomas driving in his Rolls while local students persevere with Rag Week (donning masks and approaching strangers who are strong-armed into cheerfully donating money to charity), while young men walk poodles, while merchants refuse to sell what they're in business to sell, while The Yardbirds break their guitars, while young aspirants pleasure the photographer, while middle-aged men smoke pot with emaciated fashion models, and, perhaps more to the point, while youngish people define their own reality, as in a tennis match that involves neither rackets nor balls, yet which is still mesmerizing to onlookers and to us.
Is it indulgent? Yes. It would not work otherwise. Is it a film that eternal youth can claim as its own? I suspect so because youth lends itself to the notion that reality is relative, that it can be fashioned and falsified and that therefore little need is there in worrying much about it. The argument has been made that such considerations predispose youth to fascist thinking, especially when large groups coalesce at rock concerts or massive festivals. I think that argument has holes, just as this movie has some gapes in its logic.
On the other hand, if you could watch this movie and half a dozen others in a month's time for less than a sawbuck, you'd be crazy to miss it.
If you are lucky enough to remember with even minimal clarity the first movie you watched in a cinema, chances are you were simply happy to be where you were watching what you watched. The screen loomed large, the sound was better than home or the drive-in, and you could even rely on the people around you to cue you in on when to laugh, when to scream, and when to shut up and stare. Throughout your teenage years and into young adulthood, if you watched enough of these theatrical releases in honest to goodness movie houses, you began to discern the differences between movies that had been over-hyped on bus stop signs and those that were actually worth your time and money. No doubt you even observed within the various film genres that certain directors or actors attached themselves to better quality horror, science fiction or romantic comedies, just as some could be counted on to rip you off.
With the ascension in the mid-1970s of the blockbuster movie, television advertising gained preeminence in influencing preconceived notions of the value of attending a given picture. And once they got you in the theater, well, Hollywood may have long ago stopped supplying warm-up newsreels and cartoons, but they never missed a chance to whet our appetites with Coming Attractions. By the early part of this century, the money men had mastered the process. Spiderman comes out on a Friday. The Coming Attractions take up ten minutes with three new films scheduled for release in two weeks, plus two films already showing in the multiplex. If the C/A's fail to drive increased attendance to the two movies already showing, those two films will be pulled by the following Wednesday.
How many art films have you seen advertised on television or in Coming Attractions?
The ideal art movie, of course, would be one that has some commercial appeal. You could argue that many of Stanley Kubrick's movies were art films, just as the same could be said of Oliver Stone or even (yes) Martin Scorsese. If you have watched an art film recently, however, chances are excellent that you saw it through some type of streaming service. The movie was probably even filmed with that platform in the director's mind.
Mitch Lowe's plan for reinvigorating cinema attendance notwithstanding, I predict that only two types of movie house films will survive: the aforementioned blockbuster and--sucking the hind teat but never starving--the art film. The latter will lose its hold on services such as Film Struck, while relying on the largesse (or is it noblesse oblige?) of benevolent patrons.
The first movie I ever watched that I knew in advance to be an art film was Blow-Up. A local theater owner ran a rare double feature of that movie followed by Brian De Palma's Blow Out. I wanted to watch Blow-Up because I'd heard The Yardbirds were in one of the scenes (which turned out to be true. I also noted that even as a young man in his early twenties, Jimmy Page already looked to be a hundred and seven).
In the years that followed, I discovered that regarding Antonioni's movie, two equally loud camps had formed. One camp, led by The New York Times, celebrated Blow-Up as a great film that young people could experience as being on their side. The other camp, championed by Pauline Kael, considered it to be self-indulgent garbage.
Both views have merit.
Thomas is a successful fashion photographer obsessed with what Veblen called conspicuous consumption. He buys all sorts of things that he will store on the walls of his home for no other reason than impulse. In fact, the less practical value something has (such as a large plane propeller), the more likely he is to need it. His lifestyle, even when on the job, is that of the Swinging London disaffected hedonist with money to burn.
During one of his random outdoor photo shoots, he happens upon Vanessa Redgrave smooching it up in a park with some older gentleman. When Redgrave observes that Thomas has been snapping his camera in their general direction, she chases after him and insists that he give her the film. He refuses, out of sheer petulance. Thomas may be nouveau bourgeois, but he still enjoys antagonizing the other members of his class.
After he develops the film, he spots something unusual that leads him to enlarge certain frames. Eventually he realizes that he has photographed a murder. He returns to the park and sure enough the dead guy is still there--at least for the moment.
What I have related thus far is only the conventional part of the film. Before and after this we are shown Thomas driving in his Rolls while local students persevere with Rag Week (donning masks and approaching strangers who are strong-armed into cheerfully donating money to charity), while young men walk poodles, while merchants refuse to sell what they're in business to sell, while The Yardbirds break their guitars, while young aspirants pleasure the photographer, while middle-aged men smoke pot with emaciated fashion models, and, perhaps more to the point, while youngish people define their own reality, as in a tennis match that involves neither rackets nor balls, yet which is still mesmerizing to onlookers and to us.
Is it indulgent? Yes. It would not work otherwise. Is it a film that eternal youth can claim as its own? I suspect so because youth lends itself to the notion that reality is relative, that it can be fashioned and falsified and that therefore little need is there in worrying much about it. The argument has been made that such considerations predispose youth to fascist thinking, especially when large groups coalesce at rock concerts or massive festivals. I think that argument has holes, just as this movie has some gapes in its logic.
On the other hand, if you could watch this movie and half a dozen others in a month's time for less than a sawbuck, you'd be crazy to miss it.
