You've seen the Austin Powers movies. You regard the sixties as a funny, little kitsch nostalgia orgasm. You sit down to watch Blow Up and discover, much to your chagrin, that the Austin Powers movies didn't exagerrate that much at all.
You see, the american public nowadays hate Blow Up. They do, even those that haven't seen it. It's a movie about a photographer, but it's not about photography. It has attractive young women, but it's not about them. It is defenietly set in a very unique time and place, but I don't think it was designed as a time capsule. It may or may not have a murder in it, we don't know, and the movie is not about the murder. No, the movie is really about the effect that photography, attractive young women, London, the 1960's, and the possibility of witnessing a murder has on a man named Thomas.
Thomas is a souless, empty fashion photgrapher. His life has slipped into routine. He wakes up, takes pictures of models, nails all pretty little things looking to gain fame and fortune, then shooting more pictures, then going to a flop house to shoot "serious" photos for a book he's publishing. It's all becoming very tedious for him.
But then, something interesting happens. While out in a park one day, shooting nature photos, he sees what he thinks is a murder. The woman runs to him, demands to see the film in his camera, he refuses. At this point, all of the sudden, his world lightens up. He becomes interested again.
Another things to note, this movie was a landmark in nudity in cinema. It was supposedly the first mainstream feature film to show full frontal female nudity. I have looked over the movie often, and I can't see any pubic hair during the nude scenes, but I have no doubt that they are probaly there if you just look hard enough.
But, overall, an amazing film. The styles and such presesnted in the film may seem comically dated now, but the overall themes of loneliness and isolation are timeless.
WRITTEN BY
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
JULIO CORTAZAR
TONINO GUERRA
EDWARD BOND
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY
CARLO DIPALMA
EDITED BY
FRANK CLARKE
PRODUCED BY
CARLO PONTI
PIERRE ROUVE
STARRING
DAVID HEMMINGS - THOMAS
VANESSA REDGRAVE - JANE
VERUSHKA - HERSELF
SARAH MILES - PATRICIA
JANE BIRKIN - BLOND SEX KITTEN
GILLIAN HILLS - BRUNETTE SEX KITTEN
CLAUDE CHAGRIN - MIME
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1966
MPAA RATING: UNRATED
RUNNING TIME: 111 MINUTES
ASPECT RATIO: 1.85/1
COOL IMAGES I STOLE FROM OTHER SITES
