Title/Year: Blow Up (1966)
Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Michelangelo Antonioni was born in on Sept. 29th ,1912 in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Budget: $1,800,000 (estimated)
Gross: $20,000,000 (Worldwide)
Synopsis: A careless fashion photographer, living in London decides that he needs some outdoor nature shots, after shooting a couple in an empty park he soon discovers after looking at his prints that he has witnessed a murder.
Narrative and Visual Keywords: London, fashion, photography, glamour, mystery, murder, weed, sensuality, weird mimes, film, dark room/red room, antique shop, sex, females.
Characterization/ Dialogue: Thomas is curious as to why the young female he took photos of with another man in the park keeps on wanting the film cartridge, when he discovers the murder in the photos, he soon realizes the woman is at fault and tries to track her down.
Camera/lighting/editing technique: What I really noticed in the film, besides the obvious, was that it's in color, is the use of "zooms." Another great type of innovation, is it didn't seem like they used a green screen when shooting the car scenes, they were shooting inside the car while it was driving. There were also part where there was lots of natural lights, some high contrast low key lighting as well.
Political/ Social Commentary: One thing that stood out to me, was the scene of the band playing. The crowd reacted to them music as if it was their first time hearing it, however they quickly fell in love with the genre, and REALLY wanted that guitar of the band mate.
Historical Relevance/ Recognition: It's a " New Age/Modern Film"
Random fact, Etc.: This was Antonioni's first film in English which was pretty interesting.
1: I didn't find too much subjective reality. It was pretty straight forward, meaning it was more objective than subjective. However, a photographer randomly discovering a murder in his photos did seem a bit cliche. It been used many times, where someone takes a photo, and they suddenly see a sniper in the window or such like in the film " Vantage Point." Maybe "Blow - Up" was first to incorporate this idea.
2: There wasn't any sort of religion references here and I couldn't really notice anything political though. However, there was obviously a romance theme going on here. Reason being is first of all, Thomas is taking photos of women, very fashion/glamour type of photography, and also he gets aroused easily, there were two scenes which showed that. The woman being a tease and getting topless in from of him, and then leaving quickly, and then he was able to have a bit more fun with the two girls who he was annoyed by at first, until they decided to get naked in front of him which he, himself decided to join in on the fun. Even though he treats his models roughly, I was surprised to him he actually enjoying himself with the two women who were undressing each other, as if he just decided to let go of his rough attitude towards women and try and have a little bit of fun.
3: Perhaps Antonio just wanted to show the life of a fashion photographer trying to make a living during the 60's in London.
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