#865: ANTONIONI, Michelangelo: Blow-Up (1966)

ANTONIONI, Michelangelo (United Kingdom)
Blow-Up [1966]
Spine #865
Blu-ray


In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni transplanted his existentialist ennui to the streets of swinging London for this international sensation, the Italian filmmaker's first English-language feature. A countercultural masterpiece about the act of seeing and the art of image making, Blow-Up takes the form of a psychological mystery, starring David Hemmings as a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park. Antonioni's meticulous aesthetic control and intoxicating color palette breathe life into every frame, and the jazzy sounds of Herbie Hancock, a beautifully evasive performance by Vanessa Redgrave, and a cameo by the Yardbirds make the film a transporting time capsule from a bygone era. Blow-Up is a seductive immersion into creative passion, and a brilliant film by one of cinema's greatest artists.

111 minutes
Color
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Director/Writers


Inspired by Blow-Up by Julio Cortázar.
English dialogue by Edward Bond.
Screenplay by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra.

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs, an updated 1966 account of the film’s shooting by Stig Björkman, the questionnaires the director distributed to photographers and painters while developing the film, and the 1959 Cortázar short story on which the film is loosely based.

Commentary

None.

Pieces

About director Antonioni’s artistic approach, featuring photography curators Walter Moser and Phillippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor.

Blow Up of “Blow Up”

A 2016 documentary on the making of the film.

Conversation

From 2016 between Garner and actor Redgrave.

Archival interviews

With Antonioni and actors Hemmings and Birkin.

Trailers

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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