Blowup
Encyclopedia
Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
, his first English-language film.
It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar
's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" (1959), translated also as Blow-Up
, and by the life of Swinging London
photographer David Bailey. The film was scored
by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock
, although the music is diegetic, as Hancock noted: "It's only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record." Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Grand Prix
.
The film stars David Hemmings
, Vanessa Redgrave
, Sarah Miles
, John Castle
, Jane Birkin
, Tsai Chin
and Gillian Hills
. The 1960s model Veruschka has a scene considered by Premiere
as "the sexiest cinematic moment in history". The screenplay was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
, with English dialogue 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).
The American release of the film with its explicit content (by contemporary standards) by a major Hollywood studio was in direct defiance of the Production Code
's refusal to approve it. Its subsequent outstanding critical and box office success proved to be one of the final events that led the code to be relaxed that same year and finally abandoned in 1968 in favor of the MPAA film rating system
.
where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos. He is late for a photo shoot with 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 leaves the studio, two teenage girls who are aspiring models (Birkin and Hills) ask to speak with him, but Thomas drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park
, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. Thomas is startled when she stalks him back to his studio, asking for the film. This makes him want the film even more, so he hands her another roll instead. His many blowups (enlargements) of the black and white film are grainy
but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. Thomas is frightened by a knock on the door, but 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 tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Come back tomorrow!"
As evening falls, Thomas goes back to the park and finds a body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. Thomas returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, he finds both Veruschka (who had told him that she was going to Paris, and when confronted, she says she is in Paris) and his agent (Peter Bowles
), whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, Thomas cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone, but the body is gone.
Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As Thomas watches this alone on the lawn, his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends.
, who perform "Stroll On" in the last third. Antonioni first asked Eric Burdon
to play that scene but he turned it down. As Keith Relf
sings, Jimmy Page
and Jeff Beck
play to either side, along with Chris Dreja
. After his guitar amplifier fails, Beck bashes his guitar to bits, as The Who
did at the time. Antonioni had wanted The Who in Blowup as he was fascinated by Pete Townshend
's guitar-smashing routine. Steve Howe
of The In Crowd
recalled, "We went on the set and started preparing for that guitar-smashing scene in the club. They even went as far as making up a bunch of Gibson 175
replicas ... and then we got dropped for The Yardbirds, who were a bigger name. That's why you see Jeff Beck smashing my guitar rather than his!" Antonioni also considered using The Velvet Underground
(signed at the time to a division of MGM Records
) in the nightclub scene, but, according to guitarist Sterling Morrison
, "the expense of bringing the whole entourage to England proved too much for him".
Michael Palin
of Monty Python
can be seen briefly in the sullen nightclub crowd and Janet Street-Porter
dances in stripy Carnaby Street
trousers.
A poster on the club's door bears a drawing of a tombstone with the epitaph, Here lies Bob Dylan
Passed Away Royal Albert Hall 27 May 1966 R.I.P., harking to Dylan's switch to electric instruments at this time. Beside the Dylan are posters bearing a caricature of Prime Minister Harold Wilson
.
Building in Piccadilly
, London
, a project by 'New Brutalists
' Alison and Peter Smithson
constructed between 1959–64. The scene in which men leave The Spike was shot on Consort Road, Peckham. The park scenes were at Maryon Park
, Charlton
, south-east London
, and the park is little changed since the film. The street with maroon shopfronts is Stockwell Road and the shops belonged to motorcycle
dealer Pride & Clark. The scene in which the photographer sees the mysterious woman from his car and follows her was in Regent Street
, London. He stops at Heddon Street where the album cover of David Bowie
's Ziggy Stardust
was later photographed. Outside shots of the photographer’s studio were at 77 Pottery Lane, W11, and 39 Princes Place, W11. Photographer Jon Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place to Antonioni for much of the interior and exterior filming, and Cowan's own photographic murals are featured in the film. The exterior for the party scene towards the end of the film was shot outside 100 Cheyne Walk
, in Chelsea
. The interior, which is believed to be the same address, was shot in the apartment of London antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs.
. Writing about Antonioni for Time
in 2007, the film writer Richard Corliss
states that the film grossed "$20 million (about $120 million today) on a $1.8 million budget and helped liberate Hollywood from its puritanical prurience".
said the movie was "a mod masterpiece". In Playboy
magazine, film critic Arthur Knight
wrote that Blowup would be "as important and germinal a film as Citizen Kane
, Open City
and Hiroshima, Mon Amour – perhaps even more so".
Time
magazine called the film a "far-out, uptight and vibrantly exciting picture" that represented a "screeching change of creative direction" for Antonioni; the magazine predicted it would "undoubtedly be by far the most popular movie Antonioni has ever made".
Bosley Crowther
, film critic of The New York Times
, called it a "fascinating picture, which has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed".
Crowther had reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blow-Up a "stunning picture — beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells". Even film director Ingmar Bergman
, who generally disliked Antonioni, acknowledged its significance: "He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte
, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau
." Of the film's ending, Roger Ebert
wrote: "What remains is a hypnotic conjuring act, in which a character is awakened briefly from a deep sleep of bored alienation and then drifts away again. This is the arc of the film. Not 'Swinging London.' Not existential mystery. Not the parallels between what Hemmings does with his photos and what Antonioni does with Hemmings. But simply the observations that we are happy when we are doing what we do well, and unhappy seeking pleasure elsewhere. I imagine Antonioni was happy when he was making this film."
MGM did not gain approval for the film under the MPAA Production Code
in the United States. The code's collapse and revision was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributor and Blowup was shown widely in North American cinemas.
(1981), directed by Brian De Palma
and starring John Travolta
– which alludes to Blowup – used sound recording rather than photography as its motif.
While writing the screenplay of the thriller film The Conversation (1974) – also about sound recording – Francis Ford Coppola
explained in the DVD commentary to that film that he was inspired by Blow Up.
In the comedy film
High Anxiety
(1977), directed by Mel Brooks
, a minor plot line involves a bumbling chauffeur who takes a picture showing the evil assassin (wearing a latex mask of Brooks' character's face) firing a gun at point-blank range at someone; he makes blow-ups until he can see the real Brooks' character, standing in the elevator in the background. (Technically, the chauffeur does not make blow-ups; the joke is that he simply makes bigger and bigger enlargements until he has one the size of a wall.)
The romantic comedy film
I Could Never Be Your Woman
(2007) pays homage to the iconic scene from Blowup in which Hemmings's character straddles model Veruschka from above while taking her photograph – this time with Paul Rudd
and Michelle Pfeiffer
.
Antonioni's film also inspired the Bollywood
film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (1983), directed by Naseeruddin Shah
, in which two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of a city mayor on their cameras and later discover this when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is named "Antonioni Park".
In the tenth episode of the third series of the BBC
program, Monarch of the Glen (2000–2005), Molly MacDonald (Susan Hampshire
) clarifies for her husband, Hector (Richard Briers
), that it was Antonioni who wanted her for Blowup when she was a London model in the 1960s.
The music video for Amerie
's "Take Control
" from the album Because I Love It
(2007) was influenced by the film.
The film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
(1999) begins with a parody/homage to Veruschka's photo shoot in Blowup.
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
, his first English-language film.
It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" (1959), translated also as Blow-Up
Blow-up and Other Stories
Blow-Up and Other Stories is a collection of short stories, written by Argentinian author Julio Cortázar. It was originally published as End of the Game and Other Stories...
, and by the life of Swinging London
Swinging London
Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene that flourished in London, in the 1960s.It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the...
photographer David Bailey. The film was scored
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, although the music is diegetic, as Hancock noted: "It's only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record." Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Grand Prix
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
.
The film stars David Hemmings
David Hemmings
David Edward Leslie Hemmings was an English film, theatre and television actor as well as a film and television director and producer....
, Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
, Sarah Miles
Sarah Miles
-Early life and career:Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England.She first attended Roedean but at the age of 15 she enrolled at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
, John Castle
John Castle
John Castle is an English actor. Castle has acted in theatre, film and television. He is well known for his role as Postumus in the 1976 BBC television adaptation of I, Claudius and for playing Geoffrey in the 1968 film, The Lion in Winter. He also played Dr...
, Jane Birkin
Jane Birkin
Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE is an English-born actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.- Early life :...
, Tsai Chin
Tsai Chin (actress)
Tsai Chin , also known as Irene Chow, is a Chinese-born actress living in England.-Early life, family & education:Chin was born to Peking Opera actor Zhou Xinfang in 1936. She spent her early life in Shanghai. She had two short marriages which both ended in divorce. Her brother is Michael...
and Gillian Hills
Gillian Hills
Gillian Hills is an actress and singer. She rose to fame as a teenager in the 1960s in the British films Beat Girl and later, Blowup...
. The 1960s model Veruschka has a scene considered by Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
as "the sexiest cinematic moment in history". The screenplay was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra is an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter who has collaborated with some of the most prominent film directors of the world.-Biography:Guerra was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna....
, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond
Edward Bond
Edward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved , the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK...
. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Ponti was an Italian film producer with over 140 production credits, and the husband of Italian movie star Sophia Loren.-Career:...
, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English-language films for MGM (the others were Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point (film)
Zabriskie Point is a 1970 film by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, widely noted at the time for its setting in the late 1960s counterculture of the United States...
and The Passenger).
The American release of the film with its explicit content (by contemporary standards) by a major Hollywood studio was in direct defiance of the Production Code
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the...
's refusal to approve it. Its subsequent outstanding critical and box office success proved to be one of the final events that led the code to be relaxed that same year and finally abandoned in 1968 in favor of the MPAA film rating system
MPAA film rating system
The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities...
.
Plot
The plot is a day in the life of the glamorous fashion photographer Thomas (Hemmings), inspired by the life of an actual "Swinging London" photographer, David Bailey. It begins after spending the night at a doss houseFlophouse
A flophouse , doss-house or dosshouse is a place that offers very cheap lodging, generally by providing only minimal services.-Characteristics:...
where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos. He is late for a photo shoot with 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 leaves the studio, two teenage girls who are aspiring models (Birkin and Hills) ask to speak with him, but Thomas drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park
Maryon Park
Maryon Park is an English urban public park located in Charlton in the London Borough of Greenwich. It is situated on the A206 south of the Thames Barrier...
, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. Thomas is startled when she stalks him back to his studio, asking for the film. This makes him want the film even more, so he hands her another roll instead. His many blowups (enlargements) of the black and white film are grainy
Film grain
Film grain or granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film due to the presence of small particles of a metallic silver, or dye clouds, developed from silver halide that have received enough photons. While film grain is a function of such particles it is not the same...
but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. Thomas is frightened by a knock on the door, but 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 tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Come back tomorrow!"
As evening falls, Thomas goes back to the park and finds a body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. Thomas returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, he finds both Veruschka (who had told him that she was going to Paris, and when confronted, she says she is in Paris) and his agent (Peter Bowles
Peter Bowles
-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...
), whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, Thomas cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone, but the body is gone.
Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As Thomas watches this alone on the lawn, his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends.
Noted cameos
Sundry people known in 1966 are in the film; others became famous later. The most widely noted cameo was by The YardbirdsThe Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
, who perform "Stroll On" in the last third. Antonioni first asked Eric Burdon
Eric Burdon
Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...
to play that scene but he turned it down. As Keith Relf
Keith Relf
Keith William Relf , was a musician best known as the lead singer and harmonica player of The Yardbirds. After the Yardbirds broke up Relf formed the acoustic duo Together, with fellow Yardbird Jim McCarty, followed by Renaissance, which also featured his sister, singer Jane Relf, then hard rock...
sings, Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
and Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
play to either side, along with Chris Dreja
Chris Dreja
Chris Dreja was the rhythm guitarist, and later bassist, in the 1960s British band, The Yardbirds.-Early life:...
. After his guitar amplifier fails, Beck bashes his guitar to bits, as The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
did at the time. Antonioni had wanted The Who in Blowup as he was fascinated by Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
's guitar-smashing routine. Steve Howe
Steve Howe (guitarist)
Stephen James "Steve" Howe is an English guitarist, known for his work with the progressive rock group Yes...
of The In Crowd
Tomorrow (band)
Tomorrow were a 1960s psychedelic rock band. Despite critical acclaim and support from DJ John Peel who featured them on his "Perfumed Garden" radio show, the band was not a great success in commercial terms. They were among the first psychedelic bands in England along with Pink Floyd and Soft...
recalled, "We went on the set and started preparing for that guitar-smashing scene in the club. They even went as far as making up a bunch of Gibson 175
Gibson ES-175
The Gibson ES-175 is an electric guitar manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Corporation, currently still in production. It is a 24 3/4" scale full hollow body guitar with a trapeze tailpiece and Tune-O-Matic bridge...
replicas ... and then we got dropped for The Yardbirds, who were a bigger name. That's why you see Jeff Beck smashing my guitar rather than his!" Antonioni also considered using The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
(signed at the time to a division of MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
) in the nightclub scene, but, according to guitarist Sterling Morrison
Sterling Morrison
Holmes Sterling Morrison, Jr. was one of the founding members of the rock group The Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and singing backing vocals.-Biography:...
, "the expense of bringing the whole entourage to England proved too much for him".
Michael Palin
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
of Monty Python
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
can be seen briefly in the sullen nightclub crowd and Janet Street-Porter
Janet Street-Porter
Janet Street-Porter is a British media personality, journalist and television presenter. She was editor for two years of The Independent on Sunday. She relinquished the job to become editor-at-large in 2002...
dances in stripy Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in London, United Kingdom, located in the Soho district, near Oxford Street and Regent Street. It is home to numerous fashion and lifestyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques...
trousers.
A poster on the club's door bears a drawing of a tombstone with the epitaph, Here lies Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
Passed Away Royal Albert Hall 27 May 1966 R.I.P., harking to Dylan's switch to electric instruments at this time. Beside the Dylan are posters bearing a caricature of Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
.
Filming locations
The opening mimes were filmed on the Plaza of The EconomistThe Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
Building in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, a project by 'New Brutalists
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
' Alison and Peter Smithson
Alison and Peter Smithson
English architects Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism .Peter was born in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England, and Alison was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire...
constructed between 1959–64. The scene in which men leave The Spike was shot on Consort Road, Peckham. The park scenes were at Maryon Park
Maryon Park
Maryon Park is an English urban public park located in Charlton in the London Borough of Greenwich. It is situated on the A206 south of the Thames Barrier...
, Charlton
Charlton, London
Charlton is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Greenwich. It is located east-southeast of Charing Cross. Charlton next Woolwich was an ancient parish in the county of Kent, which became part of the metropolitan area of London in 1855. It is home to Charlton...
, south-east London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and the park is little changed since the film. The street with maroon shopfronts is Stockwell Road and the shops belonged to motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
dealer Pride & Clark. The scene in which the photographer sees the mysterious woman from his car and follows her was in Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
, London. He stops at Heddon Street where the album cover of David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's Ziggy Stardust
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English musician David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a rock star named Ziggy Stardust. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music...
was later photographed. Outside shots of the photographer’s studio were at 77 Pottery Lane, W11, and 39 Princes Place, W11. Photographer Jon Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place to Antonioni for much of the interior and exterior filming, and Cowan's own photographic murals are featured in the film. The exterior for the party scene towards the end of the film was shot outside 100 Cheyne Walk
Cheyne Walk
Cheyne Walk , is a historic street in Chelsea, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It takes its name from William Lord Cheyne who owned the manor of Chelsea until 1712. Most of the houses were built in the early 18th century. Before the construction in the 19th century of the busy...
, in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
. The interior, which is believed to be the same address, was shot in the apartment of London antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs.
Box office
The film was distributed in North America by MGM shell company Premier PicturesMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. Writing about Antonioni for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
in 2007, the film writer Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
states that the film grossed "$20 million (about $120 million today) on a $1.8 million budget and helped liberate Hollywood from its puritanical prurience".
Critical
Film critic Andrew SarrisAndrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
said the movie was "a mod masterpiece". In Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine, film critic Arthur Knight
Arthur Knight (film critic)
Arthur Knight was a movie critic, film historian, professor and TV host.His book The Liveliest Art, first published in 1957, is a history of the cinema used as a text book at colleges and universities throughout the world.-Early life:...
wrote that Blowup would be "as important and germinal a film as Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, Open City
Rome, open city
Rome, Open City is a 1945 Italian war drama film, directed by Roberto Rossellini. The picture features Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero, and is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944...
and Hiroshima, Mon Amour – perhaps even more so".
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine called the film a "far-out, uptight and vibrantly exciting picture" that represented a "screeching change of creative direction" for Antonioni; the magazine predicted it would "undoubtedly be by far the most popular movie Antonioni has ever made".
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, film critic of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, called it a "fascinating picture, which has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed".
Crowther had reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blow-Up a "stunning picture — beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells". Even film director Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
, who generally disliked Antonioni, acknowledged its significance: "He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte
La Notte
La Notte is a 1961 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It is considered the central film of a trilogy beginning with L'avventura and ending with L'Eclisse.- Plot :...
, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director.She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française...
." Of the film's ending, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote: "What remains is a hypnotic conjuring act, in which a character is awakened briefly from a deep sleep of bored alienation and then drifts away again. This is the arc of the film. Not 'Swinging London.' Not existential mystery. Not the parallels between what Hemmings does with his photos and what Antonioni does with Hemmings. But simply the observations that we are happy when we are doing what we do well, and unhappy seeking pleasure elsewhere. I imagine Antonioni was happy when he was making this film."
MGM did not gain approval for the film under the MPAA Production Code
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the...
in the United States. The code's collapse and revision was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributor and Blowup was shown widely in North American cinemas.
Academy Awards
- Nominated: Best DirectorAcademy Award for DirectingThe Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
– Michelangelo Antonioni - Nominated: Original Screenplay – Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra and Edward Bond
BAFTA Awards
- Nominated: Best British FilmBAFTA Award for Best FilmThis page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...
- Michelangelo Antonioni - Nominated: Best British Art Direction (Colour) – Assheton GortonAssheton GortonAssheton Gorton is an English production designer. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film The French Lieutenant's Woman and was the BAFTA nominated art director for Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup.-Selected filmography:*The Knack ...and How...
- Nominated: Best British Cinematography (Colour) – Carlo Di Palma
Cannes Film Festival
- Won: Grand PrixPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
(1967 Cannes Film Festival1967 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Alessandro Blasetti *Georges Lourau *Sergei Bondarchuk *René Bonnell *Jean-Louis Bory *Miklós Jancsó *Claude Lelouch *Shirley MacLaine...
) – Michelangelo Antonioni
In popular culture
Blow OutBlow Out
Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a...
(1981), directed by Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
and starring John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
– which alludes to Blowup – used sound recording rather than photography as its motif.
While writing the screenplay of the thriller film The Conversation (1974) – also about sound recording – Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
explained in the DVD commentary to that film that he was inspired by Blow Up.
In the comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
High Anxiety
High Anxiety
High Anxiety is a 1977 comedy film produced and directed by Mel Brooks, who also plays the lead. This is Brooks' first film as a producer and first "speaking" lead role...
(1977), directed by Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
, a minor plot line involves a bumbling chauffeur who takes a picture showing the evil assassin (wearing a latex mask of Brooks' character's face) firing a gun at point-blank range at someone; he makes blow-ups until he can see the real Brooks' character, standing in the elevator in the background. (Technically, the chauffeur does not make blow-ups; the joke is that he simply makes bigger and bigger enlargements until he has one the size of a wall.)
The romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...
I Could Never Be Your Woman
I Could Never Be Your Woman
I Could Never Be Your Woman is a 2007 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Amy Heckerling and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The film was released on May 11 in Spain, July 18 in Belgium, September 14 in Brazil, September 20 in Greece and October 19 in Taiwan...
(2007) pays homage to the iconic scene from Blowup in which Hemmings's character straddles model Veruschka from above while taking her photograph – this time with Paul Rudd
Paul Rudd
Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor and screenwriter. He has primarily appeared in comedies, and is known for his roles in the films Clueless, Wet Hot American Summer, Anchorman, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Dinner for Schmucks, The Object of My...
and Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Brian De Palma's Scarface . Pfeiffer has won numerous awards for her work...
.
Antonioni's film also inspired the Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (1983), directed by Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...
, in which two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of a city mayor on their cameras and later discover this when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is named "Antonioni Park".
In the tenth episode of the third series of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
program, Monarch of the Glen (2000–2005), Molly MacDonald (Susan Hampshire
Susan Hampshire
Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis, OBE is an English actress, best-known for her many television and film roles.-Early life:Susan Hampshire was born in Kensington, London, the youngest of four children. She had two sisters and one brother...
) clarifies for her husband, Hector (Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...
), that it was Antonioni who wanted her for Blowup when she was a London model in the 1960s.
The music video for Amerie
Amerie
Amerie Mi Marie Rogers , known professionally as Amerie or Ameriie, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She debuted in 2002 with the album All I Have, primarily co-written and produced by Rich Harrison, and was well-received in the urban market...
's "Take Control
Take Control
"Take Control" is a song by American R&B singer-songwriter Amerie from her third studio album, Because I Love It . Written by Cee-Lo Green, Mike Caren, and Amerie and released as the album's lead single in late 2006, the Caren-produced track contains excerpts from Brazilian musician Tom Zé's 1970...
" from the album Because I Love It
Because I Love It
Because I Love It is the third studio album by American R&B singer-songwriter Amerie. Originally set for an autumn 2006 release, and originally to be called None of the Above, the album was released in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2007. The album was released in the U.S. on different dates to...
(2007) was influenced by the film.
The film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, released in 1999, is the second film in the Austin Powers series that began with 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and continued with Austin Powers in Goldmember. The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter...
(1999) begins with a parody/homage to Veruschka's photo shoot in Blowup.