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Blow-Up visually beautiful but emotionally cold

In Blow Up Antonioni is said to be involved with problems and themes which have occupied his attention in other films, only this time these are stated and explored against the background of "mod" London. Like his compatriot Fellini, Antonioni is (or appears to be) bothered about things like the alienation of man from his fellows, the lack of any real communication or understanding between people, their failure to relate successfully to both reality and their dreams etc and all the rest of it.

I must say I find these directors' concerns a bit hard to swallow. At best they are foreign to me, rather like Bergman's anxieties; at times they appear merely spurious, as if the authors were waving their sores in the air hoping to infect others with the old dry rot. It has always seemed to me that most people fumble along in a very human way, occasionally coming to grief but generally making out in the world. Such people are not to be found in these films. We see instead artists and members of the idle rich. This choice of characters, apart from loading the dice in favour of whatever whips A & F happen to be flogging themselves with, also implies a spectrum of "sensitivity" and "awareness" that reeks of intellectual snobbery.

The central theme in Blow Up is one of non-involvement. Thomas a successful fashion photographer, takes little other than a clinical interest in his work and his relationships with those about him. He views life as an observer, not as an involved participant. These facts about Thomas are made explicit in a number of scenes throughout the film. Some have said that the most telling example of his condition is Thomas's detached reaction when he comes home and finds his wife in bed with his friend. This would indeed be a potent indication of Thomas's non-involvement, but there is nothing in the film to suggest that Sarah Miles is his wife. The assumption sounds like a case of accepting whole-heartedly Antonioni's premise and then reading into the film whatever suits.

In the course of enlarging photographs of a park flirtation Thomas discovers that his camera has unwittingly observed (a) a man in the bushes with a gun and (b) a corpse. The fact that he is in this way witness to a murder is sufficient to arouse Thomas, but he is uncertain at this stage what to do about it. Presumably he has an aversion to picking up the phone and informing the police—he's an Artist you see, and therefore not expected to behave like a normal person. (We know Thomas is an Artist because the activity he is least uninvolved in is collecting a series of grittingly realistic documentary photographs, a sort of mod Family of Man.)

After the studio is ransacked and most of the evidence removed. Thomas returns to the park at night and finds the body. One wonders why he didn't take a camera with him. After all, it's not every day that a professional photographer has a subject as grisly as a dead man, and if Thomas is sufficiently interested to return to the park then there is ample reason why he should want more substantial photographic evidence. Thomas goes hunting for his agent and tries to drag him back to view the corpse. (Why? To hold the lights and protect him from thuggery while pictures are being taken? Or is it to confirm his belief that the body actually exists?) His efforts are unsuccessful, and when he returns to the park the next morning after a hot party the prize exhibit is gone.

At this point Antonioni's white-faced students (?) — another empty symbol — have their moments of glory. They act out a game of tennis (what a drag) and Thomas Joins in when he lobs the "ball" back into the court. The last shot has him standing in the middle of an expanse of grass. He watches the game for a while (the sound of tennis balls being hit is heard on the soundtrack) and then ambles off; the state of arousal and involvement was temporary and lassitude has returned. Never was a last scene so pregnant with meaning. "What is reality? Was it really of any importance?" asks one reviewer in elucidation. At the risk of appearing cynical (and frivolous). I would have opted for the nearest pub and a glass of ale rather than a gang of nits playing an imaginary tennis match. But this just shows how far removed I am from Antonioni's view of the world, and why that last image, apparently meaningful, is for me sterile and Irrelevant.

There are parts in Blow Up, and even more in La Notte, where the boredom experienced by the characters comes perilously close to communicating itself to the audience in a rather uncomfortable fashion. On the evidence of these two films it seems likely that Antonioni consciously strives for this effect. Whether or not his efforts in tills direction are appreciated will depend largely on individual opinions about why we go to films and what we hope to get out of them. Personally I don't like it, but the effect will undoubtedly appeal to some. For them, so far as the overall "impact" of the film is concerned, Blow Up will be a resounding success.

Having stated my bia3 about what Antonioni is saying, I must admit that the way he says it is usually striking. In many respects, as regards the handling of camera movements, composition, and colour photography, and the meticulous attention to detail, Blow Up is a superior piece of cinema. Antonioni's mastery in these departments makes me wish he would harness his talents to something more "conventional." A few routine directorial assignments would show if he has the ability to stimulate our emotions to the same extent he does our retinas. I don't really think he stimulates the intellect, although possibly there are subtleties in his films that escape me.

Antonioni's use of colour is at its best in scenes like the photographing of the models and the episodes in Thomas's rooms. When the camera moves outside things are not so happy. Whereas in the studio, with all the paraphernalia of fashion photography, the contrast of colours and designs is a natural feature of the background, some of the effects in the streets and other exterior localities are too obviously artificial, and hence distracting. For instance, that long line of gleaming red houses conjures up the vision of an army of painters at work, satisfying Antonioni's whim about a shot not lasting more than a few seconds. Visually the film is generally impressive, although much of the effect is lost by dwelling for unnecessary lengths of time on particular images. Sharper editing would have improved this as well as removing a few longeurs.

The best scene in the film is where Thomas develops and enlarges the photographs, and thus discovers the murder. Here everything is under firm control, and that eventual revealing of the gun come as a genuine shock. When Thomas goes to the park at night there is something of the same kind of unnerving atmosphere, with trees rustling in the breeze and hints of lurking danger. There is one section of the film which intrigued me, mainly because I could watch the technique carefully, not being particularly rapt in what the characters were doing. I refer to part of the lengthy scene between Thomas and Jane (Vanessa Redgrave). Antonioni uses a triangular beam jutting out from the wall as the anchor of every shot, and the way in which the two people are observed by a warily moving camera over, around, through and beneath this beam is ingenious to say the least.

David Hemmhigs is excellent as Thomas. He has that dissipated, ravaged look which I assume is meant to be characteristic of his decadent, drifting generation. Hemmings makes Thomas more of a personality than the Mastroianni characters in the other films of this genre, and I hope we will see more of him. Sarah Miles is delectable both in and out of bed, but I am still not really impressed by Vanessa Redgrave. Perhaps I resent the fact that she has star billing when Hemmings plays the most important part and is by far the best performer. Doubtless there are commercial reasons for this arrangement.

Finally I have to consider the following crucial point. When I left the theatre after seeing Blow Up I felt no involvement (that word again) in the actions and attitudes of the characters. There was no feeling about the film as an experience, merely a detached, "intellectual" admiration for the way Antonioni went about making it. What are the implications of this detachment for a person like myself who normally requires a degree of emotional response before a film can be appreciated and praised? So far as any judgement of Blow Up is concerned the question is largely unresolved, Because of its "cinematic" virtues this is one film which cannot be dismissed, eve though I was unmoved from start to finish. "Technically brilliant but it left me cold" may sound incongruous, but it is an approx matlon of my nonfeelings about Antonioni film.

—Rex Benson