Only film schools, screenwriting classes, and 60s-trivia freaks keep this flick from dissolving in the can.
It has one clever notion - a photographer uncovering an assassination - but goes absolutely nowhere and does absolutely nothing. Antonioni wasn't a storyteller; he took a short story and surrounded it with fluff that's supposed to be "film" or "cinema" (God, I hate those words!)
I don't want a study, I want a story!
Know the bit where Vanessa Redgrave disappears into the crowd, and we can't see how? Take another look at how the passing crowd overlaps her: her body shifts angles at an unnatural speed - a classic mark of sloppy editing.
I mention that paragraph above to point out that this movie isn't all that clever - except to hold "film students" and professors constantly agog at its (and their own) pretensions for over 30 years now. Grow up, already!
For me, the only interesting part was - no, not the proto-Led-Zeppelin Yardbirds - but something pointed out by critic Roger Ebert: in its day, "Blowup" was a scandal in its day for its supposed frank sexuality. Today Ebert finds it notable because the photographer treats his models like garbage and they just take it, which nobody remarked on back then.
Few have remarked on it since.
It has one clever notion - a photographer uncovering an assassination - but goes absolutely nowhere and does absolutely nothing. Antonioni wasn't a storyteller; he took a short story and surrounded it with fluff that's supposed to be "film" or "cinema" (God, I hate those words!)
I don't want a study, I want a story!
Know the bit where Vanessa Redgrave disappears into the crowd, and we can't see how? Take another look at how the passing crowd overlaps her: her body shifts angles at an unnatural speed - a classic mark of sloppy editing.
I mention that paragraph above to point out that this movie isn't all that clever - except to hold "film students" and professors constantly agog at its (and their own) pretensions for over 30 years now. Grow up, already!
For me, the only interesting part was - no, not the proto-Led-Zeppelin Yardbirds - but something pointed out by critic Roger Ebert: in its day, "Blowup" was a scandal in its day for its supposed frank sexuality. Today Ebert finds it notable because the photographer treats his models like garbage and they just take it, which nobody remarked on back then.
Few have remarked on it since.