Blow-Up
Do grande diretor italiano Michelangelo Antonioni narra
a história de um fotógrafo que tira uma série
de fotos num parque e quando as revela descobre que registrou
um assassinato. Há cena antológica quando o
fotógrafo entra num show do Yardbirds. Nessa época,
estavam na banda os guitarristas Jimmy Page e Jeff Beck. Essa
cena é um dos raros registros em vídeo da banda
com essa formação. No filme estão tocando
"Stroll On" (na verdade uma versão de "Train
Kept a Rolling"), o amplificador de Beck começa
a dar um problema que o deixa tão irritado que ele
acaba quebrando a sua guitarra. Outro ponto interessante da
produção é o retrato que faz da época,
a chamada “Swinging London”, um período
de efervescência cultural e comportamental que ocorreu
na capital inglesa na década de 60.

Blowup has scenes that are too memorable for
its own good
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Blowup (as shown
in the screen credits, also rendered as Blow-Up on promotional
and packaging materials) is a 1966 British-Italian art film
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, that director's first
English language film. It tells the story of a photographer's
accidental and incidental involvement with a murder. The film
was inspired by the short story "Las Babas del Diablo"
("The Droolings of the Devil") by Argentinian writer
Julio Cortázar, and by the work, habits, and mannerisms
of Swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was
scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, although the music
is mimetic as it is played on a record by the main character.
Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival,
Blowup won the Grand Prix.
Blowup
stars: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John
Castle, Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills. The screenplay was
written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with the English dialogue
being written 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).

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Plot
The plot
is a tale of about 24 hours in the life of Thomas (Hemmings),
a professional fashion photographer, who begins the day after
spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures
for a book of art photos he hopes to publish. He is late for
a photo shoot at his studio with a famous French fashion model,
which in turn makes him late for another photo shoot with
many other models later in the morning. He grows bored and
walks off the shoot (also leaving the models and production
staff in the lurch). Exiting the studio, two girls, aspiring
teenaged models, ask to speak with him but Thomas drives off
to look at an antiques shop which he might buy. He then wanders
into nearby Maryon Park where he sees two lovers and takes
photos of them. The woman (Redgrave) is nettled at being photographed
and Thomas is startled when she somehow stalks him back to
his studio, asking for the film. This makes him want the film
even more, so he misleads her into taking another roll instead.
He makes many blowups (enlargements) of the black and white
photos. These blowups have very rough film grain but nonetheless
seem to show a body lying 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 only the two girls again, with whom he
has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, although
they hope he will photograph them then and there, he tells
the girls to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Come back tomorrow!"
As evening
falls Thomas goes back to the park and indeed finds a body
but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by the
sound of a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. At a drug-drenched
party at a house on the Thames River near central London he
finds both the French model (who tells him she is in Paris)
and his publishing agent (Peter Bowles), the latter whom he
wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, Thomas cannot
put across in meaningful words what he has photographed. Waking
up in the same, now stilled house at sunrise, he goes back
to the park alone but the body is gone.
Befuddled,
he watches a group of university students playing and watching
a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up their unseen,
make-believe ball and throws it back to the two players. While
he watches the mimed match, the sound of a ball being played
back and forth is soon heard. As the photographer watches
this alone on the lawn he fades away, leaving only the green
grass as the film ends.

Blow Up
Noted cameos
Sundry
people who were widely known in 1966 are seen in the film,
others would become famous later. The most widely noted cameo
was made by the The Yardbirds, who perform "Stroll On"
in the last third of the film. 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 were known to do at the time. Antonioni had
wanted the Who to perform in Blowup as he was fascinated by
Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing routine. Steve Howe of the
The In Crowd later 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 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 very briefly in the sullen
nightclub crowd[4] and future media personality Janet Street-Porter
dances in stripey, Carnaby Street trousers.
A poster
on the club's entry 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 controversial
switch to electric instruments at this time. Beside the Dylan
poster are posters bearing a caricature of Prime Minister
Harold Wilson.

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Filming locations
The first
scene (with the mimes acting) was filmed on the Plaza of The
Economist Building in (Piccadilly, London, 1959–64,
a project by 'New Brutalists' Alison and Peter Smithson).
The following scene is shot on Consort Road, Peckham; the
men are leaving The Spike. The park scenes were filmed at
Maryon Park, Charlton, south-east London, and the park is
little changed since the making of the film. The street with
the many maroon-coloured shop fronts is Stockwell Road, and
the shops belonged to motorcycle dealer Pride & Clark.
The scene where Thomas sees the mysterious woman from his
car, then proceeds to follow her, was shot in Regent Street,
London. He stops at Heddon Street, where the cover shot of
David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust LP was later photographed. The
photographer's studio was filmed at 49 Princes Place, London
W11, which in the decades since has been office and studio
space for architectural firms.

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Reaction
The onscreen title, no hyphen.Andrew Sarris said the movie
was "a mod masterpiece." In Playboy magazine, Arthur
Knight wrote Blowup would be thought of "as important
and germinal a film as Citizen Kane, Open City [sic] and Hiroshima,
Mon Amour – perhaps even more so."
Blowup
was controversial as the first British film to feature full
frontal female nudity (although this is sometimes noted as
having happened in the slightly later if....). MGM did not
gain approval for the film under the MPAA Production Code
in the United States. The code's collapse and thorough revision
was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary
distributor and Blowup was shown widely in North American
cinemas.
Blow-Up (1966)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by Carlo Ponti
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni
Tonino Guerra
Edward Bond (dialogue)
Starring David Hemmings
Vanessa Redgrave
Sarah Miles
Music by Herbie Hancock
Cinematography Carlo Di Palma
Editing by Frank Clarke (uncredited)
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Release date(s) December 18, 1966 (US)
January 1967 (UK)
Running time 111 minutes
Country United Kingdom / Italy / United States
Language English
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Fontes: Rober Machado, Omelete;
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