Blow Up
by Michelangelo Antonioni
List Price:
Our Price: $14.99
You Save: $4.99 (25%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $10.00 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: David Hemmings, Jane Birkin, John Castle, Sarah Miles, Vanessa RedgraveDirector: Michelangelo Antonioni
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Carlo Di Palma
Writer: Michelangelo Antonioni
Producer: Carlo Ponti
Producer: Pierre Rouve
Writer: Edward Bond
Writer: Julio Cort?zar
Writer: Tonino Guerra
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-17
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Blow Up
DVD Review: 3 stars out of 4
Summary: 4 Stars
The Bottom Line:
A film in which not much really happens, Blow-Up is sometimes slow and certainly not for everyone; that being said, however, it's an interesting look into the mind of a apathetic man who suddenly finds something worthy of his interest, and then is left to wonder if it was ever there at all.
DVD Review: Hitchcockian Visions on Acid
Summary: 4 Stars
The first time I viewed Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966), the movie was halfway through and I was utterly confused. Still, I was intrigued by the contrast between the flat black-and-white of the protagonist's photos and the bold colors of his wage-earning fashionista world. However, upon a second viewing of Blowup this past weekend -- thanks to the invaluable TCM cable channel -- I discovered something new: a wonderful, cruel irony in the action of the main character blowing up his b&ws. Enlarging his prints to the extent of producing disjointed mor? patterns, he becomes ever more puzzled by a bizarre mystery that disturbs his jaded life. It's, like, a totally Hitchcockian experience.
In Blowup, it's as though the protagonist played by David Hemmings channels Jimmy Stewart's character, L.B. Jefferies, from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. He carries out his photographic skills with more pizzazz than Jefferies -- OK, unfair comparison, as the latter was confined to a wheelchair and one window, creating a claustrophobic sensation. Hemmings' character (unnamed in Blowup) zips around in fresh, open air with and without his Rolls, but his mind is no less captive than Jefferies'. What the two voyeurs have in common, besides being photographers, is that they're prisoners of their anxiety and boredom. And their only relief from urban ennui is playing PI for the day.
Part of the thrill in viewing Blowup, as in Rear Window, is slipping into the uncomfortable position of voyeur and feeling one's accelerating heartbeat provide the score for the suspenseful scenes. Slightly sadistic, if not masochistic, the viewer partly wishes that these Peeping Toms would trip up and just call the police for goodness sake. Not only are both L.B. Jefferies and Hemmings' protagonist amateur sleuths, but they have reckless regard for risking their lives. As Jefferies, binoculars in hand, learned a decade earlier in Rear Window, the main character in Blowup finds his magnifying glass pointless as he's faced with the unknown -- that which cannot be seen but indeed can be intuited. Think of that classic image of the young/old lady: If you stare long and hard enough, you perceive what you want. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As I watched Hemmings' photographer examining certain elements of his "blowups," immediately my mind turned to certain scenes in Rear Window where Stewart sees what *could be* evidence of a crime already committed. In both films, however, the viewer isn't privy to the facts of the case and, thus, doesn't know *if* a crime was committed. And in both films, the elements of time and lighting are other, uncredited characters.
During my recent viewing of Blowup, I relished in the realm of illusion symbolized by the film's vivid colors and the use of drugs (including nicotine) as props to reinforce the illusion. Not that I have ever taken an illegal drug in my life, but this second time around watching Blowup gave me the feeling that Antonioni was taking me on an acid-laced journey. The beautiful part, baby, is throughout the film I connected with the metaphysical crisis that Hemmings' antihero experiences as an artist in need of a self-assessment of his worth as an adult human being.
After vicariously suffering through his mental defrag while he deconstructs each chunk of a photographed mystery, I thirsted for visual relief. I welcomed Antonioni's mini-masterpieces of distraction, especially the well-edited, living-color orgy sequence that put me in a "Crystal Blue Persuasion" mood (un-huh). My pupils dilated from mobile colors in the forms of female models tumbling with the main character as he removes their costumes within the contours of purple paper. Then there's the iconic scene of the photographer trapping a writhing model beneath him while he captures her ecstatic expressions seconds of frame at a time. Progressive jazz courtesy of Herbie Hancock and his ensemble transform a curt and fleeting mystery lady (played by Vanessa Redgrave) into literally a smoking woman. Remarkably, Redgrave pulls off an optical illusion, recalling Anouk Aimee in her role as the widow, Anne, in another iconic film of 1966: Un Homme et Une Femme (A Man and A Woman). Of course, Redgrave's dramatic virtuosity is responsible for evoking the sultry, pouty mod-girl mannerisms that Mme. Aimee displayed so exquisitely in the aforementioned French New Wave film by Claude Lelouch.
The most delicious distraction for this voyeur, er, viewer, was one that provided insight into the Blowup protagonist's solitude. It's a moment that magnifies his alienation, his existence that's more stripped-down than mere loneliness. For him, it occurs outside of his fashion photography sphere. I'm referring, here, to the scene in which he encounters his painter friend, Ron (portrayed by John Castle), copulating with his girlfriend, Patricia (portrayed by Sarah Miles). The photographer's intense gaze locks onto Patricia's rapturous one while she squirms beneath a bright duvet. In a risqu? scene -- by 1966 standards -- she moans through a climax that could be authentic or fake in keeping with the film's shifting, deceptive sensibilities. It's the one moment in the film where I come close to sympathizing with Hemmings' character because his puppy dog countenance captures the dumbfounded expression of unrequited love. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the absurd subtext of Ron's invisibility within the emotional space created by the photographer and Patricia's adulterous illusion.
Blowup is an addictive flick located at the intersection of minimalist thriller and surreal character study. That's this layperson's compliment to the late great Italian filmmaker Michaelangelo Antonioni. In future viewings I'll delight in the film's visual diversions from everyday, black-and-white existential angst. The virtual walk-through in the photographer's duplex alone is a hippie trip from a safe distance. After nearly a half-century since Blowup's release, it's still not every artist who can afford an interior designer to infuse his or her vain existence with a groovy dose of mad, mod colors.
Should Blowup not appear on your cable lineup for months or years to come, you might want to satisfy your desire for a vicarious metaphysical trip -- one with a psychedelic detour -- and get the DVD here on Amazon.com. Advice from the cool at heart: Don't dwell on whether there's a theme. Just dig it, man.
DVD Review: Very painful
Summary: 1 Stars
Wow....I don't know what to say. I read about this moving in a photography magazine as I am an amateur photographer so I thought I would check it out. After seeing 4 star ratings at Amazon and reading good reviews I purchased the video.
The movie was quickly boring but I kept waiting for something to happen, it had to since it was rated pretty good. I next found myself wanting to just turn it off and do something useful but again since the rating was good I had to continue to see the end.
If you want to watch a guy run around just taking pictures all of the time then this is for you. This had to have been the worst 2 hours and $15 I have ever spent in my life......do not buy or watch this movie.
DVD Review: Soundtrack Ruins Great Film
Summary: 2 Stars
I saw this film when it was released in theaters and its power has stuck with me for over 40 years. I was thrilled when it found out it had been released on DVD. Unfortunately, the soundtrack is so awful that it ruines an otherwise brilliant piece of film making. It is center speaker only and is of very low quality. Perhaps someday it will be re-released with the original soundtrack - in the meantime, save your money. DVD Review: ONLY FOR THE ARTSY FOLK
Summary: 1 Stars
For the 99% of viewers, take my word for it, skip this movie. It was boring. You can say all you want about the beautiful scenes, but if the story can't hold you, it isn't worth it.
Description of Blow Up
Taking photographs of a couple making love proves deadly when the photographer enlarges the image and discovers murder. The film and pictures are stolen from his studio and the body vanishes. In this elegant balance of deciet and trickery, the photographer must question the reality of what he has actually seen.This 1966 masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni (The Passenger) is set in the heady atmosphere of Swinging London, and stars David Hemmings as an unsmiling fashion photographer hooked on ephemeral meaning attached to anything: art, sex, work, relationships, drugs, events. When a real mystery falls into his lap, he probes the evidence for some reliable truth, but finds it hard to reckon with. Vanessa Redgrave plays an enigmatic woman whose desperation to cover something up only seems like one more phenomenon in Hemmings's disinterested purview. This is one of the key films of the decade, and still an unsettling and lasting experience. --Tom Keogh
Mystery & Suspense DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in Mystery & Suspense DVDs
Prime Suspect 4Prime; Release date: 2004-04-20; DVD
Best price: $14.65
Price in other shops:
Blow UpWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-02-17; DVD
Best price: $12.66
Price in other shops:
Prime Suspect 3Prime; Release date: 2004-02-24; DVD
Best price: $13.58
Price in other shops:
Murder by DecreeRelease date: 2003-01-21; DVD
Best price: $4.27
Price in other shops:
Prime Suspect 1Prime; Release date: 2003-10-14; DVD
Best price: $12.32
Price in other shops:
And Then There Were NoneRelease date: 2000-01-25; DVD
Best price: $4.40
Price in other shops:
The Third Man - Criterion Collection (2-Disc Edition)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-05-22; DVD
Best price: $24.73
Price in other shops:
Journey to the Far Side of the SunUniversal; Release date: 2008-06-24; DVD
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient ExpressParamount; Release date: 2004-09-07; DVD
Best price: $4.07
Price in other shops:
Eastern Promises (Widescreen Edition)Universal; Release date: 2007-12-23; DVD
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)Paramount; Release date: 2007-11-06; DVD
Best price: $7.60
Price in other shops:
Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2001-09-25; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
La NotteGenius; Release date: 2001-05-08; DVD
Best price: $12.38
Price in other shops:
L'Eclisse - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2005-03-15; DVD
Best price: $25.43
Price in other shops:
The Conformist (Extended Edition)Paramount; Release date: 2006-12-05; DVD
Best price: $7.79
Price in other shops:
8 1/ 2 - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2001-12-04; DVD
Best price: $18.98
Price in other shops:
BreathlessGenius; Release date: 2001-11-20; DVD
Best price: $10.62
Price in other shops:
L'Avventura - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2001-06-05; DVD
Best price: $23.87
Price in other shops:
The ConversationParamount; Release date: 2000-12-12; DVD
Best price: $4.44
Price in other shops:
The PassengerSony; Release date: 2006-04-25; DVD
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops: