Blow-Up
1966
***
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jan Birkin, Gillian Hills
A fashion photographer shoots away in a London park. When he blows up one of the pictures, he spots something that he shouldn't have seen. A mystery ensues, but not the kind that is solved on screen. Antonioni's first film in English offers late 1960s filmmaking at its best and at its worst. It's alternately gripping and disaffecting. It's fresh and unpredictable but its jazzy score and druggy orgies have become a tired cliché of the whole era. Nevertheless, it has influenced a number of subsequent films, most notably Blow Out. Based on Julio Cortázar's short story.
