Blow Up

UPC: 012569513525

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Adult Situations, Not For Children]

Summary: Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language production was also his only box office hit, widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s. Thomas (David Hemmings) is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his "fab" but oddly-lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing, and upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder. Pursued by Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), the woman who is in the photos, Thomas pretends to give her the pictures, but in reality, he passes off a different roll of film to her. Thomas returns to the park and discovers that there is, indeed, a dead body lying in the shrubbery: the gray-haired man who was embracing Jane. Has she murdered him, or does Thomas' photo reveal a man with a gun hiding nearby? Antonioni's thriller is a puzzling, existential, adroitly-assembled masterpiece. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Category: Mystery

Awards: Best British Film – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Foreign Film - English Language – null Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences International Grand Prix – Cannes Film Festival Best Foreign Film - English Language – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Picture – National Society of Film Critics Best Director – National Society of Film Critics

Features: ccCommentary by "The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni" author Peter Brunette
Music-only audio track
Two theatrical trailers
Languages: English & Fran?ais
Subtitles: English, Fran?ais, & Espa?ol

Blow Up

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 02/17/2004

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 111 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Credits. [1:26]
2. Free in the Streets. [3:40]
3. Solo Shoot. [5:39]
4. Photographic Objects. [5:17]
5. Bill and Patricia. [3:10]
6. No Time for Them. [2:00]
7. Search for Landscapes. [4:33]
8. Couple in the Park. [3:46]
9. The Lady Protests. [2:30]
10. Antique Fever. [4:28]
11. Someone You Know? [6:22]
12. His Visitor. [5:47]
13. Say What You Want. [4:19]
14. Topless. [5:02]
15. What Develops. [3:54]
16. Blowups. [1:32]
17. Sequence of Events? [3:05]
18. Swingers Interlude. [2:46]
19. Murderous Outline. [5:54]
20. Scene of the Crime. [4:56]
21. Eyewitness. [3:01]
22. Stolen Pictures. [2:25]
23. Ricky Tick (Stroll On). [6:24]
24. Finding Ron. [5:21]
25. Not Finding the Body. [4:25]
26. Tennis Game. [4:02]

Jonathan Crow

A masterpiece of 1960s art-house cinema, Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up is a dizzying exploration of images, appearances, and existence amid the mod glamour of Swinging '60s London. Antonioni took his signature influence of existentialist philosophy, seen in such earlier films as L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), The Eclipse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), and pushed it to full-scale reflexivity: instead of just questioning existence, he questioned the nature of reality itself. Just as Thomas blows up his photographs until they are pure abstraction, Antonioni uses deliberately odd framing, expressionistic use of color, and an extremely long telephoto lens, which crushes depth from the image, to make the film look both striking and opaque. Thomas himself is adrift in this world: absorbed in the surfaces of things yet unable to perceive intrinsic beauty, he finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish objective reality from the simulacra of advertising and fashion photography. By the end of the film, he is no longer certain if distinctions among image, illusion, and reality even exist. The film's brilliantly dense philosophical underpinnings aside, its Rear Window-esque plot makes it a compelling piece of work. Moreover, it features some of the most memorable sequences in cinema: the pantomime tennis match at the end of the film, the naughty m?nage ? trois on purple paper, and the almost farcically erotic photo shoot at the beginning of the film between model Veruschka and Thomas with his oversized camera lens. Blow Up proved extremely influential on younger generations of filmmakers; and it was later echoed by both Francis Ford Coppola in The Conversation (1974) and Brian De Palma in Blow Out (1981). ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Susan Broderick  Actor 
Ann Norman  Actor 
Jimmy Page  Actor 
Jeff Beck  Actor 
Harry Hutchinson  Actor 
Tsai Chin  Actor 
Ronan O'Casey  Actor 
Peggy Moffitt  Actor 
Jill Kennington  Actor 
The Yardbirds  Actor 
Julian Chagrin  Actor 
Veruschka  Actor 
Michelangelo Antonioni  Director 
Michelangelo Antonioni  Screenwriter 
Edward Bond  Screenwriter 
Tonino Guerra  Screenwriter 
Herbie Hancock  Composer (Music Score) 
Carlo Ponti  Producer 
Pierre Rouve  Executive Producer 
The Yardbirds  Composer (Music Score) 
David Hemmings  Actor 
Vanessa Redgrave  Actor 
Sarah Miles  Actor 
Peter Bowles  Actor 
John Castle  Actor 
Jane Birkin  Actor 
Gillian Hills  Actor 

Country: Italy,UK