Thesis and analysis of blow up film by Michelangelo Antonioni

The film The Blowup by Michelangelo Antonioni discusses the important issue of realism, a flawless fusion of form and meaning.

At the period of the war, there was a dire need for the truth, and Antonioni appeared to embrace it by taking pictures on street corners. A character in the movie named Thomas is a fashion photographer who unintentionally captures images of a couple in a park. Later on, when Thomas blows up the images, he realizes that he had captured the murder of the man who was with his wife in the park (Chatman, Seymour). The plot entails Thomas’s trial to find out what happened in the park. In the end, we see that Thomas becomes a figure in the postmodern commercialized world for the artist. Though Thomas is an artist, his art goes beyond his job affecting his approach to life. Thomas becomes a figure of capitalism and vice-versa. Most of his time is spent on shopping of photographs. For instance, he comes across an abstract painting, and upon seeing it, he immediately wants to buy it. The owner, Bill refuses to sell it indicating that it is outmoded. Due to this accusations, Bill’s wife becomes bored with him and gains interest in Thomas (Chatman, Seymour).

Thomas mind is full of business priority, as for any businessman he wishes to make profits for the work he is doing. He is bargaining the price of an antique store located in a deserted part of the town, during this process he sees a homosexual couple exercising their dog, and concludes that soon enough the neighborhood will become fashionable. It will allow him to the sale and make substantial profits in the long run. At the antique store, he sees a propeller and buys it immediately due to its decorative value of his studio (Chatman, Seymour).

The economy illustrated in the film regards to style and marketing, and not commodities which are being produced. Thomas is targeting his talent for aesthetics on the worn-out antique of the industries. Earlier in the film, Thomas is seen coming from a flophouse where his was taking photos for his book; they were black and white photos. These images are supposed to build his reputation as a serious artist. He takes pictures of the wild working-class life, objectively bringing forward their ugly bodies as aesthetic figures. Nineteenth-century novel writers would have presented an in-depth analysis of the lives of such people which Thomas hid for the better good. The industry seems not as marketing according to postmodernity; this is because marketing has an added value which differentiates the success and failure of a nation thereby solving the problem of production (Chatman, Seymour).

In today’s world, every citizen is an artist of their own lives. Thomas says this by providing a model on how to enhance one’s artistic nature. He does this by finding out and coming up with new fashions. He argues that the point is not behind acquiring wealth but to create attention and become a figure of everyone’s desire. He is ready to take risks and do outstanding things for the sake of organizing himself as the glass of fashion. He goes ahead to educate characters like Jane on how to be chilly. He tells her that she needs to move in an opposite direction with the beats of music. In other terms, this implies going against and rejecting the trends in upcoming fashion which is unknown. According to Thomas one must risk and oppose the grain to separate oneself in today’s society.

Verushka is a symbol of sexual seduction; she is captured in the famous scenes of the film. Photographers have an attitude of employing subjects’ mood in their work, and this is precisely what Thomas does in the sixties fashion. He enjoys working in company with Verushka as compared to the other models in the different scenes of the film, though he does not get involved personally with her. For example, he can make her wait up to an hour without apologizing to her indicating her indifferent concerns about missing the flight. After Thomas is done with taking the photographs, he walks away from her with indifference (Chatman, Seymour). It indicates that Thomas is full of desire and that he can employ the needs of his audience and that of a model with no personal investment.

There is no proof that Thomas is happy and passionate about his job as a photographer, in contradiction he rejects being forced to prostitute him to commercial craft. The photo shoots conducted an assembly line whereby the models are properly dressed signifying impersonal objects.

Thomas models are part of his audience. They comprise of young women who are willing and ready to buy the fashion magazines that Thomas sells. In one occasion two groups of young women visit his studio and are so impressed by his art and photography. They end up stating that they are impressed and would like to try Thomas’s fashion; finally, they buy clothes from his studio. Through this, it is drawn in our minds that Thomas is open minded and insolent of his listeners, and they respect him for his great work of art and fashion (Chatman, Seymour).

The film extends its investigation of desire through the rock concert. The crowd stands still and passively during the occasion of the concert implying a film audience rather than a rock concert audience. A guitar is being played by a rock star at the end of the show shaking his head and throwing his neck to the audience people are seen overwhelmed as everyone is looking for the main idea and theme of the music. The photographer is not left out as he is also caught up in the frenzy just like everyone else, showing that he is susceptible to contagion. At the event of the event he wins the guitar and goes outside where he studies the neck and finally tosses it away. The appeal of the neck was imitative thus signifying desire (Chatman, Seymour). Considering this event and the murder scene, Girard could have formulated a theory of imitative desire. Before the event at the rock concert, Thomas goes to Bill’s apartment and finds him having sex with Patricia, though Patricia is the only one who saw her. She becomes so bored, but Thomas presence makes her so excited. She acts in a manner to convince Thomas to continue watching them. Patricia’s needs grow encouraged and aroused by the presence of a witness to prove her husband’s desire for her.

Antonioni’s attitude toward the scenes in the film in necessarily not clear, but Thomas himself is not satisfied with the current state of his life. He is seen complaining all the time, for instance, he complains to Ron, one of his editors that he wishes he had a lot of money. He supports his point by saying that a lot of money would make him rich and free thereby avoiding to force himself work with the ‘bloody bitches.’ This dissatisfaction generates a posing picture of Thomas as a homeless man. But Thomas is authentic, seeing things to be emptied of liberation and desire.

Patricia is a symbol of disaffection as she is seen providing a mirror photo of her alienation. After having sex with her Bill, his husband, she goes to Thomas’s studio and upon reaching she finds Thomas who asks her a challenging question, is she has ever had thoughts of leaving Bill. She answers by telling him, no, thereby moving the true nature of her sadness with Bill undefined. A few moments later she asks Thomas for help and pledges that she does not know what to do. This question is left unanswered as their conversation is distracted (Chatman, Seymour).

Thomas has ambitions of doing high art, but he is facing challenges as he cannot make enough money to cater for his projects such as the photo-art book project he is planning to undertake in London. He is looking for an essential meaning that seems hard to find in the world of liberated needs (Kozloff, Max). The photograph of the murder in the park gives him hope as it promises him a new prospect of meaning. He sees himself as a grateful person as he is seeing himself closer to closer to something real which is human violence.

One day as he was walking through the park he comes across two couples and by chance he goes ahead to take pictures of them, not keeping in mind that he might be taking photographs of a murder scene. Jane, the woman in the scene, reacted on the photographing theme desperately as she is seen trying to cover up her evil deeds of adultery. After Thomas left the park, he goes ahead to meet his friend at a restaurant where he finds a man trying to spy on him by removing a trunk out of his car. It just tells us that the woman at the park had an accomplice since it was apparent to Thomas that this was not the man the woman was kissing at the park. This man goes ahead to follow Thomas at the studio where he directs his characters there. After the woman finds out Thomas has some of the evidence of her crimes, she goes to the studio and tries to steal Thomas’s camera and photos. She is so desperate that she goes ahead to tell Thomas she is ready to have sex with him in exchange for the film. Later on, the film shows us how attracted this woman is to Thomas (Kozloff, Max).

Thomas finally gives her the recorded film and remains with the original copy. He receives a phone call from unknown number during his encounter with the woman from the park, which stated the relationship between the one calling and the woman. Thomas behavior is observed as the woman’s lack of exposure and considers himself as a beggar at the flophouse. He has an ironic and manipulative sense of identity. His life is full of emptiness at its core. He is confused at this part as he does not know his character that is what he is and what he wants.

In another scene, he blows up photos which inspire him in a different way than what we have observed before. He is focused on this part and with urge wants to know and find out all the details that happened in the park (Kozloff, Max). One of his photos show evidence that there was a man in possession of a gun hidden in the bush at the park, the same man is the one who follows him to the studio and goes ahead to steal the photos. It creates the woman’s figure and that of the man with a gun at the park, how he was pulling his arm, a right manner to state that he could be responsible for the murder.

The path to knowledge in this film is through photographs. A real picture is not supposed to be considered a transparent representation but as an actual thing or mode. Blowing up these pictures is a way of creating sense. This film takes into consideration that the truth of something can be revealed through photographic representation. The question does not fall on what happened but on the relationship between signs represented through photographs (Kozloff, Max).

Through this blowups, Antonioni constructs a narrative: the first part of the narration is that he has stopped a killing from taking place and the second part is that he is a witness to the murder, but he is not known. This fact creates a historical analysis of the passage from photography to film narrative. The narrative is created explaining the primary aesthetic values of the film. A photograph is a physical and sensual appearance which takes Thomas to a hidden reality. A photo work becomes obsolete and inadequate if it’s not blown up and explained in detail to find out its true meaning. It proves the fact the murder is significant if it is offered as a token of life sense (Kozloff, Max).

The murder in the film is considered responsive due to the violent reality of the scenes in the park. It is discovered through interpretation of the photographs that were taken by Thomas. This murder might be considered mythical and critical to unmask, but the level of doubt surrounding the killings cannot be forgotten quickly. After Thomas photos resemble the dead body, he is seen returning to the park at night to determine the actual body. He finds the body of the man who was with Jane earlier at the park and even goes ahead to touch the dead body. The body at the park looks so strange in that lighting cast from an electric sign creates a weird blue image over everything (Eugene, Ruggero). There are no apparent signs of violent acts on the body, making it difficult to determine the cause of death. The eyes are not closed, but instead, they stare up into the air. It represents an actor who seems to be pretending to be dead just for the sake of acting. Thomas goes at the tennis court where he watches a game with full of amusement until the time when the ball is hit over the fence towards his direction; they exchange gestures for him to throw the ball back to them. He picks the ball and throws it back to them for them to continue playing. Through this Thomas learns that what is looking for is like a ball, that the objectivity of a photograph cannot be controlled.

As Thomas continues to blow up the photos, they become more fragmented thereby not being able to reveal any new detail. What they seem to be doing is decomposing slowly and step by step. The sequence that Thomas is using to blow up his images seems to be destructive but on the other hand its creating logic of abstract art. After all the photos are stolen, Thomas finds one picture that the thief had forgotten and left behind. He takes it to Patricia who comments by saying it resembles one of Bill’s paintings (Eugene, Ruggero). As the film begins, Bill is describing the process he uses to draw his portraits. Bill says that those pictures do not mean anything to him and that they are just a mess. At the end of the drawing, he finds something that he can hang on his wall. To him pulling is like finding evidence in a detective tale. This point is in contradiction with interpreting the blowups, this because according to Thomas photographs have a more profound meaning which is a different case to Bill who sees them as decorations alone. Bill concludes that there is no reason for putting the form into paintings.

As the film ends, Antonioni captures our attention towards the true nature of the documentary confirming what we had seen earlier of a fake dead-looking body. By doing this, he shows us how is inevitable and active in the film thereby showing the impossibility of realism (Eugene, Ruggero).

Work cited

Chatman, Seymour. “The Films Of Michelangelo Antonioni Peter Brunette.” Film Quarterly, vol 53, no. 1, 1999, pp. 50-51. University Of California Press, doi:10.2307/3697218.

Eugeni, Ruggero. “”A Past Which Has Never Been A Present”. Cinema And Photography In Blow-Up By Michelangelo Antonioni.“ Recherches Sémiotiques, vol 28, no. 1-2, 2008, p. 125. Consortium Erudit, doi:10.7202/044592ar.

Kozloff, Max. ”: The Blow-Up . Michelangelo Antonioni ..“ Film Quarterly, vol 20, no. 3, 1967, pp. 28-31. University Of California Press, doi:10.1525/fq.1967.20.3.04a00060.