I've often contemplated my large DVD collection and wondered why in the hell I paid good money for some of the titles I have collected. Sometimes it's because I saw the films as a kid in the 1960s and remembered them as good films. Other times I've just been in the "right" place at the "right" time and purchased on a whim. Many I have only watched once, disappointed that they didn't re-meet my expectations (or others', on whose opinions I had relied). Working from the other end of the equation - films I'm glad I've purchased - I've tried to consider what makes a good addition to a film collection, like Blow Up: a film that I want to watch again and again.
In the case of Blow Up, the reason I can watch it often is the atmospherics. The sound of the dismal London breezes in the park where the central pivotal action of the film takes place. The damp greenery that accompanies the breeze. The nihilism of the photographer. Even the photography itself. I spent many a long month trudging through parks in London, Paris and other places making "decisive moment" photographs, just like Thomas (the main character) did. I can appreciate the loneliness of this aspect of his work, as opposed to the studio sessions where he has a large, yet virtually mute cast of robotic assistants who do his bidding without so much as a please or thankyou from him. Peripatetic photography is - by definition - something you have to do alone, and Thomas is alone. One gets the feeling that candid photography is his true love, where he gets closest to the truth, the only part of his craft that he is emotionally excited about.
Thomas is surrounded by others, mostly because they're paid to be with him - models, staff, agents, shopkeepers, the London traffic itself - but he hates his existence and the hangers on in his life. I think that is why he's so disdainful and rude to everybody near him. He resents the space they occupy.
When he finally becomes interested in a woman (Vanessa Redgrave) she enters and exits his life by suddenly appearing and just as suddenly disappearing, as if by magic. Blink twice and she's gone. All he has left are his photographs of her, taken in a "blink", but remaining as permanent images on film. In them he first sees her with her lover and then, enlarging the images, sees something more sinister. Is she really who he thought she was? These revealed truths and questions lead him first to wonder if he really did see what he photographed, and then to ponder what course of action he should take. Real life has come up and head-butted him, and he has to respond in some way. But no-one else seems to care, not his friends or business associates. He is on his own again.
We see him at the end of the film back in the park, accompanied by the same lonely, damp London breeze, revisiting the scene of his photographs taken just 24 hours before. Whether what he saw was real or not we don't know for sure by this stage... and neither does he. Just about every scrap of evidence that he was there such a short time ago is gone: the woman, the man she was with, the photographs. He has only his imagination to rely on. As his painter friend in the first act painted his artworks and only then sought meaning in them, so Thomas found meaning in his photographs only after the act of creation - the opening of the shutter - was over. But by then it is too late. As he picks up an imaginary tennis ball and throws it back to some frolicking mimes playing imaginary tennis he smiles and realises that what he saw (or thinks he saw) in the park the day before is none of his concern. It's as if what happened never happened, as there is no record of it any more. The leaf fell in the forest and there was, for practical purposes, no-one there to witness it and bring back proof that it fell.
An excellent, complex film about a lonely, arrogant man who, for once, wants to care about something, but can't find anyone who believes in him. Full of atmospherics and rich photography. A film that I can definitely watch again and again, each time learning more about the many ways reality can be viewed and, most importantly, interpreted.
In the case of Blow Up, the reason I can watch it often is the atmospherics. The sound of the dismal London breezes in the park where the central pivotal action of the film takes place. The damp greenery that accompanies the breeze. The nihilism of the photographer. Even the photography itself. I spent many a long month trudging through parks in London, Paris and other places making "decisive moment" photographs, just like Thomas (the main character) did. I can appreciate the loneliness of this aspect of his work, as opposed to the studio sessions where he has a large, yet virtually mute cast of robotic assistants who do his bidding without so much as a please or thankyou from him. Peripatetic photography is - by definition - something you have to do alone, and Thomas is alone. One gets the feeling that candid photography is his true love, where he gets closest to the truth, the only part of his craft that he is emotionally excited about.
Thomas is surrounded by others, mostly because they're paid to be with him - models, staff, agents, shopkeepers, the London traffic itself - but he hates his existence and the hangers on in his life. I think that is why he's so disdainful and rude to everybody near him. He resents the space they occupy.
When he finally becomes interested in a woman (Vanessa Redgrave) she enters and exits his life by suddenly appearing and just as suddenly disappearing, as if by magic. Blink twice and she's gone. All he has left are his photographs of her, taken in a "blink", but remaining as permanent images on film. In them he first sees her with her lover and then, enlarging the images, sees something more sinister. Is she really who he thought she was? These revealed truths and questions lead him first to wonder if he really did see what he photographed, and then to ponder what course of action he should take. Real life has come up and head-butted him, and he has to respond in some way. But no-one else seems to care, not his friends or business associates. He is on his own again.
We see him at the end of the film back in the park, accompanied by the same lonely, damp London breeze, revisiting the scene of his photographs taken just 24 hours before. Whether what he saw was real or not we don't know for sure by this stage... and neither does he. Just about every scrap of evidence that he was there such a short time ago is gone: the woman, the man she was with, the photographs. He has only his imagination to rely on. As his painter friend in the first act painted his artworks and only then sought meaning in them, so Thomas found meaning in his photographs only after the act of creation - the opening of the shutter - was over. But by then it is too late. As he picks up an imaginary tennis ball and throws it back to some frolicking mimes playing imaginary tennis he smiles and realises that what he saw (or thinks he saw) in the park the day before is none of his concern. It's as if what happened never happened, as there is no record of it any more. The leaf fell in the forest and there was, for practical purposes, no-one there to witness it and bring back proof that it fell.
An excellent, complex film about a lonely, arrogant man who, for once, wants to care about something, but can't find anyone who believes in him. Full of atmospherics and rich photography. A film that I can definitely watch again and again, each time learning more about the many ways reality can be viewed and, most importantly, interpreted.