![]() ![]() She tracks him to his studio, takes off her shirt, wants to seduce him and steal the film. The woman ( Vanessa Redgrave) runs after him. Are they struggling? Playing? Flirting? He snaps a lot of photos. Thomas wanders into a park and sees, at a distance, a man and a woman. He spends his days in tightly scheduled photo shoots (the model Verushka plays herself, and there's a group shoot involving grotesque mod fashions), and his nights visiting flophouses to take pictures that might provide a nice contrast in his book of fashion photography. He looks at her as if she alone could heal his soul (and may have once done so), but she's not available. The depths of his spiritual hunger are suggested in three brief scenes involving a neighbor ( Sarah Miles), who lives with a painter across the way. The movie stars David Hemmings, who became a 1960s icon after this performance as Thomas, a hot young photographer with a Beatles haircut, a Rolls convertible and "birds" hammering on his studio door for a chance to pose and put out for him. He places them within a London of heartless fashion photography, groupies, bored rock audiences, languid pot parties, and a hero whose dead soul is roused briefly by a challenge to his craftsmanship. Antonioni uses the materials of a suspense thriller without the payoff. Then I found the spell of the movie settling around me. Watching "Blow-Up" once again, I took a few minutes to acclimate myself to the loopy psychedelic colors and the tendency of the hero to use words like "fab" ("Austin Powers" brilliantly lampoons the era). The festival began with the emergence of the Beat Generation and advanced through Cassavetes to "Blow-Up"-after which the virus of Cool leaped from its nurturing subculture into millions of willing new hosts, and has colored our society ever since, right down to and manifestly including "South Park." This was at the 1998 Virginia Festival of American Film in Charlottesville, which had "Cool" as its theme. Freed from the hype and fashion, it emerges as a great film, if not the one we thought we were seeing at the time. ![]() Over three days recently, I revisited "Blow-Up" in a shot-by-shot analysis. Americans flew to "swinging London" in the 1960s today's Londoners pile onto the charter jets to Orlando. The twentysomethings who bought tickets for "Blow-Up" are now focused on ironic, self-referential slasher movies. Florida sunsets / sunrises are the best.Young audiences aren't interested any more in a movie about a "trendy" London photographer who may or may not have witnessed a murder, who lives a life of cynicism and ennui, and who ends up in a park at dawn, watching college kids play tennis with an imaginary ball. Been playing around with the time-lapse feature with some great successes and a lot of duds. I just would like to share what I think are some really amazing shots from my extensive travels and my abstract eye.) I'll keep you posted or at least let you know where you can view my "work". I'm gonna make millions (or maybe just hundreds, doesn't matter, I'm not in it for money. Some cheap frames from Hobby Lobby just in time for the Arts Fair. I am going to try the next size down, and then again, and again if necessary to zoom to the right enlargement size. They are not that bad just not sale quality. I can still use the over-pixilated posters as Christmas gifts. It was the subject matter I was in an old train tunnel, very dark except for "the light at the end of the tunnel". In this shot, the reduced pixilation increased the affect I was looking for to the extent that it took my breath away. Pixilation was terrible with one exception. I sent 3 of my finest to Walgreens and selected 24 x36. ![]()
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