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I saw both of these yesterday afternoon as part of an Antonioni retrospective (which itself takes up half - far too much - of the Italian Film Festival currently running here. Curiously the films are being show out of chronological order which make little sense to me, and thus Blow Up screened second, but it makes sense to consider them in date order.
Blow Up is London 1966. David Hemmings is a successful photographer enjoying the Swinging London of endless models whom he treats with total distain as he become detached from his life. Without too much of a spoiler, he realises there is a clue to a mystery in a photo he has taken, but right at the moment he finds it, all the pictures, film stock et al disappears from his studio, leaving him to ponder the nature of his reality. Re-appearing right at the end, a jeep-full of students collecting for charity, illustrate what he has lost.
The film is absolutely drenched in the feel of London at the moment the old gray, post-war 50s were being thrown aside as fashion music sex and drugs sweep everything away and as such it is wonderful period piece eve including a cameo from the Yardirds in the brief moment where they had both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitars.Move on 4 years and let's go to California for Zabriskie Point, a film showing an unusual view of LA from a poorer viewpoint against the revolutionary rhetoric and hippy bland good vibes as a kaliedoscope of advertising fills the view and leaves our hero wanting to do something. HIs almost quintessentially American conceit that he can do anything ends in a small beer tragedy but in its aftermath, a girl of has fallen fro him sees the soulless, consumerist society around her violently (self?) destruct.
What starts as an incoherent babel of student politics focuses into the overthrow of everything in The American Dream as in the famous end sequence a luxury desert house explodes over and over, clothes, books, and most poingently the contents of a refrigerator fall across the screen in slow slow motion as Pink Floyd peak their freak-out period with Careful With That Axe Eugene.
THe music fits this film very well, The Dead's Dark Star seemingly a perfect fit for a swirling view of LA sprawl from a stolen plane.
These two films, bookending the late 60s, provide a near perfect pairing for anyone either wanting to provoke a discussion about that most self fixated of (half) decades or trying to understand what your parents thought was so important about it.
Antonioni's symbolism is both poetic and obvious (I think) although his layering is such that the films are always open to interpretation.
I would absolutely recommend this double feature to anyone.
Follow Ups:
I meant to say that (in ZP) Frechette's character commits a small beer crime which ends in a tragedy but the computer gremlins from the grassy knoll confused the issue or at least my fingers.
Here is a great still from the end of ZP.
...was absolutely the best thing in it to me. Whoo!!I actually hated ZP the first time I saw it (early 70's). HATED it. Thought Antonioni had totally lost his grip and I was crushingly disappointed. Seeing it a few years later, I realized ZP had little to do with the real USA and zip to do with real freaks 'n hippies and then I came to feel that maybe I should get over the anachronistic trappings that so alienated me from this film.
Seeing it 30 years on I feel it's a much better film than I had supposed, but still IMO an interesting failure. (I'd rather see an interesting failure over a polished mediocrity any day). Puts me in the minority opinion of ZP but I don't care. ;-) I'll probably try it again some day.
Blow Up - now I've heard various comments in the past few years moaing about how it hasn't aged well...baloney.
Still one of my favorite Antonioni movies and one of my favorite films from the 60s.
I agree with your views on both films.
... perfectly captures the freedom and mycogeny of the moment.
And it contains a cast of 60s ikons.
I have a feeling that ZP can be read as being about Ameriika, capitalism, consumerism... almost anything you like really. It could even be about an internal revolution within American society.
was described by one film reviewer as the "new James Dean" for his role in ZP
Not long after the film, he was involved in a Bank robbery, arrested, and died under mysterious circumstances in prisonDaria Halprin seems to have disappeared into obscurity after ZP
Grins
... a psychiatrist.
There is some interesting stuff around on the two of them and the parallels between Frechette and the commune they lived on and the Manson "family".
Just teasing you to some degree, as these are great films with no reservations... but... a double feature? Wasn't it too overwhelming? Two films, each one about two hours long... Or maybe you are 30 years younger than I... I could not imagine sitting through such a long journey.Am I getting too old? But there is another aspect... When dealing with great films I usually want some time afterwards to let is sink in.
... really a double bill, but they were shown with a 20 minute interval and I thought it would be a good thing to see both.
I would have prefered them in date order though.
My friend Holly with whom I went flies to Sydney each year for the film fest there and will see 20 films in 4 days.
My post was just lamenting over days long gone. Today I could do it on a matinee, but the double I tried in the evening a few years ago turned out a disaster.But regardless... your post was good on those films, and I might revisit the ZP, as it's been quite some time. I have it on tape, wonder if I should simply dump it and buy a DVD?
Well, they were both in the afternoon anyway.
I kind of like going during the day now I live in the subtropics... the air con is very pleasant!
Holly is mad about films! She also runs her local film society and attends and contributes to other film festivals as well as this year having run a film component for the Noosa Longweekend arts festival. She also has a full time job.
I don't know about getting the DVD. I have a very good cinema service round Brisbane with 3 independent multi-screen centres as well as the chains, at least one of which likes to show Bollywood for extended seasons.
I like the sensation of the cinema size screen and sound which are pretty impossible to realistically copy at home. I'll give up the convenience of home screenings for most of the time as I top up with a few movie channels on satellite.
You can become a member of each independent here for $12Au.. say $9 US a year and then its only $9.50/$7.00 a ticket. At the moment my favourite cinema is running a members' 2-4-1 ticket offer which is unbeatable. Apart from when I wander in to an afternoon midweek session and because I go a lot, I often just get comped up.
Then there is the Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) each July and the related World Movie Club ($60 a year and free entry to films, last week a preview and discussion of Road To Guantanamo, this week advance screening of Black Dahlia)) and I am kept pretty happy!!!
There is nothing like that here, so the DVD's are pretty much the only game for me, except for a few fresh foreign films, those we usually can get on in theater.But for those films that need the truly big screen effect I have the large projector... sure, not quite the same, but when considering the alternatives... sitting in a dark room, with popcorn and close to the screen kinda gets you in the ballpark... I know, I know, clark will tell us the projector black sucks...
Yes, I feel very lucky here especially as there is constant stream of news telling us in how much trouble is the the Australian cinema/film industry. I apologise for the ugliness of the last sentence, but as I noted minutes ago I am in the process of the morning coffee ceremony and its been a hot night for spring; 28 Celsius outside when I got up at 5.45.
I have thought of a projector, indeed I nearly put one into the living room here as its big enough (main area around seven metres square) but I know the screen would never be wound up. At least here I have to go into the TV room!
We have a lot of cinemas and I think, given the restrictions of release dates around the world, we get a very good selection at reasonable prices. It helps I live in the city and can easily get around. If I was prepared to walk I could still get to 17 screens within a 30 minute walk, which is pretty good.
seriously, good reviews. I remember seeing ZP when it first came out and hating it (I love Blow-up and most every other Antonioni film), and as I recall the male lead was a non-actor who it was said had been a carpenter.
My film service still doesn't have it but I'll be revisiting it as soon as it does: I remember ZP as being a bit too preachy and heavy-handed... and I was a hippie.
I, also in full hippy flowering, also thought it pretty bad at the time, but now with a little detachment from the dress codes of youth, its much easier to appreciate what the audiences didn't get before.
As a property developer I found the contrasting of the desert with the incessant flood of advertising and the developer played by Rod Taylor and his white business friends intent on building what I think is a marina in the desert (could be?) while being surrounded by non-white servants to be more relevant. Sorry, I haven't thought thta last sentence out too well, but its early and I am only just starting the coffee ceremony...
Time has, for me at least, given a different perspective to the film and its very, especially at the start, incoherence can be appreciated as a commentary on the times rather than a fault in itself.
In my mind the explosion at the end is entirely in the girl's mind as her belief in America The Beautiful explodes amongst the violence of the times, but a friend wondered if in fact it was a real bomb planted by the domestic help at the house. In my mind that's a "no" but in the spirit of the 60s, its easy to see the film as expansive (as opposed to merely explosive) and thus multiple readings are actually the point. Its tricky to get yourself into the headspace of intellectual Italian movie folk 40 years ago.
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