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© DR - BLOW UP de Michelangelo Antonioni (1967) p28
31/12/2012 08:18
A parable about the possible dehumanizing effects of photography...(2)
Psychedelic colors make the 'real' world of the film seem exaggerated and hyperbolic like a fantastic 'surface' reality, while the 'captured' and reconstructed world of the photographs appears ominously stark, grainy, and documentary-like -- the bare, denuded 'essence' of reality. In the central montage sequence of the film, the camera -- in place of Thomas' eyes -- slowly moves back and forth from one photograph to the next, and likewise, Antonioni cuts back and forth from the pictures to the protagonist looking at them.
Since the act of looking at these enhanced images effectively reconstructs an event that the protagonist -- and the audience -- never actually saw with the naked eye in 'real life,' technology is shown to reveal a new surface of the world that is normally hidden from view. Antonioni's own particular brand of phenomenological Neorealism is concerned primarily with the process of seeing through a camera as a way of exposing an ultimate truth, or a lack thereof, that underlies the surface of the world.
The curious self-reflexivity of this scene is an epistemological hall of mirrors: Antonioni's camera looks at Thomas looking at photographs which are blown up larger and larger so that eventually they become merely an abstract collection of dots, a Rorschach test in which almost anything can be read. Like the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the tormented artist son in Pasolini's TEOREMA (1968), the received cultural baggage and semiotic referentiality of the image is eliminated until all that remains is purest subjectivity of the spectator.
And so, picture-making technology mediates reality only up to a point: once the threshold of referentiality has been crossed, the suspicion of a murder in the park gleaned from a series of enlarged photographs would seem to say more about Thomas' own paranoid state of mind than what his camera may or may not have recorded.
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© DR - BLOW UP de Michelangelo Antonioni (1967) p29
31/12/2012 08:24
A parable about the possible dehumanizing effects of photography...(3)
This subtextual aspect of the film has been compared to the controversy surrounding the various interpretations of the Abraham Zapruder film as a definitive and reliable record of the Kennedy assassination and particularly, the mystery of the notorious 'grassy knoll.' Also, the possible incidence of adultery and The Girl's desperate efforts to retrieve the film suggest the scandalous fallout of the Profumo affair. Vanessa Redgrave, with her thick, dark brown hair and affected temptress-naïf manner, hinted at by a schoolgirl outfit and arms folded seductively over her breasts, seems meant to evoke, for a British audience at least, then-recent memories of Christine Keeler.
BLOW-UP is full of visual and verbal non-sequiturs and nearly all the scenes are composed of long-takes with plenty of 'longeurs'and 'temps mort.This real-time approach-often fragmented by abrupt and seemingly arbitrary cuts;faithfully simulates Thomas'experience and the mechanical routine of his creative process and its fleeting moments of sudden inspiration and frenzied excitement.All throughout the film there is a recurrent pattern of relationships left unconsummated and work left undone. Just as he appears on the verge of establishing meaningful contact with someone or about to finally resolve himself to some efficacious deed or another,he is immediately distracted by something else that pops up.
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© DR - BLOW UP de Michelangelo Antonioni (1967) fin
31/12/2012 08:41
A parable about the possible dehumanizing effects of photography...(fin)
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Thomas resembles Odysseus in the way he is continually thwarted by chance encounters, which cause him to lose sight of his mission. Indeed, the film's meandering, episodic plot does seem to have elements of classical epic: the rock concert and the marijuana party afterward all suggest a ritual journey through a modern 'Land of the Lotus-Eaters.' Ironically, it is just when he discovers a sense of emotional commitment and social obligation in his life that his self-justifying cynicism and arrogant indifference toward others is replaced by a growing sense of impotence and defeat. In the final scene, speech is phased out of the film entirely, leaving only a silent form of physical communication unmediated by language and social pretensions.
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BLOW-UP was the Antonioni's greatest commercial and critical triumph and the film's narrative;an odyssey through a modern city,following the protagonist from feigned poverty to the false security of wealth and ending on a note of final lingering doubt about one's place and purpose in the world;seems itself a trenchant comment on the nature of success and what it does to people.By transposing to 'Swinging London' the Marxist concerns of his Italian films, Antonioni demonstrates once again that this malaise of modern life is not caused by technology and consumer culture but rather by man's failure to adapt to the conditions of the new environment he has created for himself
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Récompenses
1967 : Palme d'or au Festival de Cannes
1967 : NSFC Award du meilleur réalisateur
1968 : Ruban d'argent (Syndicat national des Journalistes cinématographiques italiens) du meilleur réalisateur de film étranger
1968 : Prix de la critique (Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma) du meilleur film étrange
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Vidéographie
Blow-Up, Warner Home Video, 2004, (EAN 7-321950-651351), L'édition contient en supplément un commentaire audio de Peter Brunette et l'option piste audio musicale seule.
Bibliographie
(en) Monthly Film Bulletin, no 401.
(en) Sight and Sound, automne 1966 (photo de couverture) ; printemps 1967 (article p. 60 + notule p. 106).
Cahiers du cinéma, no 191 (juin 1967) ; no 193 (septembre 1967).
Positif, no 84 (mai 1967) ; no 87 (septembre 1967).
Thierry Roche, Blow-Up, un regard anthropologique : affleurer la surface du monde, 2010, 172 p. (ISBN 978-2-87340-260-0).
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© DR - ZABRISKIE POINT de Michelangelo Antonioni (1970)
02/01/2013 08:42
Zabriskie Point
est un film italo-américain de Michelangelo Antonioni, sorti en 1970. Le film illustre la contestation étudiante américaine durant la fin des années 60, ainsi que la libération sexuelle propre à ces années. Il s'inscrit dans la suite de films tels que Easy Rider de Dennis Hopper, et sera très contesté par l'Amérique puritaine, créant de nombreux incidents avec des militants pro-Nixon.C'est la deuxième collaboration entre Michelangelo Antonioni et le producteur Carlo Ponti, après le succès de Blow Up (Palme d'or en 1967), et avant celui de Profession : reporter en 1975
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Résumé1
Indifférent à la révolte étudiante qui gronde à Los Angeles, le jeune Mark s'ennuie à mourir dans ce monde, où il ne trouve pas sa place. Lors d'une bagarre entre policiers et étudiants en grève, un flic est tué.Bien qu'innocent, Mark, qui rôdait par là, est aperçu avec l'arme à feu qu'il vient tout juste d'acheter. Conscient qu'il est dans le colimateur des forces de l'ordre, le jeune homme décide de s'enfuir. Il vole un avion de tourisme et quitte enfin cette ville qu'il déteste.Survolant la vallée de la Mort, il aperçoit une voiture avec laquelle il décide de s'amuser un peu. Il fait alors la connaissance d'une ravissante jeune femme
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External Reviews
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© DR - ZABRISKIE POINT de Michelangelo Antonioni (1970) p2
02/01/2013 09:36
Fiche technique
Michelangelo Antonioni
Réalisateur : Michelangelo Antonioni
Scénaristes : Michelangelo Antonioni,
Franco Rossetti, Sam Shepard,
Tonino Guerra, & Clare Peploe
Producteur : Carlo Ponti ; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Producteur exécturif : Harrison Starr
Musique : Jerry Garcia, Pink Floyd
Photographie : Alfio Contini
Monteur : Michelangelo Antonioni,
Franco Arcalli
Chef décorateur : Dean Tavoularis,
Georges R. Nelson
Créateur des costumes : Ray Summers
Sortie:États-Unis : 9 février 1970
France : 14 avril 1970
Durée : 105 minutes
Distribution cinéma France: Mission Distribution
Sortie DVD : 3 décembre 2008
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