Blow-Up

film by Antonioni [1966]

Written by Lee Pfeiffer

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Last Updated: Oct 4, 2024 • Article History

Blow-Up, British-Italian thriller, released in 1966, that was the first full-length English-language film of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. It is one of the seminal films of the 1960s “mod” era.

Blow-Up, which was inspired by a short story by Spanish writer Julio Cortázar, features David Hemmings as a hip and successful but bored and nihilistic fashion photographer. While wandering through a park, he photographs a young woman (played by Vanessa Redgrave) and her lover. Redgrave follows him home, demanding the film, which intensifies his desire to see what he has captured. Upon developing the pictures, he finds that he may have recorded a murder in progress.

Though designated for art-house theatres, the film became a critical and box-office hit. Its plot can be seen as secondary to its extensive scenes of casual sex and drug use, as well as to its sequences featuring prominent figures of the 1960s counterculture, including the rock group the Yardbirds and British singer and model Jane Birkin. The film features rock music and an original score by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, and it is noted as the first non-X-rated feature film to depict full-frontal female nudity. When Blow-Up achieved wide release and great acclaim despite lacking the seal of the Production Code, it was considered a fatal blow to the censorship guide, which collapsed in 1966 (see Hays Office).