I saw it soon after it was released. There is a lot of impressive cultural stuff packed in it. Based on Julio Cortázar's (he makes a cameo appearance as a homeless man) 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo", screenplay by the notorious Edward Bond (known for stoning a baby on stage), music by The Lovin’ Spoonfull, Herbie Hancock and the Yardbirds, featuring Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
The actor playing Vanessa Redgrave’s lover did not have much to do and was uncredited. He was a Canadian called Ronan O’Casey whom I remember from a TV series called The Larkins which also featured Beckett muse Billie Whitelaw, the very loud Peggy Mount and David Kossoff, father of Paul Kossoff.
Other uncredited actors in Blow Up were Tsai Chin and Janet Street-Porter. Michael Palin is in the crowd watching the Yardbirds.
Antonioni had wanted the Who to play and also considered the Velvet Underground, Tomorrow (The In Crowd) and Eric Burdon.
Thomas drives a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III 'Chinese Eye' Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupé owned by Jimmy Savile.
Sean Connery turned down the lead role, because, "I couldn't understand what Antonioni was talking about."
Terence Stamp was cast as Thomas, but was dropped two weeks before shooting began in favor of the then-unknown actor David Hemmings. Photographer David Bailey was also considered for the role.
Hemmings’s name comes below Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Peter Bowles also gets a credit.
Only when I discovered Michelangelo Antonioni's earlier films did Blow Up make (some) sense to me. Seen in isolation it appears to be about swinging London. But seen in the context of L'Eclisse, Il Deserto Rosso etc, you realise that an awful lot of the weirdness is simply part of the normal Mondo Antonioni psycho-geography. Add to this the fact that until mid-1965 the maestro was intending to set his next film "about a photographer" in New York, but then he read something and talked to someone and he decided to move it to London where exciting cultural things were happening, and the fact this is mind-blowing makes even more (or less?) sense.
But none of this reduces the impact of the achievement here with a young and impressive cast on top form tackling a great deal of modern angst amid layers of truth and appearance. All with, in effect, English as a second language. Maybe it was the not being on home turf that really brought out Antonioni's genius in Blow Up?
And is the title a reference simply to the 'blowing up' of a photograph (beyond all reasonable proportions or meaning?) or a reflection of a kind of mental 'blow up' happening all around in Britain in 1966. Quite possibly both. Anyway, it's FAB.
I saw it soon after it was released. There is a lot of impressive cultural stuff packed in it. Based on Julio Cortázar's (he makes a cameo appearance as a homeless man) 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo", screenplay by the notorious Edward Bond (known for stoning a baby on stage), music by The Lovin’ Spoonfull, Herbie Hancock and the Yardbirds, featuring Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
The actor playing Vanessa Redgrave’s lover did not have much to do and was uncredited. He was a Canadian called Ronan O’Casey whom I remember from a TV series called The Larkins which also featured Beckett muse Billie Whitelaw, the very loud Peggy Mount and David Kossoff, father of Paul Kossoff.
Other uncredited actors in Blow Up were Tsai Chin and Janet Street-Porter. Michael Palin is in the crowd watching the Yardbirds.
Antonioni had wanted the Who to play and also considered the Velvet Underground, Tomorrow (The In Crowd) and Eric Burdon.
Thomas drives a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III 'Chinese Eye' Mulliner Park Ward Drophead Coupé owned by Jimmy Savile.
Sean Connery turned down the lead role, because, "I couldn't understand what Antonioni was talking about."
Terence Stamp was cast as Thomas, but was dropped two weeks before shooting began in favor of the then-unknown actor David Hemmings. Photographer David Bailey was also considered for the role.
Hemmings’s name comes below Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Peter Bowles also gets a credit.
Only when I discovered Michelangelo Antonioni's earlier films did Blow Up make (some) sense to me. Seen in isolation it appears to be about swinging London. But seen in the context of L'Eclisse, Il Deserto Rosso etc, you realise that an awful lot of the weirdness is simply part of the normal Mondo Antonioni psycho-geography. Add to this the fact that until mid-1965 the maestro was intending to set his next film "about a photographer" in New York, but then he read something and talked to someone and he decided to move it to London where exciting cultural things were happening, and the fact this is mind-blowing makes even more (or less?) sense.
But none of this reduces the impact of the achievement here with a young and impressive cast on top form tackling a great deal of modern angst amid layers of truth and appearance. All with, in effect, English as a second language. Maybe it was the not being on home turf that really brought out Antonioni's genius in Blow Up?
And is the title a reference simply to the 'blowing up' of a photograph (beyond all reasonable proportions or meaning?) or a reflection of a kind of mental 'blow up' happening all around in Britain in 1966. Quite possibly both. Anyway, it's FAB.
Yes. Quite. Isn't it Antonioni's expose of a shallow upper-middle class elite? And Swinging London fitted the bill...?
Absolutely. Suddenly London was the right place and this was the right time. Perhaps it has a shallowness of surprising depth?