Let’s talk about what a signature is, in regards to filmmaking, and why filmmakers utilize them.
A picture is worth a thousand words. But sometimes, a picture can mean a lot more than that, like a matter of life and death. In Michelangelo Antonioni”s 1966 film “Blow Up,” this would be the case where the main character, a photographer, thinks he is taking pictures of two strangers in love in the middle of a park. But while developing these pictures, he notices that he may have witnessed, and captured on film, a cold hearted murder. He examines the pictures and tries to make sense of this debauchery, but finds himself running around in circles.
This film is a prime example of “art cinema” in the fact that it does not follow the standard cinematic production of the classical Hollywood style. This film expresses more of a personalized feel of the director’s life, showing that he devoted an immense amount of time and effort to making this film unique, yet so much like his other films and personal lifestyle.
A major difference that could make “Blow Up” stand apart from the classical Hollywood cinema is that it does not really have that mass produced feel to it. This film feels unique in the fact that it feels more of an experimental movie than a contemporary narrative with a clear sense of space and time. The theme is more abstract then what would have previously been touched upon, and the aesthetics of the movie are used quite differently.
For the majority of the movie, silence is used to capture a sense of realism throughout the life of the characters. When Thomas photographs the lovers in the park, no other sounds can be heard other then the shutter on his camera and the birds chirping in the background. This is quite different then most other films in the fact that music and sounds can almost always entirely be heard. Very rarely do movies leave silence in for a sustainable amount of time unless it is to create a dramatic element of the film. However, during this certain park scene, the silence does not enhance the drama being created. Instead, it creates a mood of realism in which the audience is watching in on the lives of two strangers as well. It is almost as if the audience has now become a “peeping Tom.” This technique could be classified as a small description of “art cinema” because it is more artistic then the classical era and has more of a signature from the director on it.
“Blow Up” also forms a distinctive personality and makes the audience feel an array of emotions. Thomas is entirely devoted to seducing women and taking advantage of them through his photography. That is, after all, what he was trying to do when he took those murderous photographs in the park. His personality shines throughout the films as being arrogant and psychotic. His personality starts to shine on through the film and leave the film with that type of personality as well. It was back in the classical Hollywood cinema era that films did not have distinctive personalities that set them apart from each other. But with the creation of art cinema, films started to stand apart and make themselves distinct from each other.
Location shooting is a very important factor to art cinema. It gives the director more autonomy while shooting because he/she does not have the corporate officials breathing down their neck trying to make the movie their own way, which is the way it will make the most money. Directors left sets to pursue location shooting to avoid the hassle and struggle from higher persons. “Blow Up” is a prime example of this as most of the entire movie is shot on location, with very few scenes shot on a studio lot. The shots used on location are photographically pleasant to the eye and keep the viewer entertained throughout the movie. They are simple in the fact that few edits are made, causing relatively long, single shot scenes. This combined with the silence as aforementioned, emphasizes the fact that the viewer is looking into the life of the characters and watching their lives unfold in front of them.
However, even with the simple shots and the sense of looking into the lives of the characters, this film portrays a vast amount of psychological complexity. The characters jump around from one place to the next, without any reasonable order to them. It seems as though some of the movie is thrown together, forcing the audience to pay attention to what is going on. With this intense focus on the movie, the audience’s, somewhat, get confused and have to put things together in their own minds. This exemplifies art cinema in the fact that the film is not laid out in front of the viewer for him/her to just merely watch for entertainment. Critical thinking and analysis must be done in order to understand the movie to its full potential. To view this movie at the surface, as anyone would do for a “blockbuster” movie, would cause the audience to miss more then half of what is going on underneath the surface of the proposed action. This could evidently be seen through the emotions of the characters, ranging from sexual pleasure, to fear, and even to confusion.
The emphasis on the plot is more evident then the emphasis on the story because the way the story is being told is a crucial part of this film. The question of what happens next is not as important in the viewing of this film as what is happening now and how it is being viewed on screen. The way this movie is directed causes focus on the upcoming events to almost disappear. Focus is much more important and evident on the events that are unfolding on screen at that particular moment. Curiosities unfold as the long, simple, quiet shots are viewed because the audience is trying to take in all the events on screen and piecing them together themselves. This takes away the importance of the story itself and devotes much more attention on plot.
Antonioni uses this film to leave his signature all over it. This film is completely personal to him as a director and emphasizes the “auteur” approach to cinema because he had much control over a lot of the things that happened in this film. He experimented with a lot of different techniques that were previously not used in movies before this time. He wrote all over this film with his personal style and it can be seen. That is why this movie is portrayed to be such a prominent movie and a prime example of the “art cinema” era.
Film Chatting 