Blow-Up (1966) *

(There may be spoilers, if that’s possible, in this post.)

Somehow this 1966 film from famed Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni earned two Academy Award nominations: Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.  Obviously drug abuse was a huge problem for Academy voters in the mid-60s, because Blow-Up is a really bad art film gone horribly wrong.  I’m sure many a purist’s head is exploding as they read this, but I don’t care. For me, Blow-Up is painful to watch—sort of like another Antonioni movie, Zabriskie Point (1970), but only slightly better.

David Hemmings plays a famous London fashion photographer who spends his days surrounded by beautiful but vapid models and his nights taking vérité-esque pictures of men in flophouses (known as the doss house in England). The slight plot that there is comes about when the photographer happens upon a couple in a deserted park and starts taking photos of them.  When the woman sees (Vanessa Redgrave) him she demands he give her the undeveloped film.  Naturally he refuses—he thinks he wants to use the photos for the end of his upcoming book—and she shows up at his flat/studio and offers to sleep with him for the pictures.  We never learn if this actually happens (like so many other things we never learn in this movie), but we do know that after she leaves he develops the film and discovers that she was attempting to hide the fact that she was part of a murder.  Yes, I  know this sounds like an interesting plot turn, but believe me, it’s not. 

So, why didn’t I like this film? First, Blow-Up seems like a vanity project. Is the photographer a ‘complex’ and  ‘conflicted’ representation of Antonioni himself, who makes inane films about rich and beautiful people but longs to do bigger things? Maybe, but again, I don’t care. Watching Hemmings drive around in a Rolls Royce and roll around on the floor with two dimwitted groupies was not must-see cinema.  Rather, it seemed like a reflection of Antonioni himself and what he thought a successful artist should do to pass the time. 

And then there’s the acting. Oh, poor Vanessa Redgrave, why must you act like a jittery drug addict looking for your next fix in every scene?  Yes, she was complicit in a homicide, but her overactive eyes and fidgeting hands went way over the top.  Obviously Antonioni couldn’t coax a nuanced performance out of her and allowed her to play neurotic to the hilt.  And, then on the opposite extreme of Redgrave there is Hemmings—to be playing what one would assume was a charismatic and powerful man and yet be so boring must have been difficult. 

Finally, we must discuss the completely ridiculous ending (now is where ‘spoilers’ will appear).  Did I watch a film for nearly two hours about an assumed murder to find absolutely no resolution at the end? But wait…there’s more—did the movie truly end with a mime show and me asking WTF? I get ambiguity, but Antonioni’s version of it is beyond overboard. 

Overall, it was bad---really bad.  So many questions were left unanswered—and I’m not even talking about the film itself.  The biggest question I find myself pondering is how the hell did Antonioni and fellow screenwriter Tonino Guerra’s screenplay for this get nominated for an Oscar?  Was there really a script of insanely long periods of silence rewarded with such an honor?  Are we sure it wasn’t an outline?  Oh, the perils of “The Book”.

Read More

Zabriskie Point (1970) :(((

This film was obviously aimed at 1960s LSD addicts, as they are the only ones who could understand what the hell director Michelangelo Antonioni was trying to say with Zabriskie Point (1970).  Lets look at some of the bands whose music is played in it: Pink Floyd, the Kaleidoscope, and the Grateful Dead.  Need I say more? The movie bombed at the box office, but has become a cult classic over the years. This is yet another sign that this is a movie aimed at deadheads. Oh, yes, I know Antonioni is making a statement about the 1960s counterculture movement and American consumerism, so please don’t go ballistic on that point.  It’s just bad on so many levels—not even the spectacular work of cinematographer Alfio Contini can save it. 

For those of you who don’t know, Zabriskie Point is an actual place in Death Valley National Park.  Just as Dennis Hopper desecrated St. Louis Cemetery in Easy Rider (1969) with lewd sexual acts, Antonioni delivers a psychedelic and graphic sex scene that involves group sex and goes on for what seems like half the movie.  I get that people like to go to Zabriskie Point and drop acid and/or take peyote, but who’d really want to have sex there? It’s hotter than hell and is composed of various sediments—namely borax.  And, they didn’t even have a blanket!

Okay, I’ve gone off on a tangent and forgotten to tell you who is actually having sex.  Mark (Mark Frechette) is a college dropout and carpenter who is involved in the counterculture movement on an unnamed college campus in Los Angeles.  Daria (Daria Halprin) is the secretary and girlfriend of a man (Rod Taylor) building a subdivision somewhere near Phoenix.  They meet after Mark steals a single-engine plane and takes it for a joyride over the desert.  It is never explained how Mark knows how to fly or why Daria would think it’s a good idea to give a ride to a complete stranger whom she meets in the desert. Approximately an hour after meeting they are having sex at Zabriskie Point. Not too much longer after this Mark flies the plane back to LA and is shot to death by the police, and Daria imagines that her boyfriend’s awesome house in the desert explodes.  Really, that’s what happens.

There’s a reason you’ve never heard of Frechette or Halprin: they were horrible actors.  Frechette was a hippie who gave all his money to a commune and then ended up in jail after he robbed a bank (he died in jail in a bizarre weightlifting accident). For her part, Halprin made one more film after Zabriskie Point and then married Dennis Hopper (perhaps they shared a sense of depravity?).  Why would Antonioni cast them, you ask? They were attractive—sort of the American versions of Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti, but with a lot less talent. 

The only thing this film has going for it is its cinematography.  I can only imagine what Contini thought when he saw all of his fantastic widescreen shots set to horrible American music and ruined by the wooden acting of the leads.  Even the apocalyptic ending sequence, which sees multiple views of the exploding house, is somehow corrupted by whatever anti-consumerism/capitalism statement that Antonioni is trying to make. Plus, the house he blew up was awesome—what a complete waste, especially for a film like Zabriskie Point. 

Read More