Blow-Up. It’s a classic, an Antonioni about a man trapped in a listless existence that must’ve seemed cool when he chose to get into it; a man who comes fully, completely alive when he photographs the wrong people at the wrong time and, with his keen eye, sees something he should not have seen.
Look, we’re talking about Antonioni here, so the composition’s phenomenal and the story works. But that’s not what interested me in viewing Blow-Up. In a film about a photographer and the photographer’s eye, I found the soundscapes most interesting.
Blow-Up doesn’t feature a music-as-wallpaper soundscape. Rather, it opts for ambient noise. For long stretches, this translates to almost no noise at all, as much of the action takes place inside the photographer’s head. He thinks, he works, he plays, he thinks some more, and we don’t need symphonic strings to keep us occupies as he’s about it. There’s enough there for us in the film’s compelling questions: did he see what he thought he saw? Does it matter? What does it mean, and what does it mean in the context of his life as we’ve seen it thus far?
Blow-Up trusts itself, its story, and craftsmanship enough to refrain from overwhelming us. It trusts its audience to keep up, even when there may not appear to be all that much with which to keep up. It thinks, and works, it plays, it thinks some more, and it expects us to do so, as well.
But does it work? Well, yes. Blow-Up pulls us into its world and wraps us up in its central mystery, all while giving the eye plenty to enjoy and the mind plenty to chew. This Antonioni guy – I think he knew what he was about.
