Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966): Garden Cinema, 7.45pm
Garden Cinema introduction to new 'London Reviewed' season in association with the London Review of Books:
LRB Screen returns
to the Garden Cinema with a new series exploring visions of London
created by non-British filmmakers: films in which the city is a key
player, rather than a backdrop; in which its buildings, streets, parks
and rivers cast a distinctive shadow over the drama; in which a fresh
encounter makes the city unfamiliar and mysterious again. London Reviewed begins in perhaps the only way it could, with Blow-Up,
Antonioni’s classic countercultural take on (mis)perception and
(un)reality in the swinging 1960s. Adapted by the great Marxist
playwright Edward Bond from a short story by the cult Argentinian writer
Julio Cortázar, the film follows a fashion photographer (Hemmings,
channelling David Bailey) who thinks he might have unintentionally
photographed a murder. Moving from the heart of the zeitgeist to a South
London park that proves pivotal, its richness in social, cultural and
architectural detail makes it one of the defining works of the decade. Introducing
the film, and discussing it afterwards with regular host Gareth Evans,
will be Miles Aldridge, the acclaimed fashion photographer and artist.
Born two years before the film’s release, Aldridge grew up in the heart
of the cultural scene it portrays and has since created his own highly
distinctive photographic signature.
Chicago Reader review:
Michelangelo Antonioni’s sexy art-house hit of 1966, which played a
substantial role in putting swinging London on the map, follows a day
in the life of a young fashion photographer (David Hemmings) who
discovers, after blowing up his photos of a couple glimpsed in a
park, that he may have inadvertently uncovered a murder. Part erotic
thriller (with significant glamorous roles played by Vanessa
Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Verushka, and Jane Birkin), part exotic
travelogue (featuring a Yardbirds concert, antiwar demonstrations,
street mimes, one exuberant orgy, and a certain amount of pot), this
is so ravishing to look at (the colors all seem newly minted) and
pleasurable to follow (the enigmas are usually more teasing than
worrying) that you’re likely to excuse the metaphysical pretensions
— which become prevalent only at the very end — and go with the
60s flow, just as the original audiences did.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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