Blow-Up: Antonioni's Classic Film and Photography

Blow Up, the 1966 cult film, can also be regarded as an excursion in photography. On a futile search for evidence of a crime he thought he has seen, Thomas, a fashion photographer, enlarges his pictures, pushing the envelope of the medium’s boundaries. Michelangelo Antonioni’s milestone in film history revolves around the issue of how much truth exists in perception, inquires into the ways that media reproductions can be manipulated.

This publication examines Blow Up from a photographic perspective, investigating in detail the photographic and art-historical stances presented in the film as well as the genres is represents. The stylistic devices discussed range from social reportage, fashion photography, and Pop Art to abstract photography—and how, incidentally, Antonioni discovers soft focus as an artistic device.