Ep. 47 Blow Up

RIP Jane Birkin! (episode recorded before news of her passing)

Join me and actor/writer Vince Cusimano as we jump into one of the greatest films ever made!

Ever found yourself entranced by the hypnotic mystery of a film? Buckle up, because we're about to unravel the iconic masterpiece, Blow Up, a non-Godfather non-birthright movie that transformed our cinematic experiences forever. We'll be dissecting the enigmatic plot featuring the fashion photographer, David Hemmings, and the intriguing web of mystery he unwittingly stumbles upon. 

Imagine revisiting the bustling streets of London during the height of a class struggle era, all through the lens of a worn-out, yet perceptive, photographer. We'll also be diving deep into the heart of the movie's color palette and symbolism, as well as the unexpectedly daring photography scenes. Ever wondered about the impact Vanessa Redgrave had on the film and her personal take on the importance of female actors? Well, you're in for a treat as we share insights from her Blu-ray interview.

As we embark on this cinematic journey, we'll also be making pit stops at the genius mind of Antonioni and how his idiosyncratic style breathed life into Blow-Up. From the awkward encounters, strange dialogues, to the crowd-freezing Yardbirds performance, we'll dissect it all. So, whether you're a film enthusiast, a lover of mysteries, or just interested in understanding the cultural impact of this masterpiece, this episode promises to be an enriching ride down the lane of one of the most iconic movies of all time. Let the frames roll!

Transcript

Intro: 0:30

Sometimes Reality is the strangest fantasy of all. Vanessa Redgrave, david Hemmings and Sarah Miles in Michelangelo Antoneone's first English language film, blow up At love without meaning, at murder without guilt, at the dazzle of the madness of London today, antoneone's camera never flinches. Blow up A carbon-pubby production in colour.

Vito: 1:19

So yeah, the other. You went to the blow up screening at what was it? The Los Feliz, the.

Vince: 1:27

Los Feliz. Los Feliz 3 and.

Vito: 1:33

I missed the screening too. I was so pissed. But you saw, 35mm screening a blow up 35mm and I had never seen it.

Vince: 1:42

You had told me, like you know. And then, of course, I love I mean we've talked about blow out, I love blow out and DiPalma, just generally speaking. And I go see this movie and I come out and I'm instantly, I'm calling you, I'm blown away by blow up is not even like. That doesn't do it justice. This was a religious experience.

Vito: 2:10

That's what I felt when I first saw it, too, years ago. It completely changed me and it's my favourite. I guess non-Godfather, non, you know, I guess birthright type movie. Good to Bad to Ugly, 2001,. This is like my favourite movie. I saw it out as like an adult found it and it just changed.

Vince: 2:32

That's actually really the way you just put that. You know those movies like Goodfellas, godfather, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly there's a lot of G's here, but the Good, the Bad and the Ugly and more. I mean it's not just those three, but those three others and this. These are movies that I changed, like I realized something else, like there's more. You know what I mean. Like that's the and that's how I felt. And I don't even and here's the thing I don't know out of all of them, this is the one that I am I'm still questioning. I don't know what the hell I saw. I know I saw something great, because it was. I was captivated. I was wondering what the fuck is going on at every turn. But there's so many it's. I have so many questions and I'm still kind of wrapping my mind around the whole thing, like what does it mean?

Vito: 3:31

It's just a crazy like just a crazy experience watching it and I first discovered it in the early 2000s. I first got into last episode we talk about you know eight and a half. I first got into Filini was my first Italian filmmaker, you know filmmaker, and was the. But I was beginning to go get into foreign films a lot. So I was walking to the video, walking through the video store one day. It might have been like a borders or something, but I was in the foreign film section and I was just starting to get into it and I saw the blow up cover and I've never heard of Antonioni. I'm like I don't know, maybe 24 at the time, 24, 25. Never heard of Antonioni. I've, you know, never heard of blow up. But the cover was just standing out. It was the David Hemmings over top of the model taking the picture and I was like this just looks cool, you know, is in English and I was like, oh, I don't have to read sometimes.

Vince: 4:21

Yeah so.

Vito: 4:22

I take it home and I watched it and it was the first time too. We're like I didn't know. Somebody didn't tell you it was a good movie or not. You know, when you first saw anything great from Godfather to Stanley Kubrick films, hitchcock you already you know you're watching a masterpiece. This was the first time I was going into what's a great movie and I didn't even know if it was going to be any good.

Vito: 4:42

It could have been just some, you know, stinker like snooze fest foreign film. That was, you know, good at the time, or whatever. And I just sat there and I was like, when it was over, when he's just standing there in that grassy, you know filthy, and looking around, I just sat there and just stared at the TV. Remember, I told you I was like that was everything to me. I was like this is the kind of director I want to be, this is the kind of movies I want to make, this is everything you know. And that was. It was just like a religious experience. You know, we should probably give a quick rundown of what blow blow is because that'll help me talk, because I'm still there's like really quick that it's because even the plot really doesn't give it justice.

Vito: 5:22

So David Hemings is plays a guy named Thomas, and David Hemings is mostly famous with horror fans because of deep red Argentos, but he was just great actor from you know. Oh yeah, he was, yeah, tons of movies. He was in Camelot, he's a lot of things, but David Hemings was his first starring role. Is what made him kind of break out, though, and he stars as a guy named Thomas who's a fashion photographer in London and he one day he's out just taking photos and he's in a park and he sees a woman and a guy and he starts taking pictures of them.

Vito: 5:55

One way is she tries to get the camera from him. He obviously interrupted something, so he thinks he may have helped this guy, may have saved the murder or whatever. So he's at his house and I think he has a threesome with two girls and then he's just staring at his, at his photos that he put up on the wall of this park scene, and he realizes that there's a body laying there and the guy he didn't save and he thinks there was a murder. He looks back and looks there is a body, but he doesn't have a camera to take a picture this time. And then he goes back home, his house is ransacked, the film's missing. All there is is this blown up photo of this could be pixelated dead body and it just becomes a mystery of him trying to figure out what happened. And that's what it's essentially a murder mystery. They kind of even say it's the original Gialo film because of you know the way you know all the other setups are. But that's basically the movie in a nutshell.

Vince: 6:51

And to say it like that is. I mean it is, that is, that's the movie, but it's there's so much going on with. I mean I don't even know how to. Okay, so Let me throw it like this. I'm just gonna ask questions.

Vito: 7:07

Yeah, let's just go over the place so hard to go and order, because there's so much going on. I mean there, you know, one of the things you said is that you were telling me privately or not privately- We'll do spoilers too, so you need to go watch the movie before you come back, because the whole movie is about that ending and why it is. It's about the ending, but then it's also the things we're saying Like it.

Vince: 7:28

Does he see what he's really seeing or is he really seeing what he thinks he's seeing? You get no explanation right, which is great. But the movie starts and I was confused. When I saw it the first time I saw it I was like what the fuck is going on? Like who is this guy? This is the lead. But he's dirty and he's coming out of an alleyway and people are like saying goodbye to him. And then he gets into his car and then he's kind of happy and he's driving and then there's a carload of mimes driving around and they're screaming yeah, crazy.

Vince: 8:07

You know he gets back, I mean, so it starts off. When I saw it the second time, I realized, oh, what he was doing at the like. We find out later that he's you know he's. So we know he's this photographer, he's this famous photographer, but he's also wanting to do more. He's bored. He's bored with the hot sex that he I don't see how he's fucking bored with that but he's bored with just banging all these models and wannabe models and the money he's making and all this stuff. And he wants something deeper.

Vito: 8:43

He wants to have a deeper meaning. Yeah, he's working on a book right now of street photography and urban photography.

Vince: 8:48

Yeah, yeah, like urban. And then I realized when I saw it the second time I was like, oh, that's why he's dirty, because he was, he didn't want them to know who he was when he's taking photographs of these bombs and these derelicts, you know. So he's sort of dirtied himself up for that, you know, and I'm like okay.

Vito: 9:05

I guess at the time too, Azreen, there was this big class struggle going on in London, so that's what Antonio was trying to show with that at the beginning.

Vince: 9:14

And that's fantastic. I see, I didn't even know that and he doesn't even barely know English.

Vito: 9:18

Antonio wrote this with another Italian. They had a third guy that kind of helped on the dialogue. But this is really like non-speaking English Italians writing this you know movie about England.

Vince: 9:29

Yeah, I mean because that's another. Not that the dialogue is necessarily bad or anything, but it's so sparse and it's odd the way people converse in the movie and maybe that's also the point of it. But there's an oddness to everything when he goes to the antique shop and he's talking with the old guy and I'm still like what the fuck was that? Like why did he go to the antique? Like what is the point? Because there's a point. There is a point there and I don't know what it is. I'm not smart enough to know what it is. But he goes to the antique shop and he's talking to this old man and he's trying to buy landscape photos and the old man won't sell it to him, says that they're sold. But even the dialogue between the two of them is stunted. I mean it's not stunted but it's just there's a tension there and nobody wants to, neither. Like David Hemings, the young guy is trying to talk to the old guy and the old guy wants nothing to do with him.

Vito: 10:34

Even if it was uncomfortable with the dialogue, Hemings kind of acts through it very well.

Vince: 10:40

Oh, he does.

Vito: 10:41

He's great, david Hemings. We talk about him a lot and he's awesome.

Vince: 10:46

He is so well, so okay. So, david Hemings, I'm like you get the beginning of this movie when he gets back to his studio and he's got that hot piece of asthma.

Vito: 10:59

The German girl, probably the famous scene of the movie where they recreate a sex scene with a photography moment. Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.

Vince: 11:05

And I had no idea that. That's where he's like come on now, give it work for me. That's where the whole, where you see, I mean Bill Murray and Ghostbusters too.

Vito: 11:16

Austin Powers.

Vince: 11:17

Austin Powers, and that's just too. It's everywhere, it's been in Simpsons and it's so copied and it's hard to even. It's such a that moment.

Vito: 11:31

It is almost in parody now when you watch the movie, when you see him with the models, the way he yells at them and everything.

Vince: 11:37

Yeah, it is. It's like a parody, but no, this is where it came from. That's how famous this movie was and I had no idea, right it was huge at the time because it was so international.

Vito: 11:47

It was an English language movie made by an Italian. It was, yeah, it was all over the place and it was you know it's. The cast is great. Vanessa Redgrave, who plays the woman in the park, is I have to.

Vito: 12:01

I have to, I have to own up to something. I always this is great. I was watching an interview with her that was on the Blu-ray, so I was like, oh, and watch the Vanessa Redgrave interview. So she sits there and I always call actresses. Actors always say female actors. I thought I was doing something good, because they're actors, you know. And so she's talking and she's like, and she calls herself an actress. And then she stops and she's like because I'm not an actor, I'm an actress and I was like God bless you.

Vito: 12:32

I was like I am yep. I'm correct, I will. You are an actress.

Vince: 12:36

I will eat her pussy now because I don't care how old she is. That is beautiful. That's exactly correct. Like no, I fuck that. Actors are actors and actresses are actors.

Vito: 12:49

Women are women, but she really does bring it in this one, because that scene when she comes to get the film at the house and she takes, she's just walking around topless and it's she really looks so nervous she pulls that off. Well, and when we talk about the movie here, there's going to be so many like moments, like you said. There's like when he goes to the antique store or when he's just walking around the park or there's mimes, there's always something happening. So it's very difficult to you know, almost go through this linear of how it happened. It is.

Vince: 13:21

It is because there's so there's so many moments and they all, you know, I don't know if I mean they tie in to them, they don't, but it's like there's, there's a lot of awkward moments where I mean, look, whether it be the dialogue between him and the old guy at the antique store or what you just said between him and she's so strange, like she's, and again it's got to. This is all, antonioni, I mean, she's nervous, she does it well, but there's, it's a nervousness, it's a weirdness, like I don't understand, like they're smoking pot, and then she's, and then the music and she just starts. She's an odd duck for sure, you know she, there's something off about her and which adds to the whole mystery, you know, and we still, at this moment, we don't even know what the hell's going on. He sees her at the park, she's with this dapper, you know, george Clooney, motherfucker, and she's like swinging around with him and in love with this guy.

Vince: 14:23

And now, granted, because I had seen, you know, I've seen the conversation, you know, and this that's very much a, you know, conversation obviously was inspired by this movie. So I was starting to kind of get an idea of, like, what could possibly be about to happen, or you know. But he himself, david Hemings, I thought I love that park scene. It's, it was brilliant.

Vince: 14:47

He's a child again, he's he's doing what he's around and stuff around pretending, you know, like pretending We'll come back to that phrase, that word pretending or pretend, because I think there's a lot of that going on in this movie. But he's, yeah, he's, like a little kid. He's doing what he loves. He's not. It's not about the, the models and the sex and the drugs and the fame, it's about just the pureness of of what he loves doing. And then he sees this and he's taking pictures of the two, this couple, this woman, this sexy woman and this George Clooney guy. And then she sees him, she runs to him to get the camera back, leaving the George Clooney guy, and they're sort of you know, off on the side of the park and, and again it's weird, again it's like they're, they're you know, they're sort of not. There's something, not totally natural about it.

Vito: 15:47

Yeah, the setup for the quote, unquote murder of whatever it is, yeah, it definitely of course is unnatural too, because even the killer if there is a killer, you only get a glimpse of them in that one photo and it's kind of like David Hemming's sort of point of view, which is the whole movie's point is perception and what Israel kind of likes, that Relationship he has with his neighbors. You know the Sarah Miles character. There's some background between those two, but his neighbor is an abstract painter and he's married to Sarah Miles and she and so he and I think his paintings kind of Represent that photo. You know, just blotches and you don't see okay, she says yeah, later yeah she even says she's a kind of like one of his paintings.

Vince: 16:33

You know, john's painted whatever you know. It's kind of like one of his paintings and I didn't notice it the first time, but I noticed this, noticed it the second time when I saw it, that when she said that and you had told me this, so Okay, so he takes these pictures, he goes back, he's at his studio, she comes to get the photos. He won't give it to her. She's sort of she takes off her top to maybe like kind of luring them.

Vito: 17:00

But she doesn't have sex with them doesn't happen.

Vince: 17:02

Because, why? Because his fucking propeller that he bought shows up. Yeah, this antique which I'm still trying to wrap my mind around. Why.

Vito: 17:11

You know why it's but he I kind of equate Antoneone to Kubrick, to the, in the sense of everything is on purpose, right, like, obviously his propeller means something, but we talk about like usage of color, like where he's. He's driving Through the town and everything's all red on the side. He turns into the buildings blue and then everything's run down and it's just like these colors. And then I'm reading up on it and I think it was the book inside the, the blue ray I was reading, but they were saying that he, that that was on purpose.

Vito: 17:45

He always had people painting shit, even the the park itself. They would spray paint the leaves and stuff greener and it and he actually put up that fence to go around it. They, they decorated it and little things too. Did you notice the laundry he was carrying around when he first got home from when he was so he'd be carrying on the laundry? He hands it to his assistant, his assistant goes and just sits it down and then, like, like ten minutes later, david Hemmings walks and looks at the at the laundry, picks it up and goes outside and dumps it with a bunch of crap. And I'm like what's the significance behind him just moving his laundry around?

Vince: 18:22

you know, I didn't even see there for a reason Well, okay, so I mean you know, okay, let's stay on this for for half a second. So when I rewatched it, it's on YouTube, so everybody can go to YouTube and I'm watching it. And as I'm watching it, I was like let me look at some of the comments. I'm just curious what people are saying. And there was one guy who said this movie is about the assassination of JFK and I was like what?

Vito: 18:50

So I read that. I've read that, yeah.

Vince: 18:52

And so I looked at the, the, the, I looked at the, some of the replies to his comment, and people like no, fuck you bubble. And he says, oh yeah, we'll check out and put it. Put the speed, the playback speed, at like point two, five Frames or something like that, and watch the scene. Basically, whatever the timecode is, I put it to it. But it's right at the beginning where he gets accosted in the car by all those mimes of screaming mimes or whatever, and he and he Reaches behind him to get something, or and there's the newspaper there. So he says, look at the newspaper in it. And and so I slowed it up and, sure enough, it's what the guy and the guy had said, what it was. It says something about like the. The headlines are or, you know, loan shooter from the tower, or something like that.

Vince: 19:44

Yes, so yeah yeah, okay, go ahead.

Vito: 19:47

No, I know exactly the paper you're talking about. I noticed that. I also noticed something else in that exact same scene. Remember, I told you I noticed something for the first time watching it. I've seen this movie like dozens of times and I noticed something for the first time when the mime girl puts that sign in his car. You know the no, no war, whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, because that's whenever they, you know, and, and, and, and he, you know, he moves the paper and he sticks the sign in that's what he turns and starts driving.

Vito: 20:16

He's being followed by a vehicle and you can't see the guy, but it looks like it's Vanessa redgrave in the passenger side and for like maybe like a couple seconds, they're following him and it's really cool. I think they're follow. I think that's what it is. I never picked that up before.

Vince: 20:33

Holy shit, see, I did, I had no idea, but that's and, and then so, well, then, there you go. It's like what I mean. I'm not gonna even try to unpack that right now, my brain.

Vito: 20:43

Yeah, no.

Vince: 20:45

There is something about that. There's something about I mean I don't know if it's about the assassination, but if you start, if you, if we, do what he says about this a pruder film, or there's a pruder film, it's not all what you see when he blows up.

Vince: 21:00

You had said this to me before we did this, when I called you after I saw the move, the, the, the photos. When you first take a look at him, he's just looking at him and he's just like, okay, these are photos, and he all he's doing is looking where her eyes are looking and that's the only reason that he looks in the direction that he gets an idea of like, okay, well, what is she looking at? It takes him while he thinks he sees something when he blows it up. Even when he blows up that spot, I can't tell what the fuck. It is Right, it doesn't look like a person. And he keeps blowing it up and it still doesn't look like a person. But then, finally, after he's blown it up like three times, and he's just looking at it, looking at it, looking at it, then you see the, the face and the gun and yeah, and he does that.

Vito: 21:53

We think that's what he sees, because that's what they show.

Vince: 21:56

That's what they show, but the first several times it's just like it could be. I mean, it could be anything, could be light shining from the Sun, you know, it could be like light Reflecting off the leaves. And and he does it again when, when he goes to the, when he looks at the dead body, when he thinks it's a dead body, and it does it doesn't look like that. I mean, I don't know what the hell it is, but it doesn't look like a body.

Vito: 22:22

Yeah no, it only looks somewhat clear when it's a why, when it's the full wide photo. But whenever he keeps blowing it up it gets more and more abstract, and I think that's the whole point, you know.

Vince: 22:35

But it's, it's that it. And what would that point say? I don't even know is, are you saying that it? So maybe he's saying that you, what?

Vito: 22:46

Well, I think everything's about, like perception, right, you know, um, what you see isn't always what's really there and and is. And what's really there isn't always what you see.

Vince: 22:56

Sometimes you want to see something that's not yeah, you put stuff there sometimes exactly.

Vito: 23:00

So I think it's all about the eye. I mean, I've read things that photographers were saying about what it means and it's trying to say it's about the power Photography, because your eye can look at something like David Hemings is looking at the area, has no idea what was going on, but snap the photo and hours later, from just staring at a photo, he realized there was a murder taking place because a photograph took that moment in time. So that's how one you know one group looks at it. But I I mean Anthony, any such a far out guy I mean it's definitely well, and we didn't, you know, I mean there's always we didn't hear a gunshot.

Vince: 23:37

you know, like he was right there, you don't hear a gunshot. I mean, you could and when he goes and sees him at night.

Vito: 23:44

You know that's supposed to be the part where, like your physical evidence, he walks there at night and sees the body laying there. He goes and tells his buddy memories, like I, there's a dead body, I got to get a photo of it and then it's missing. But like this is somebody's carrying around his camera everywhere he goes and the one time he's walking through the park Going to find the body he doesn't have his camera with him to take a photograph See it's kind of, you know, it makes you wonder the whole time.

Vito: 24:09

Which is about the mimes at the end?

Vince: 24:11

really, you know okay, so let's just go ahead and go there. So we get to the end of the movie and we're gonna double back because we got to talk about the whole, like that. We everything but he's at the end, he's, he's the body's not there anymore. He's got his camera, he's realized you know, there's no way of solving the case.

Vito: 24:34

The photos have been stolen.

Vince: 24:35

Everything's gone, everything is gone. And then the mimes show up, and they show up and just start and they're just having fun by themselves playing tennis on the tennis courts. But they're not really playing tennis, they're playing mine tennis. So there's no sound, you know it's, except for them. Just you know breathing or what, and and he is Captivated and he's watching them and it's, you know, and they're really good because you're, I mean, you know, you're watching and it's, and you can see them, you know pantomime and everything, and then they hit it off. One of them actually hits it off outside, you know, outside the the court, into the the park, and they Gesture for David to go get the ball and he plays along and he goes and he gets the ball and he throws it back, and then it doesn't cut back to them, it just stays on him and and we see him, his eyes, watching as they start playing again.

Vito: 25:28

But then you hear, you hear a ball bouncing you hear them playing tennis. Yeah, and, and and it's that's the coolest thing.

Vince: 25:37

They do that, and is it and is it to me? There's a I wanna say that it's. He's gone through this whole thing and he's back to pretending. He's sort of a little bit better. He's pretending again. I mean, there's something about he's, there's some type of acceptance.

Vito: 25:57

There's some type of acceptance at the end, obviously.

Vince: 25:59

Acceptance that it's that the what is unreal is real, that we live in an unreal, you know.

Vito: 26:08

And then it's a movie that, oh, go ahead.

Vince: 26:10

Well, I was just gonna add that and I didn't see this at the beginning or the first time I saw it. I had to go back and see this again. Right then, right before the credits start, he fades away. It's the big wide shot of him in the park, right after he's seen the with his eyes, and it just cuts this big wide shot and it's just him standing there and he walks over and grabs his camera and comes back and stands again and he fades out. He just fades away and then pop. You know the end, or?

Vito: 26:43

I'll tell you my book. Oh, yeah, yeah, right, so he fades away. So I'm like yeah, that is pretty cool.

Vince: 26:48

It's like again. What were you gonna say? Cause it's.

Vito: 26:52

Well, it's a movie. I think it's a movie that and something we talked about on the sides, about like truth through photography or cause. It's a movie that lies to you in a weird way. You know, like things that your people are saying. Facts are all not correct in this and the one scene that really stands out is the moment when Vanessa Redgrave's character and David Hemming's character are talking, trying to get the film back from him, and the phone rings. And remember, he tries to give the phone to Vanessa Redgrave and he's like it's my wife, and then she's like I don't wanna talk to her. Yeah, he hangs up the phone and he's like, yeah, he's like, well, it's really not my wife, we just have kids. Well, we really don't have kids, we just get along. No, we don't get along. He's like I really can't stand her. Whatever he says, it's just not one word you don't even know who it was he called.

Vince: 27:44

He just lies, he's not married. He's like yeah, I don't.

Vito: 27:48

Like scenes like that don't make any sense. And yeah, which? The yard birds scene.

Vince: 27:53

Oh God, okay, so hold on. Okay, let's just preface this with so, but it starts off before it happens.

Vito: 28:00

Remember, he's watching Vanessa Redgrave and he's trying to follow her. He thinks he sees her. He disappears.

Vince: 28:06

He thinks he sees her, yeah, outside of this concert or this club. So he's like, and it's sort of randomly right, I mean, he's definitely.

Vito: 28:18

Yeah, it's randomly.

Vince: 28:18

He sees her right he sees her, which again that in itself is so, which probably isn't real right. So he parks and he rushes over to where she was going in. So he goes into this underground dingy club and you just start hearing this gritty rock music Like ding, ding, ding, ding, and he goes in, he walks in and instantly something is weird about this whole situation because all of the it's the yard birds, the fucking Jimmy Page, jeff Bex, who the fuck else? They're playing and the room is packed, but it's all these young people, but they're completely still just standing there watching them. There's no swaying, there's no rocking out, nothing like that.

Vince: 29:03

And he sort of makes his way slowly through and it just keeps cutting back to them playing. And then Jeff Bex's guitar starts breaking on or messing up or the amps, and then he breaks the guitar out of frustration and they still, even when he breaks, nobody moves. But as soon as he throws a piece of the guitar into the audience, they go wild and it's like they're just fucking screaming and all this stuff. Somehow David Hemings gets the piece of the guitar, the neck of the guitar, and they start chasing him and he runs out and he's out on the street and he's got this in his hand and he just throws it down and he walks away.

Vito: 29:43

And then you know, and then behind the street just looks at it and picks it up and throws it back down.

Vince: 29:48

Yeah, and then some random guy sees it, picks it up and I'm like what?

Vito: 29:54

Now I think the reason for that scene I don't know what the whole reason for the scene is, but that guitar piece was and this is what I was reading actually I think I was reading that in the Blu-ray book but I believe that the guitar was supposed to just symbolize the value you put on pieces of art. So in that in the concert it was like priceless, everyone's fighting over it. But as soon as he goes outside into the streets it's just like a piece of wood, your throat on the ground is useless.

Vito: 30:25

Yeah, you know. I wanted to tell you, though I was watching the documentary the Blow-Up of Blow-Up and I was watching the interview I was listening to the interview with they were talking to the manager of the Yardbirds how they got the gig. So when Tony Oni came to England he was like big shit and everything, and the who was supposed to be the original band there, oh fuck. And so they're all at a club and Tony Oni was there and everyone's trying to meet him. But the Yardbirds manager is sitting there talking to the who's manager and he's like, yeah, we're gonna be in this movie.

Vito: 30:57

I got a meeting tomorrow with Tony Oni. And the Yardbirds manager is like fuck, you know. And so he goes. He's like, well, good luck tomorrow with your meeting, but just remember, don't be taken advantage of and make sure you get control of the cut, cause he said that on purpose, cause he knew that Antonio would just tell him to go, fuck off the moment he tries to control the cut. And so the guy went to the meeting and said that the Antonio got rid of him, and then the Yardbirds came in.

Vince: 31:20

That is fantastic. See that? I love that. That's that. I mean look, you got that's Hollywood, that's entertainment.

Vito: 31:27

You know, yeah, you got a hustle.

Vince: 31:29

You got to hustle a little bit, you know, and look the who didn't need that. They were fine, they didn't need to be I mean the Yardbirds needed that to really you know cause. Jimmy Page was nothing, but it was weird seeing Jimmy Page that young, it's like you know what I'm saying?

Vito: 31:44

They were. They said that the manager of the Yardbirds always said these, like within their group. They always said Antonio is the reason Led Zeppelin exists. I don't know how it worked out, but they were like, yeah, it was all due to Antonio.

Vince: 31:57

I could totally see that, because the movie was, you know, ended up being so big that you know it made you know everybody's like what is the yard Cause? I don't know if I know a Yardbird song, I just know the name and I know that, that you know they do have a couple of famous ones if you hear in them yeah, but so, but again.

Vince: 32:15

So that's a perception thing, like the perception of the, of the guitar piece, the, you know. And then after that he goes to his friend. He finds his friend, who he's looking for because his friend is gonna he believes his friends gonna help him. He goes to his friend. It's just this drugged-out party, everybody's fucking stoned and high, and you know. And then the German girl, the, model is there and she told him at the beginning she was going to France.

Vince: 32:41

And he says I thought you were going to France. She says I am in France. Yeah, lying again like yeah, absolutely. What do you? What can you believe? You can't believe anything.

Vito: 32:51

Everything was the two girls. The two girls that are the threesome.

Vince: 32:54

Oh yeah, the three girls, yeah, and they.

Vito: 32:58

It's the same thing. He's just lying to them the whole time and, yeah, nothing is is truth in this movie and if you watch it, the more you watch it. Just watch every setup and it's like everything's just bullshit, you know, except for when he's talking about his photography To you know, his, his, his friend in the restaurant. It seems like that's like a good, honest conversation, but besides that, the whole everything just seems like everything is bullshit, even okay.

Vince: 33:22

So even when and this was another one that I'm still trying to understand trying to he In the midst of his, you know, trying to figure out what's happened he goes to his friend, the painter's, house, and he walks in and his friend and his friend's wife are fucking and he's watching them and she sees him and she's like like gesturing to him, not making a sound. You know she's squealing, but she's like don't, you know? She's like shaking her head, like don't make a sound. And so he just Stands there watching and I'm like I, I don't understand what is. He's upset that the woman that is married to his friend they're fucking, and I don't understand that such way, I don't know why she's like who gives a fuck? He shows up.

Intro: 34:15

They get to fucking to help.

Vince: 34:19

There's a lot there.

Vito: 34:20

I mean one one, it's it. I mean obviously I don't know either, but one I she's definitely the only person now there's a lot to her character. I think he trimmed it down a lot the Sarah Miles character, but I mean. So Roger Ebert actually in his review things thought that there was a back story between those two. Like he, those two did hook up in the past and everything may have been the only woman he ever really loved, stuff like that, so. But I think that's that's too much of an explanation. I think it's more of a since the Centonioni. I think it's more of like just like everything else in the movie. It's a symbol. It means something that isn't really there in the end. I don't know, yeah, I don't know what it means.

Vito: 35:02

I think the only thing that ever made sense that came from her is is is her husband, because his paintings and the Photography in the end are the same. But I don't know where she fits in with that. I don't. I don't know what it means, but you're right. When he walks in and their fucking is, she looks up at him. It's such a weird moment. He's just standing there and, yeah, I don't know.

Vince: 35:22

I mean it's just because, in, you know, in any normal situation, if I go, if I walk in on, or somebody walks in on me fucking and it's a friend and they need help, I'm like you know, you just jump up and you're like, okay, okay, sorry, we're. You know what's going on, you know, but it wasn't anything like that he's in trouble or he's in need, but he goes there and it's, and Again, it could also be, you know, it could also be perception, or it could also be like he's wanting, like there's something. Maybe it is something that he, he, the the only thing that he loved besides Photography is her, like she's the only, like pure girl. Say, yeah, he's, he's loved because she's not a groupie. You know, I mean, he's surrounded by groupie, she's actually sort of a normal girl.

Vito: 36:11

Yeah, you know and the way the story kind of comes together, though is is so Carlo Ponte, who the producer was. He originally wanted to do this movie about a photographer, and it was based off of a famous photographer in London kind of based off, again, david Bailey and that was and then he wanted him to star in the movie and Tony Oni wasn't even involved yet. At the same time and Tony Oni was there, was this a short story. I don't know what country came out of, but it was a few years prior, late 50s.

Vince: 36:41

Yeah, the.

Vito: 36:41

Spanish short short story and he was developing another story about a photographer. That's how they kind of fused the stories together. So Antonio, he, he didn't even care at the movie, he just didn't want to take place in Italy, he wanted to be like France or America or in London work too. And because his was more about like this mystery of a story and Carlo Ponte, he had this swinging 60s, you know London thing he wanted to do and I so when, when Antonio need, they said when he came to London he just started meeting people and that helped develop the story. So there was a painter he met that that actor is basing his, his whole character, off of, and and David Bailey's, who David Hemings is based himself off of, and so they're all. He's meeting people, why he's there and he's kind of incorporating them into the movie. So who even knows how this finished product really kind of came about right knows there are so many.

Vince: 37:33

I mean there's layers upon layers, because I think the true theme we've hit, which is that perception is Like sometimes what you perceive to be true just ain't true, no matter how much you want it to be true. Yeah, it just ain't true. And sometimes what you Don't realize or you know, what you don't notice, is right in front of your face. You know what I mean. Sometimes the answer is right there and you just don't even want to accept it. So I think that that's basically the thing, right? I mean, I think that that's the main. But there's all this stuff about the youth and about the older World. I mean that you know, you've got the old guy and in the, in this communication issues between him and David Hemings, and then all the young people at the concert, and they're all weird and you know, even his lifestyle is hedonistic lifestyle and the, the, the groupies are strange and and the drug, even like value, like the piece of art, is not valued.

Vito: 38:35

Once he leaves the place he's driving in a Rolls Royce, you know, and he doesn't value that at all. And he's a photographer that knows what you know. Priceless things can be, but he's jumping around in there like it's a you know Volkswagen.

Vince: 38:48

Right, and even the, and even the damn propeller, like it's just a propeller, but and I'm this just hit me, and I'm not even gonna say that this is Correct or that Antonio Antonio ne mentis, but the propeller Kind of propels the story.

Vince: 39:10

I like that he, he orders this damn propeller, it gets brought, but that is what. That Propeller being interrupting is delivered right there interrupting him, and Vanessa, and that's you know that sort of Cools off their steamy moment because there's definitely something about to happen. But because of the propeller being delivered he has to go down and it sort of you know, separates the two of them and then the the moment is gone and that sort of Wakens, I mean because she was sort of loosening up but because of the propeller. Then she kind of comes back to like I need the film, I need the film, I need to. You know, and I don't know, I'm not, I'm just saying like I love that.

Vito: 39:52

I think it sounds great it sounds good.

Vince: 39:54

I have no idea if that motherfucker meant that, but it sounds good it. Just you know it and you know what. I can see how people, with any great piece of art, which this is, people like to tie meanings to it, and I can see how people would say, oh, this is like, this is a pruder film, this is a meaning for you know right right you know, because it you know, even though we see it and we want more to come from it.

Vince: 40:19

Maybe it's really just you know what I mean. I don't know, I would have never really. And of course this is you know. The movie is 1960. What seven eight nine sixty six 66, 60. So that time period, crazy-ass time period. I mean, I can you imagine if, like, I don't care who the president is if our president got assassinated, I don't care if it?

Vince: 40:41

was a no, or Trump or Biden or ever. If our president got assassinated, that'd be big fucking news, and even in the sadistic world we live in today. But imagine in 1963. Yeah, so Kennedy gets killed. It's crazy.

Vince: 40:55

There's all these stories, so I can see how it's very easy to Start attaching things to movies. But I I do think that his eye, the fact that you can't see what's in those Pictures, those photographs, that it's blurry, you don't know what you're looking at, and there is. I mean he is saying that I don't think there's any doubt about that. Yeah, something about perception, about reality. With the mimes I read something and I think it was a review, that I was reading about it. We're they were touching on all of that and they kind of at the end of the review, they basically are saying that oh no, no, I know what it was.

Vince: 41:36

Not the review, it was, it was an interview with Antonioni and he even, I guess, said that it is about the, the react, like the reality that we live in and how we perceive it. Something about how we perceive the structures of like you got to get married and you got to get. You know, you have to live the certain way and that's all false, like something about okay, how the way we are taught to live in everyday life, especially like in America, say we use like gotta have a nine to five, got to get married, gotta get kids and blah, blah, blah it, that all of that is bullshit, right, you know that that's not. That's not what's really there, that's not what what life is really about.

Vito: 42:22

So I agree. I think you know we had the conversation about kind of how, especially you and I, we're kind of we're like pure movie people where we don't really care about life, we only care about life through movies, Like we don't want to go, we don't care about vacationing in Europe or going skydiving or going camping, we want to make movies and those will be our life memories. Or through movies.

Intro: 42:48

Yeah, fuck, skydiving, right, you know I and there's, you know, and there's very.

Vito: 42:53

There's not a lot of people like that, and we definitely are, but I think that's David Hemmings as a photographer, though you know, talking about truth through, through images. I think there's something there where he that's the only way he can really view. I guess his reality is through is through taking photographs.

Vince: 43:12

Well, yeah, I mean because he's creating something, and when we make films, we create something, and creation is the ultimate. That's what everybody should strive for in life is creating. We're creating a film where he's creating a moment, in a sense, because he's capturing it. So maybe he's more like capturing that creating, but he ends up creating his shit in his mind.

Vito: 43:35

But yeah, which he may have, he may have. We don't never know if that was true or not, and we don't know if that's yeah, and that's the great thing, and I'm going to just tell you to like so side thing, I well, I already told you this, so I wanted to say it again.

Vito: 43:48

A little fun fact on Hemings is so he has a connection. He did a movie with Sharon Tate back, I think right before she married Polanski right around in England. So he did a movie with Sharon Tate. There is a. So when you watch documentaries about Manson and everything, they always show Sharon Tate when she was in London dancing in this club, this black and white footage of her dancing and she's just gorgeous and they always talk about it was the moment where America fell in love with Sharon Tate and she's dancing with this guy who's going crazy. And it's David Hemings who she's dancing with and there's all these photos of those two together. So I'm like you know, hemings and Herbert.

Vince: 44:25

Oh yeah, they were.

Vito: 44:26

They were having a good old time, because Roman was probably filming that shit.

Vince: 44:30

He was smooth. Yeah Well, that's who it was Like. That's so that the mysterious you know film reel that that that Polanski filmed that when he forced Tate to fuck some dudes, david Hemings and probably Peter O'Toole.

Vito: 44:51

So David Hemings, though, grew into this really big, giant eyebrowed actor who he's dead now, but he was in so many great movies at the early 2000s. He was in Gladiator.

Vince: 45:02

He he's just, he just was this great character actor at the older he got, you know, drunk as hell I had to look up the pictures of to see like who the fuck did he end up being? And then I see those photos, like good God, he doesn't even look the same I did. I did think it was funny that he was on Gladiator and then, you know, because you had all of Reed died on that, and then, yeah, can you imagine the drinking that went?

Vito: 45:25

on that movie with the two of them, hemings and Reed's story is just fucking amazing.

Vince: 45:31

But but he was a smooth ass. I mean, I didn't know him until, like, I realized when you told me he was in Deep Red, I was like, oh shit. So but you know, like I could see how, like how I mean that's, he's an international star from this movie, he's so good, yeah, and he really made work that character. He really made it work. Because that's a tough, you know, because, like I said, there's not a lot of dialogue, there's not a lot of explanation for who this guy is really you know their original casting.

Vito: 46:03

I don't know if they originally offered it and he passed, or Antonioni changed his mind by a veteran stamp was the original person they had in mind to play the Thomas character.

Vince: 46:14

Oh well, interesting.

Vito: 46:15

But because he was kind of hot at that time. He did Toby damn it with Celini and he had all those. You know he was kind of like the man back then and stuff and they said he was like the number one guy. So if you got Terrence Stamp back then that was like big shit. Like the guy yeah.

Vince: 46:31

Well, I could. I mean, look, I could see it working, that for sure. But I mean David Hemmings. I mean, this is that.

Vito: 46:36

Hemmings yeah, no, I fucking love.

Vince: 46:38

Hemmings yeah, because he just had the right attitude. I mean he just because he's, he's not. You don't hate him, you know nobody's such a dick. Yeah, he's such a dick, but you kind of like him because he's kind of boyish looking.

Vito: 46:53

Yeah, when he's yelling at the models like they. I saw an interview with one of the models that was in that scene that she was like it was kind of funny. She was like, but you know, it's not really that bad. But you know, I don't know it was it was. He did it very, very well, though I love like he's whistling out. I mean like wake up. Yeah, just screaming at him. I was like it's funny.

Vince: 47:15

I. The movie frustrates me in a really great way because you said this, you said this to me and before I even saw it and Tony Oni is is one of those guys, one of those directors that is just smarter than the rest of us yeah, and there are things about it that I'm going to wonder about and when I rewatch it again and again, I'm going to keep thinking wait, a minute doesn't mean this, doesn't mean that. And it doesn't matter how many questions I come up with or answers I come up with, it's always going to come back to the same thing, which is this is this? This cat was smarter than the rest of us. He knew what he was doing and he knew how to do it. To make us keep asking questions?

Vito: 48:01

Yeah, and he does it with his prior stuff, lavittura, and.

Vince: 48:04

I got to see those because I don't know any of them and they're.

Vito: 48:07

They're low budget, black and white. Like blow up. Had some value, it was definitely some money behind it. But his other stuff was very character driven, low budget. But then after he does this the funny thing about Antonio he does blow up and the world is like this guy is the thing it must be going to make.

Vince: 48:25

Next he does the brisky point which you got me to see, and that was like oh so I have seen Antonio, because I saw that and I was like what?

Vito: 48:34

is this? Oh man, he tried, he did his England counterculture, he tried the American version. It just didn't work too well.

Vince: 48:43

Yeah, it did not mesh, and I think because we need too much explanation and he doesn't want to give in, which is what I love about blow up. Yeah, he doesn't. He lets. He doesn't disrespect his audience. He's like you'll figure it out. Yeah, let him figure it out.

Vito: 48:58

And I always think when people don't like him, they're usually like haters. You hear a lot of people not liking Antonio. He gets some shit. You know. Some people are like, oh, he's overrated, he's garbage. But I'm like no, I really do think he's like. Like I said, I compare him to Kubrick, where they're just, they're smarter than us and sometimes you know they're doing something. Just because you can't figure it out Doesn't mean there's not something there that's, you know, incredible, but it's people want to quickly dismiss it because they don't get it.

Vince: 49:25

And exactly, and that's how that's. And I want to you know, before we wrap any of this up, I do want to bring you to the next episode, I do want to bring up the fact that I'm watching it and even once in a second time, I mean, obviously, conversation totally inspired by this movie. Yeah, we know, blow out, blow out because it's, it is. I mean, you know it's, it's, it's essentially the same thing.

Vince: 49:51

But there's body doubles in this too, because of and it's not a lot but this that when he walks in, blow up, when he walks in on them fucking. I keep thinking. Body double when he walks in on his wife fucking the, the, the guy. Oh, because it's the same bizarre moment where he walks in and he just watches for a second.

Vince: 50:17

It's the same, no weird she, you know, he walks in and body double, he walks on his wife and she's just in mid fuck, mid pump and she looks at him and she's and, and, and she's still fucking this guy. And she just sort of looks at him and and there's no like jumping off and like, oh my God, you got me. You know, there's nothing like it, just like in this, it's just she's getting railed and he's and he just kind of looks like Stop right.

Vince: 50:46

So there's a little body double going on and you know, I mean even the whole, even the whole like looking for her, like going into the. You know, even that's a little body double me. You could say that's a lot of Murder mysteries in a sense. But yeah, the fact is is that it is this mysterious woman just like in body double. That's a mysterious woman across the way. You know, there there is so diploma, I think. I guess my point is is that diploma was?

Vito: 51:15

well, certainly in a voyeuristic way. Yeah, absolutely, it has that, yeah.

Vince: 51:19

Yeah, exactly, yeah, you're right. Voyeuristic way. There's a lot of that going on with this movie, which is because that's what he is right, yeah. Yeah, he's he is, he is he really is, he's his character really is like this, this voyeur? But I mean it's, this is just.

Vince: 51:35

You know, and for all you guys listening out there, I know you were wondering like how in the I mean, yes, we were classy today- we talked about a good movie and and we didn't get down in the dirt, and we will go back to getting down in the dirt, but we just had always we had to do a clean one. This side, just this is dripping with elegance, this movie.

Vito: 51:56

Please, you know I, yeah, you gotta find this one. I'm glad we, you know we went, we saw eight and a half and you know I'm glad you've seen this now and I do feel, out of all the I mean you know Italian cinema, all the, every country has their, you know some, some prime stuff, but like when you start diving into like Italian, like history, but you know everything from, even nowadays there's still some good stuff coming out of from Italy and it's just like you can go all the way back and it just there's always gonna be something to see and blow up. I think, even though it was made in England, it's still to me it's an Italian movie. Oh, it's Tony, oh yeah it's, it is absolute.

Vince: 52:34

I mean his fingers are all over, I mean it's even they're acting. I mean he, you know, david Hemings, when, when the phone rings and he and he just Wait some weights and then just jumps out onto the floor and is gambling to find it, that's so Weird and bizarre that I'm, I instantly was okay, that's. The director told him.

Vito: 52:52

Yeah, david Hemings was saying that he went to the audition and you know he didn't know if he was gonna get it. And so he said and Tony only has a weird tick where he moves his neck real fast, so it looks like he's shaking his head. So he's Heming says he's acting, and the whole time he said in the corner of his eye he's seeing. He says he thinks he's seeing Antonioni shaking his head. No, and he's like fuck, I'm gonna lose a part. So he just starts going off the rails, acting crazy, doing all this nutty shit, and then he gets the part.

Vince: 53:20

Yeah, I mean that. So that's and that's the thing, it's like it. There's something about Antonioni, that is it. Just he wants these, I mean, and everybody's weird in it. You know, he's got this weird stuff. Like we said, vanessa, red grave is weird, all of the kids, the, even the bizarre amp thing with Jeff Beck, you know, yeah, it's just, it's just bizarre moments, his friend at the party, all of that.

Vito: 53:49

It's they're kind of like almost a set piece but doesn't really go anywhere and it's just like stops at like a question mark. Oh, okay just stops at a question mark.

Vince: 53:58

One more thing. Oh, so he goes. When he went back to the antique store the second time, the old man with a girl. Owners there, the girl's there and she says something about Peru or she wants to go to Somewhere, and he's like, well, they're all, there's nothing but.

Vito: 54:15

Grease. He's like, grease is nothing but antiques. Yeah, oh, okay. Well, maybe Morocco.

Vince: 54:20

So because she's tired of being working there with the, with the old stuff, and again it goes back to the. You know, there's some weird layer of the youth, I guess Lee because she's the owner of the antique store.

Vito: 54:32

She's a young girl and that guy was the employee and he's like an 80 90 year old guy.

Vince: 54:37

It's it's, and I don't know what he's saying, but he's saying something about that, something about the youth and about maybe the youth not caring about the old, and I definitely think there's a value well, how we value things that that's in there too.

Vito: 54:53

Or could be an accident again. We could be doing what everybody else is doing watching a great movie and adding all these little spices to it that mayor May or may not, may or may not which again is kind of the theme of the movie.

Vince: 55:04

It may or may not be there. Yeah, I. Mean it's like it makes me Crazy. I'm going crazy right now because my mind is getting. You know, it's like there's so many things that it could be or it could not be, or you know, and he probably meant for it all. He probably meant it, just like Cuba. He meant for every fucking thing that we're saying. I think so.

Vito: 55:26

I mean he does a lot of, takes in like 20s and stuff, like I mean he gets what he wants and they, you know, even like we talked about, we weren't sure if he was Painting these buildings or finding them, but like no sure is shit they were. They make everything specific, like specific to what he wants it to look like. They'll sit there and decorate a street if they have to. So guys like him and Cooper, they don't make mistakes on like that. So it's like when you watch the shining you know you see all these little kind of fuck ups you think, but they probably aren't this.

Vince: 55:57

Everyone, please do yourself a favor, please watch this movie and and just let it roll over you, let it just Consume you.

Vito: 56:07

Yeah, I think it's one of those movies You're probably like better the second time, because the first time you're waiting for, like the money shot, you know you're waiting for and I mean, listen, you're waiting for an exponent.

Vince: 56:17

I was waiting to, like, underst, like, okay, where's the dialogue, like, where's the? You know what's happening, what, what is going in. You never get it.

Vince: 56:26

Yeah, what's the psychiatrist and psycho come out the end, explain everything Exactly, you're looking for that moment, something even if it's just a headline in the newspaper as to who the old guy was that Supposedly might have gotten killed. You never find out. You don't know who he was. You don't know who she was. You don't know the the significance of hearing the tennis with the mimes none of that. We don't know if David Hemings is crazy. We don't know if it's on, if he's just making this up to to feel important. We don't know any of fantastic movie, fantastic experience. And now I'm on to the next one. I gotta go see.

Vito: 57:02

Yeah, he's a guy you can go backwards on. You know, I really think Laventura would be the one I'd find next for sure.

Vince: 57:11

I definitely want to try that. And you said is it lanota? Oh?

Vito: 57:15

yeah, yeah, lanota, um the note. Yeah, that's. Actually, I think all these movies are all on max, the HBO max app, or whatever the fuck it's called these days. I think they have the whole salini and Antonioni and well, I know the passenger is somewhere out there.

Vince: 57:31

So you know, and you were telling me maybe I shouldn't check out.

Vito: 57:33

Well, no, the passenger is still like pretty good. They always say that was his Um, a decent redemption after the briskey point, you know, because jack marish and I mean it's gonna be good, you know, um, but it's, it's, it's definitely. I mean he never got to blow up again.

Intro: 57:50

You know, that was that was the key. What you doing, stop it, stop it. Pictures. You can't put a guy, people like that, who says I can't, I'm only doing my job. Some people are all fighters, some people are politicians. I'm a photographer. This is a public place. Everyone has the right to be left in peace. It's not my fault if there's no peace. You know, most girls would pay me to photograph them. I'll pay you. I have a charge. There are other things I want on the real. What do we do then? I send you the photographs? No, I want them now. Now, what's the rush? Don't let spoil everything. We've only just met. No, we haven't met. You've never seen me.