Sam Giese
Reality:
Is It Relative?
In
1966, director Michelangelo Antonioni created his first British film, titled Blowup. It pits a photographer in
London
In first discussing Antonioni’s film Blowup, I’d like to focus on the way woman are dealt with. When we
are initially introduced to the photographer Thomas, he has a camera in his
hand and is ready to take some pictures of a young woman sitting on a couch. This
woman would be considered by society to be young, sexy, and gorgeous. This
woman informs Thomas that she has been waiting for Thomas to get there for over
an hour, but he laughs that off. Even when it seems like she might have power
by mentioning Thomas being so late, he gives her none. In fact, once he gets
the camera in his hand he figuratively dominates her. He tells her how to
position herself and even how to smile. He even gets on the ground with her,
all along telling her exactly what he wants her to do. On two occasions, he
goes as far as to bite her ear, gently arousing her and making her laugh so
that Thomas can get the shots he wants. He further displays domination over her
when she is literally lying on her back on the floor, and he positions himself
powerfully by squatting on his knees, looking down on her. Not once does she
question Thomas’s authority, and she does everything he asks. This clearly
represents her to be the weaker of the two, for he has complete control over
her.
Later in the film, Thomas is introduced to two groupie
girls who seem to want him to take pictures of them. When he first meets them,
he exerts power over them by kicking them out of his apartment because he says
he is too busy. They make a re-appearance though, as Thomas lets them back into
his home later in the day. He takes control and dominates the two of them in
his own ways here as well. First, one of the young women tries on a dress from
a closet in Thomas’s studio. Thomas proceeds to take this dress off of the
girl, leaving her topless. When she struggles to put on her original shirt, he
roughly rips this away as well, and throws her towards the ground as she screams.
Although this was all part of a sexual role-play scenario, Thomas still exerted
control of the situation. He then works to pull off her pants as well. After
acting similarly towards the other young girl, the scene changes and we are
left with the impression that he has had sex with them. He then quickly orders
them to leave his place, and when one of the girls mentions “pictures”, he
yells “tomorrow” at them both. Again, Thomas has shown supremacy over woman in
this movie.
There are two smaller examples of Thomas having control
over woman in this film as well. One is seen when he is photographing a group
of attractive young women who are dressed in costumes. With his camera in hand,
it again appears as though Thomas has all of the power. He tells them exactly
how he wants them to move for the pictures, even explaining to one girl that
she must flap her arms in a way that her body and the stripe on her dress will
still stay straight. Thomas gets frustrated with the girls, and walks along the
line of them, looking them all in the eyes and telling them to “smile.” When
they don’t do this to his liking, he gets angry and tells them all to shut
their eyes. Thomas has so much power now, he doesn’t even stay to finish the
shoot—he just gets up and leaves.
We also
see Thomas control the situation with the main female character, Jane. Thomas
has what she wants, which are the photographs he took of her in the park. This
helps him gain the advantage he has over her. We see an example of the
domination he holds over her when she initially tries to grab the camera away
from him, as she is unsuccessful. Because he still has what she wants, the
camera, she figures out where his apartment is and shows up there. In order to
get the pictures she wants, Jane is willing to involve herself sexually with
Thomas. We know she is not kidding around with this notion, because she takes
off her shirt. The fact that Antonioni depicts the female selling her body to
get what she wants is downgrading towards women. It also reiterates the power
Thomas holds, and he takes advantage of this power by tricking Jane and giving
her the wrong photos.
This film leaves a lot of interpretation up to the
viewer, and one of the most interesting aspects in the movie to consider in
looking at this is considering Thomas’s photos. It appears as though Thomas
sees the world differently then most, and it all revolves around the use of his
camera. Reality to Thomas seems to be what his camera tells him, and is shown
to him in the results with his actual photographs. When Thomas begins analyzing
the pictures he took of Jane and the man she was with in the park, he starts
gaining a new insight into what he regards as reality. He enlarges the pictures
to a poster-like size, and starts seeing some unusual things. This causes him
continue blowing up the pictures until he feels he has photographed a murder,
as he thinks he sees a body and a gun. At this point, this is what is real to
him. There is a dead body lying on the ground, and a gun in the bushes. Because
it can all be seen in his photos, there is no question to him that this is what
the truth is. This causes him to want to investigate the situation closer, so
he calls Jane and realizes he was given a false number. At night, he decides to
go to the park and examine further. He finds what he was expecting to see—a
dead body. He has no camera with him though, and the only proof is the mental
pictures he takes. But there’s a problem, because as I mentioned, reality to
Thomas is only what he captures with an actual photograph. Thomas’s notion of
what is real gets completely messed with when he returns to his apartment and
sees that all the pictures he had taken of Jane and the man are gone. Basically,
Thomas has had his reality taken from him. Without photographic evidence of
what occurred, he is left with nothing. He doesn’t know what is real now. The
only picture he finds is one in which he enlarged so much that it can’t be made
out what is in the picture. Presumably, the white object in the picture is the
dead body, but it is so big that it is too blurry to be made out as just that. To
Thomas, the only way he will be able to gain this reality back is if he is able
to take a picture of the dead body, so he goes back to the park with a camera
in hand. Unfortunately for Thomas, there is no body anymore. The audience and
Thomas are being completely toyed with at this point. What is real? There are
no photographs of the event, and all Thomas has is the memories of the pictures
he took and the image of the dead body he had come across earlier. This is such
an incredible idea that Antonioni has developed.
All of the prior action described leads to the final
scene, which is truly memorable. Thomas is in a strange state of mind as he
fights himself and what real is. He comes across a completely different type of
real when he views a group of mimes “playing” a game of tennis. To the mimes,
reality is only what one’s mind makes of it. They are playing a game of tennis
with no equipment and no ball. Yet, the audiences of mime’s watching the game
seem to know exactly where the ball is, as their eyes go back in forth in
unison as if a tennis ball was actually being hit back and forth. The two
players playing against each other seem to know exactly what is happening in
the game as well, as they go through the motions of playing the game in a
realistic way that makes one think they can actually see a ball. As Thomas
views this, many thoughts must be running through his head. He has created such
a life that reality is only what can be viewed on a photo. The mimes are able
to make a reality occur with thoughts originating from the mind, such as
viewing a tennis ball being played with that couldn’t be captured with a
picture. Thomas is invited to join this world of a reality other than what can
be proven by photographs when the mimes all look to him to pick up their
seemingly invisible ball as it has been hit out of play. After a few moments of
hesitation, Thomas walks over and bends down to pick this ball up. He tosses it
back in play, and as the camera focuses on him, we realize that he believes in
this reality as he hears a tennis ball being hit by tennis racquets. This is a
huge step for Thomas. He has now allowed himself to see reality in another form
outside of what can be proven by pictures.
The film that Antonioni is considered by many experts to
be great. It deals with many aspects of texts which we covered in class. First,
it takes a look at the treatment of woman and the role they seem to play as if
they are looking up to men. This film also is postmodernist film, for it makes
the viewer uncomfortable. Personally, it caused me to consider what real is.
Watching Thomas throughout the whole movie, we see that he needs to see proof
in a picture to believe it. Personally, what I see with my own eyes is reality,
even though it may not always be accurate. To the mimes, what they imagine in
their minds and can picture in their heads is reality. These different theories
on reality are so intriguing, and Antonioni presents them masterfully. All in
all, this film is a classic and encompasses much of what we learned in class.
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