The plot is a day in the life of a fashion photographer (David Hemmings). It begins after spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos. He is late for a photo shoot with Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and walks off, leaving the models and production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage girls, aspiring models (Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, ask to speak with him, but the photographer drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park , he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Vanessa Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. The photographer is startled when she stalks him back to his studio, asking for the film. This makes him want the film even more, so he hands her another roll instead. His many blowups (enlargements) of the black and white film have rough film grain but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. The photographer is frightened by a knock on the door, but it is the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, he finds they hope he will photograph them but he tells the girls to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Come back tomorrow!"
As evening falls, the photographer goes back to the park and finds a body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. The photographer returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, he finds both Veruschka (who tells him she is in Paris) and his agent (Peter Bowles)whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, the photographer cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone, but the body is gone.
Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As the photographer watches this alone on the lawn he walks into the distance, leaving only the grass as the film ends.
When I discovered classic films I was watching them contently. I would even go out of my way to ask people who has the pay cable stations like HBO, Cinemax, The Movie Channel and others to tape me a movie I wanted to see. These movies were always on and back when I saw them they were basically uncut and very little commercials. Not like today where you can watch a film and there is five minutes of commercials and when you get back to the film the area where you knew where it continued was cut and they moved to another scene entirely. It is one reason now I don't watch films on TV because of that fact.
Then something happened to out cable. It was a stumble that to this day makes me watch films more and more. The creation of TCM. The TCM channel or Turner Classic Movies showed films without commercials. It was great I got to see films that I never saw before and films I loved without seeing a break in the action. One night they were celebrating Italian Cinema they showed a Sergio Leone film and also they showed another classic The Leopard which was pretty rare looking back because that was a hard film to track down. Just before my father went to bed, they previewed what was coming up next. He saw with me what they were showing. It was the movie called Blow Up. He told me that he saw this when he was in the service and loved it. He also told me to throw a tape in the VCR and he would watch it at a later date. He suggested that I watch it too. He said it's a classic film. I stood up till it was over at 1am to understand how right he was.
Blow Up is a great film for people who want to appreciate and understand classic world cinema. The film was defiantly unconventional for it's time and it was also a pretty daring. Also my dad told me that the part with The Yardbirds is classic cinema. You will have to see the scene to understand it. It made my day when I saw that scene. The movie is not a Hollywood film, it's a film that opened my eyes to the love of foreign film. This is the film people mention when they list foreign films. I know I put it up there in my favorite of that genre.
I suggest you see Blow Up it will give you a whole new outlook on how and why films are made. This move so far has not been remade and I really don't think they could. It is a film that make you think and also fall in love with the sixties like I love the sixties. It is a true classic and for that I totally suggest you watch this as well. A great film, a great time period and most of all a great watch and study. Enjoy!!
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