William Friedkin on Blow-Up

William Friedkin reacts to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 masterpiece Blow-Up.
Sources: The Movies That Made Me hosted by Josh Olson & Joe Dante, TCM
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[@user-cq5sg9cb4t]

Mr. Friedkin is, as always, on point. One thing I'd like to add is how poetically paradoxical the turn to color turned out to be for Antonioni. His black and white films, despite their heaviness, still brimmed with colorful energy and intensity, whereas his color films in terms of essence became more cold, alienated, detached, more black and white.

[@CorbCorbin]

It’s something that is immediately recognizable, as being a movie of that time, while the movie is ahead of its time. I feel that way, about many 50’s and 60’s movies. I don’t often hear this talked about, aside from Sci Fi, and fantasy movies.

[@karlkarlos3545]

Actually the same was true of Hitchcock. He used color in a very selective way that seemed more cold and detached than his earlier black and white films. Of course this was a deliberate choice to use color as just another narrative device, like sound or music.

[@juniorjames7076]

@@karlkarlos3545 Hitchcock's '70s era is very underrated.

[@karlkarlos3545]

@@juniorjames7076Actually, Frenzy is one my favourite of his.

[@tinderbox218]

He throws the invisible ball back, then begins to hear it being played back and forth on the court 🎾💛

[@postmodernrecycler]

That's the moment that gives me shivers. Agree w/Friedkin this is one of the finest endings to a movie.

[@Hernal03]

@@postmodernrecycler A moment of frightening self-realization --- the realization that you have lost your individuality and given in to the overall illusion --- of becoming untethered by joining the many and in the process losing yourself. To be alone in a crowd as it were. A quietly haunting and existentially devastating moment.

[@jonboz7585]

I could listen to Friedkin’s presentations 24/7/365. RIP William Friedkin. You are missed and very appreciated! 😢😢😢😢♥️♥️♥️♥️🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@scottburch3178]

Marc maron interviews him on his wtf podcast. I've listened to it twice.

[@benjaminberkowitz4596]

Love the way he discusses and analyses film. You can tell it really comes from a place of passion, love, and respect. R.I.P. Friedkin.

[@thatguyrubenn]

YES. MORE FRIEDKIN PLEASE.

[@giacomosalibra1656]

Now that I'm fifty and I deal with images, I can say that Blow up was a fundamental obsession. Friedkin's words are striking. It's a film that young people who grew up with social networks should see. They don't know that they are all there playing a game without rackets or balls.

[@dardarfisher]

Can’t hear Friedkin’s voice without thinking of action boyz podcast anymore.

[@SquabbleBoxHQ]

William Friedkin is an inspiration and will be to me forever. Not only a supremely talented filmmaker, whose work routinely goes through reappraisals, but a master orator and professor of film.

[@scotia7326]

I’ve been listening to Friedkin’s autobiography lately. His narration of his own life and work is so brilliantly understated and sarcastic yet so beautifully told that I’d encourage anyone to read or better yet, listen to the audiobook version.

[@petergivenbless900]

This makes a great first film in a kind of trilogy; the counter-culture escapism of 'Zabriskie Point' and the aimless anonymity of 'The Passenger' are like continuations of the ideas explored in 'Blow-Up'.

[@chanceotter8121]

Agreed. Fifty plus years on, ‘Zabriskie Point’ captures the crossroads America was at in ‘70 between unfettered commercialism and unfocused youth culture, with both sides searching for meaning beyond their comprehension, better than any other film made during that unique period of American movies. It is not a surprise it was hated at the time, but it begs to be reappraised as a classic of that period. And ‘The Passenger’ is a magnificent achievement with probably Nicholson’s greatest underseen performance.

[@petergivenbless900]

@@chanceotter8121 great to hear some appreciation for 'Zabriskie Point'; I hesistated over making my comment as I understand it is popularly dismissed as an artistic mistep by Antonioni but I have always felt it was an authentic respresentation of the zeitgeist of its time.

[@azureattorney]

Great edit - love your vids and bittersweet to hear the late Friedkin so passionate about this film. Antonioni - the master. Amazing insight from WF about 'lateral movement like a novel', ' no repeated shots'. Overdue a rewatch on this and would recommend DePalma's 'Blow Out' semi remake for any interested X

[@MangetsuSAMURAI]

I love Blow Up. I saw it late one night on TCM and I actually had to switch to the channel guide to see what the film was called. I've never forgotten it because of how insane it can make you feel, as if you're right there with the protagonist.

[@Alexander-tj2dn]

One of my favorite movies. It is wonderful how Friedkin delves into the meaning of this masterpiece that questions us about what reality is and our perception of it.

[@user-kx1rd3hz5k]

Yeah it's always gonna be in my top 3 of the classic Euro auteurs. When he hears the sound of the tenis ball and realised he wasn't a photographer in swinging London then disappeared on the final shot. one reading. Also the Herbie Hancock score is a classic soundtrack though it wasn't used much in the film.

[@UDONTCME111]

I bought the ad for the grass fed beef jerky that came before this video. PAY THIS MANS KZbinS!!!!!!!!

[@ScreengageLLC]

Thank you for uploading this. Never heard this before.

[@Njbear7453]

Never saw Blow Up but the protagonist is the same Actor in Argento’s Profondo Rosso aka Deep Red.

[@ZiggyPeterLewis]

Yep Dave Hemmings. Profondo Rosso is actually a homage and an exercice based on Blow Up. Memory and image and reality on a crime plot.

[@stevencoffin328]

Yeah it's the same actor

[@Elassyahmed]

The Passenger, L'Avventura, La Notte, Red Desert,... Gorgeous movies that will leave you with a lot to think about

[@watchoutforsnak3s]

You would think a film that captures the Swinging Sixties of London would be upbeat, but in Antonioni's hands most of the the young people (besides the mimes) are portrayed as zombified hedonists. I also love the ending sequence; it sums up the film really well. It also inspired Coppola's The Conversation, and De Palma's best film, Blow Out. If you haven't seen The Passenger, it's my second favorite to Blow Up. Jack Nicholson plays a disillusioned journalist who steals the identity of a dead arms dealer, and tries to cut himself off from reality. It also features some wonderful Antonio Gaudi architecture.

[@danielvezza]

I'm completely addicted to your videos. Just joined the patreon. Why do you call it James Whale Bake Sale?

[@djtforever1414]

Blow Up is my favourite film from 1966.

[@adrianhough5059]

A year ago I needed to find somewhere to work near Holland Park in London…..the location I worked is where the photography studio scenes were shot in the film

[@koomo801]

I viewed the ending as not only the lead character's surrender to fantasy (because his brief fight for reality was met with ambivalence and frustration) but a comment on the swinging '60s in general.

[@bb1111116]

Blow Up is certainly a thought provoking film. I agree with Friedkin but I’ll add to it. Not only is the movie a commentary about being divorced from reality (possibly due to the drug culture) but there are consequences about that which comment about an apathetic society. The climax of Blow Up has a deadening towards morality. For Antonioni this was absurd which is represented by the mimes in the film. Unlike a Hitchcock protagonist who has to solve a mystery, in Blow Up, there is no hero. He becomes an apathetic bystander who walks away from solving the crime, rejecting a responsibility about that crime which he has seen.

[@lichtfilme]

PASSION!!!

[@likearollingstone007]

Great movie

[@writeralbertlanier3434]

Blow Up is in my view the greatest of Antononi's films. What Antonioni does is unlike most filmmakers that would pit illusion vs reality or privilege illusion over reality or vice versa, he examines both equally. My analysis is that Antonoioni is arguing in Blow Up.that both illusion and actuality coexist, that fact and fantasy are both states of being. More importantly that people exist in a world where the real and unreal always are in tandem. This makes dealing with the various aspects of life tricky as David Hemmings character comes to understand. The photos in the park are the central setpiece of the film. Here is what is interesting about the photos: It isn't whether the photo is capturing a trist or an assassination or whether what Hemmings saw was what he thinks he saw but that both could have happened or not have happened. Friedkin is off here about the film being about drugs in the way he claims but he is right about Blow,Up featuring a mystery story that remains a mystery because this is the hook in which to draw In the filmgoer.

[@classiclife7204]

I wish Antonioni was better remembered in English-speaking countries. Rather like Godard, he got forgot about once the 70s started. Not by film guys, of course, but who cares about them, amirite? I mean, listen to Friedkin here - still enchanted with "Blow Up". The movie was such a massive influence on the New Hollywood Brats of the 60s that I'm not sure their work would exist in the same way without it. And yet I can tell you that I never heard of the movie until my own time in film school in the late 80s. Evidently the movie was still known when Mel Brooks, of all people, did a big visual reference to it in his "High Anxiety", and of course there was De Palma's reimagining of it in "Blow OUT" in 1981. But after that it became, unjustly, a relic of a specific decade. And yet there's so much to learn from its grammar, and the concern with the inability to pin down objective reality is MORE, not less, relevant in these times of Fake News and AI. What's real? What isn't? Does it matter? I think young folks would enjoy "Blow Up", even if they don't know who the Yardbirds are.

[@superdoov]

Blow Out is darn good also. Agree?

[@gamleskalle1]

QT agrees making Travolta star in Pulp fiction.

[@Llllltryytcc]

0:59 silliest i've ever heard him get and it was about murder 🤣

[@doric_historic]

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality...

[@likearollingstone007]

Saw what you did there

[@ppuh6tfrz646]

Oddly enough, Hemmings didn't rate this film. That probably explains why his career soon declined. He had poor taste and it affected his choice of projects.

[@MaltheFreieslebenEjlers]

Friedkin is somone with innate understanding of the cinematic craft.