Blow-Up

Every once in a while a movie comes along that changes how we see movies, and how they are made. This is one. A photographer in Swinging Sixties London takes a series of pictures that may have recorded a murder. He makes enlargements and studies them, over and over. The larger he makes them the grainier they are, hard to interpret. But Michelangelo Antonioni is not interested in solving a mystery, he is concerned with moral detachment, the impossibility of discovering real truth, and other issues. The pace is slow and fascinating, David Hemmings is great, as is Vanessa Redgrave. There is a famous scene with Hemmings and two underage model wannabes cavorting with a giant sheet of purple paper that was very racy for the time, pushing the envelope of what was permissible, as some directors were doing at the time and few are today. Definitely a classic.