Blowup
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Blowup

Blowup (also styled Blow-Up) is a 1966 psychological mystery film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, co-written by Antonioni, Tonino Guerra and Edward Bond and produced by Carlo Ponti. It is Antonioni's first entirely English-language film and stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Model Veruschka von Lehndorff is featured as herself, and Jane Birkin makes her first film appearance. The film's non-diegetic music was scored by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, and the English rock group The Yardbirds are seen performing "Stroll On". The cinematographer was Carlo di Palma.

The plot was inspired by Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar's 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo", which was later retitled "Blow-Up" to tie in with the film. Set within the contemporary mod subculture of Swinging London, the film follows a fashion photographer (Hemmings) who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film.

In the main competition of the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Palme d'Or, the festival's highest honour. The American release of the counterculture-era film with its explicit sexual content defied Hollywood's Production Code, and its subsequent critical and commercial success influenced the abandonment of the code in 1968 in favour of the MPAA film rating system. At the 39th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The film was also nominated for three BAFTA Awards, including Outstanding British Film.

Blowup has influenced subsequent films including Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981). In 2012, it was ranked No. 144 in the Sight and Sound critics' poll of the greatest films of all time and No. 59 in the directors' poll.

After spending the night at a doss house, where he has taken pictures for a book of art photographs, photographer Thomas is late for a photo shoot with model Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and frustrated with the models and walks off, leaving them and the production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage aspiring models ask to speak to him, but he brushes them off and drives off to visit an antique shop near Maryon Park.

Wandering into the park, Thomas furtively takes photographs of two lovers, an older man in his 60s and a lady in her 30s. He follows them in a secluded area in the park. Then, he leaves, but the woman, Jane, is furious at being photographed and pursues Thomas, demanding his film and attempting to take his camera. He refuses, and continues to photograph her as she runs away. Thomas then meets his agent Ron for lunch and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Thomas returns to his studio to find Jane, who asks desperately for the film. They have a conversation and flirt, but he deliberately hands her a different roll of film. She, in turn, gives him a false telephone number.

Thomas makes several blow-ups of the film of Jane and her lover, which reveal Jane appearing to look worriedly at a person lurking in the trees with a pistol. Thomas excitedly calls Ron, claiming that his impromptu photo session may have saved a man's life. He is then disturbed by a knock on the door from the teenage girls. They have a sexual encounter in the studio before he falls asleep. After awakening, he learns that the girls hope he will photograph them, but is distracted by a detail in one of his blow-ups. He tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"

Thomas examines a blurred figure on the ground under a bush in the blow-up, which he suspects is the dead body of a man shot by the gunman. As evening falls, he goes back to the park without his camera and finds the body, but is scared off by the sound of a twig breaking. He returns to his studio to find it ransacked, with all of the negatives and prints gone except for one very grainy blow-up of what is possibly the body.

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