Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Blowup (1966)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

Blowup (1966, UK)

In Michelangelo Antonioni's breakthrough, absorbing first English language film, set in mod-Swinging 60s London:

  • the scene in a swinging London photographer's studio where hip, disinterested, often introverted and jaded fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) engaged in a frenzied camera-shoot scene with various 'birds' - including skinny, writhing model Veruschka (Herself) during a solo shoot, urging her orgasmically as he straddled her on the floor with his phallic camera: "On your back. Go on. Yes. Now really give it. Come on. Come on. Work, work, work! Great. Great. And again. Come on. Back. Back. Arms up. Arms up. Stretch yourself, little lady. Great. And again. Go on. Go. Go. That's great. That's it! Keep it up. Lovely. Yeah, make it come. Great. No, no, head up, head up. Now for me, love. For me. Now! Now! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Orgasmic Fashion-Model Photo Shoot
  • the scene of Thomas innocently following and taking photographs in a serene East London park, first of pigeons, a litter collector, wind blowing through trees, and the wide expanse of green grass, and then he came upon what he thought was a tryst between lovers (a distant view of a young woman and a middle-aged man embracing); he furtively captured the scene in his voyeuristic camera, but then the woman approached angrily and protested his intrusion on their privacy: ("Stop it. Stop it! Give me those pictures. You can't photograph people like that...This is a public place. Everyone has a right to be left in peace"); when she tried to grab his camera away, he refused: "What's the rush?"; afterwards, she ran off, and stood momentarily by a distant tree
  • the sequence of the Girl (Vanessa Redgrave) from the park desperately and seductively asking for the film; she bargained for Thomas' roll of incriminating film that he had shot of her in a public park with an unidentified, middle-aged man; she eventually offered sexual favors after going topless; Thomas gave her a roll of film, but kept the one she wanted
  • the exciting montage of the stages of the pictures' development, printing and magnified enlargement in the darkroom scene - especially when Thomas believed he saw a shadowy figure and a hand holding a gun in the bushes behind a fence, and possibly a dead body
Storyboarding the Photos - A Possible Murder?
  • the controversial sequence of Thomas' encounter with two naked, naive young wanna-be teenage models or "dolly birds" (blonde Jane Birkin and brunette Gillian Hills) in his studio (39), when they stopped by on their second visit; while trying on clothes, the skinny blonde was stripped of her clothes by Thomas, and then she wrestled her dark-haired friend and she was stripped too, claiming: "She's got a better figure than me"; eventually in a pre-threesome orgy sequence, the trio ended up frolicking and rolling around on an extended roll of purple backdrop paper
The Wrestling/Orgy Scene with Two Teens
  • during Thomas' return nighttime visit to the park, the haunting sound of the wind blowing through the trees - and his discovery of the scene of the murder and a man's prone corpse next to a tree
  • upon his return to his photographic studio, the shocking realization that someone had stolen the majority of his negatives and prints of the incident - and later his return to the park the next day to find the body missing
  • the final enigmatic scene of a group of mimes playing a mute game of tennis with an invisible, non-existent tennis ball on a tennis court (the soundtrack picked up the sound of the tennis ball however) - Thomas joined in the game (and threw the imaginary ball back to them)
  • the film ended with an aerial view of Thomas standing at a distance in the middle of a grassy field in the park near the tennis court, with his camera in his hand; he faded from view just before the words THE END zoomed forward



Photos in the Park


The Girl's Desperation to Get the Film



Examining the Photos in Detail

Body in Park Found During Nighttime Visit

Stolen Photos

Missing Body the Next Day

Muted and Pantomimed Game of Tennis

Aerial View Ending

100's of the GREATEST SCENES AND MOMENTS

Greatest Scenes: Intro | What Makes a Great Scene? | Scenes: Quiz
Scenes: Film Titles A - H | Scenes: Film Titles I - R | Scenes: Film Titles S - Z