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Blow-Up



In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni transplanted his existentialist ennui to the streets of swinging London for this international sensation, the Italian filmmaker's English-language debut. A countercultural masterpiece about the act of seeing and the art of image making, Blow-Up takes the form of a psychological mystery, starring David Hemmings as a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park. Antonioni's meticulous aesthetic control and intoxicating color palette breathe life into every frame, and the jazzy sounds of Herbie Hancock, a beautifully evasive performance by Vanessa Redgrave, and a cameo by the Yardbirds make the film a transporting time capsule from a bygone era. Blow‑Up is a seductive immersion into creative passion, and a brilliant film by one of cinema's greatest artists.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• A new piece about director Michelangelo Antonioni's artistic approach, featuring photography curators Walter Moser and Philippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor
• Blow-up of "Blow-Up," a new 52-minute documentary on the making of the film
• Conversation from 2016 between Garner and actor Vanessa Redgrave
• Archival interviews with Antonioni and actors David Hemmings and Jane Birkin
• Trailers
• PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs and more

karaman wrote:I have a question about "Blowup." Is the Warner DVD is censored? According to the picture in DVD Beaver, Vanessa Redgreave's breasts are cropped. How can I find an uncut version containing that scene intact? I think this shot is taken from Warner Region 1, DVD, but I am not sure.

Carlo Ponti, the producer said when they got back the prints after the initial release, that often the projectionist or someone else had snipped those frames featured in the review for their own personal use...

BTW the first frame of Vanessa R is stretched vertically in the Beaver review grab, but seriously the UK R2 DVD is uncensored, the framing of that shot is probably down to several takes, to later judge aesthetically as well as what would pass as decent - often several versions of a film are produced anyway for theatrical, TV, video/dvd etc... It all seems pretty pathetic nowadays, and Vanessa minus full on breasts, actually seems equally powerful, and it could probably be argued for either version from a feminist POV...

The audio is broken on the UK disk I think. Something to do with the music only be sourced from one speaker of a stereo setup or something.

I hope this is in Warner's sights to remaster for Blu...

or maybe Criterion?

Is there a version that "breasts part" is intact?
I couldn't see it in Region 1 DVD. Is it intact in British DVD?

I hope someday we will see a better release of that movie.

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If you pick up a copy of the script of BLOW UP pub. Lorrimer or Simon & Schuster first pub 1971, you can read the original opening to the film in the original script in the notes at the back... I have also a copy of an actual draft script & the published Italian edition of the script, which are similar...

The Warner R1 DVD (as does their R2) starts with the cavorting whitefaced students riding in a jeep through the Economist Plaza, just north of Ryder street off Piccadilly in the West End of London, they stop and dismount and start running down nearby St James's Street, and we then come across the photographer (Thomas) exiting the doss house with the homeless men elsewhere in London....

The Economist Plaza...



Doss house location @ Consort Road, Peckham Rye, London...



Actual interesting recollection of BLOW UP - the corpse speaks

If we protest censored version, they will release a new version.
We are paying for an ıtem and it is ridiculous to buy a censored DVD.
We are watching movies like "9 songs" in this age but we can't watch "Blowup" from 1960s uncut. This is ridiculous.

karaman wrote:If we protest censoured version, they will release a new version.

Excuse me while I die laughing

I will not buy it.
I don't want to add a cropped DVD to my collection.

karaman wrote:I will not buy it.
I don't want to add a cropped DVD to my collection.

Cropped is (means) in this particular case (also) censored?

karaman wrote:I will not buy it.
I don't want to add a cropped DVD to my collection.

What they're getting at is that you can protest this release but chances are they will not re-release it on DVD just so you can see more of Vanessa Redgrave.

Perhaps Criterion will.

It's not really about seeing more of Redgrave; it's about seeing the film as close as possible to the way the filmmaker intended it. Many of us are insulted by this kind of thing, and if more people were aware of this, it would definitely impact sales of the DVD. If enough people complain to Warner, they might do things differently if and when they re-release this on DVD/Blu-ray. Sure, they might ignore the segment of the market such complaints represent, especially when Warner seems less than concerned with the views of critics of poor quality control and false claims vis-a-vis the Archive line, etc. But I don't see any reason to mock or be dismissive of someone for trying to raise awareness and/or get to the bottom of what happened.

Yes.This is what I was complaining about.

Not to diminish the perniciousness of censorship at all, but am I the only one who finds the existence of a whole DVDBeaver page full of screenshots of Vanessa Redgrave's hoo-ha*, including one with a big yellow arrow pointing to it, kinda hilarious?

Especially since, if memory serves, Gary doesn't find jokes about the name of his website terribly funny.

* Edit: Actually, of course, the hoo-ha of that other chick who is not Vanessa.

We're all grownups. You can say 'vagina'.

Moreover, she only reveals her breasts in the film. The orgy scene does not include Redgrave.

For what it's worth, I recorded this off of TCM, which showed Blow Up as part of their Oscar festival last week, and it was the censored cut they aired.

aox wrote:We're all grownups. You can say 'vagina'.

You can, but it scarcely seems relevant here. With very very few exceptions, there are hardly any mainstream features that feature shots of actual vaginas, as opposed to external female genitals.

Basic Instinct is an obvious (if brief) example, I suppose, and Nicolas Roeg's Puffball has a pretty spectacular shock-cut, but they're very much in the minority.

If Warner releases "The Devils" in future that will also be the censored one.
If we continue to buy censored DVDs this will go on like that. So we must protest them. These DVDs are not very cheap. We have the right to watch our DVDs as the director himself intended.

I know it is wishing too much, but surely BLOW UP is an ideal candidate for a BFI Blu release, would fit perfectly alongside all the Flipside stuff of British 60's & 70's counterculture & sexuality... If only the rights could be sorted with Warners... Would make a great SE...

karaman wrote:We have the right to watch our DVDs as the director himself intended.

If you can find a legal basis for this assertion in any country in which this DVD is sold, I'll buy you a beer. In the US, your claim would be actionable only if the government was forcing the censoring of Ms Redgrave's assets. However, since this a choice made my the issuers of the DVD, it is a business decision made, as the company would likely say, to make the product more marketable. The only potential claimants with legal standing would be Antonioni's estate or whoever the current rights holders are. Since this DVD would not even be on the market without the consent of (and payment to) the current rights holders, it's doubtful they are itching to mount a legal challenge to "censorship" of the film. Concerning a "protest", when you can devise a scheme that will hurt the company's bottom line enough that they will need to listen to you, you will be onto something. Until then, you're just listening to your own echo on the Internet.

karaman wrote:If Warner releases "The Devils" in future that will also be the censored one.
If we continue to buy censored DVDs this will go on like that. So we must protest them. These DVDs are not very cheap. We have the right to watch our DVDs as the director himself intended.

Except that if all you do to protest is not buy the DVD, how do you distinguish yourself from the billions of people not buying it because they couldn't care less about the film?

I protest it because it is censoored. If we don't buy that kind of stuff and protest it with our e-mails, perhaps Warner will be more respectful for "Blowup".This is my opinion.

ellipsis7 wrote:I know it is wishing too much, but surely BLOW UP is an ideal candidate for a BFI Blu release, would fit perfectly alongside all the Flipside stuff of British 60's & 70's culture & sexuality... If only the rights could be sorted with Warners...

Sadly, they can't - Warner Bros doesn't sublicense its films, period.

If they did, The Devils would have been out years ago - plenty of distributors would have been only too happy to take on Ken Russell's restored version. And this isn't idle speculation: enquiries were definitely made once Russell complained that Warners weren't going to release it.