Blow-Up

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

1966 / 111min / 35mm

Antonioni’s 1966 English-language debut sets its scene in a London that’s less swinging than sleepwalking, with David Hemmings a blasé-decadent photographer who finds himself sucked into a vortex of political intrigue when he discovers that a casual snap taken at Maryon Park seems to contain evidence of a murder—but the closer he gets to the mystery the more obscure it becomes, until both the testimony of the camera lens and the human eye are finally called into question. Hemmings’s character was inspired by the figure of David Bailey, and fashion icon Jane Birkin shows up for one raucous, infamous scene.

Part of Close-Up: Films on Film