Blow Out
Blow Out
Directed by Brian De Palma
Photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond
1981
Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow
De Palma was an unrelenting Hitchcock student. This would often manifest all over his work, starting from the plots of his films to the style he developed throughout the years. Adopting many of Hitchcock's techniques and making them his own, De Palma created a visual language that speaks to me on many levels. I know people go through phases and like different things at different points of their lives, but I've been on my De Palma phase for far too long. To me there is no more admirable Director, taking risks no one would, going against the hollywood grain, costing him his name in many occasions. A hybrid between Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up with added elements of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, the story of Blow Out centers around Jack, a sound engineer who works for low budget Horror Movies. Jack goes off to a park to record new sounds to put into his films, but he gets more than just recordings. He records the sounds of what seems to be an accident, but becomes more and more obsessed with the incident when he realizes it's been a murder. What's so enticing about the film however, is not the story but the style. I would argue that Brian De Palma is one of the most stylistic directors, truly embodying Caméra-stylo, using the camera as a pen, moving it as much as he can but not too much, just enough. Along with dramatic lighting, split diopters, and innovative shots, De Palma tends to push his team as far as he can, challenging them to long takes and beautiful blocking of the scenes, often giving us artistic results. One of the most accomplished shots of this film is when Jack walks into his office to find all his recordings have been tampered with and stolen. The way this scene is carried out is truly brilliant! Clocking in at 2 minutes, the scene starts out with Jack coming into his office, the camera is set in place in the middle of the office and starts to spin slowly, making the claustrophobic space more evident to the audience. As the camera pans the whole 360 degrees we start to notice Jack's desperation increasing, as well as the speed of the camera. As the speed goes up, the atmosphere becomes more and more intense and confined, with a lot more going on, Jack running around throwing shit everywhere, while the phone is annoyingly ringing. The tapes have been stolen from Jack's office, and De Palma shows us this in such an ingenious way. Blow Out is definitely in my top 5 movies.
