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As is well known, Blow-Up (1966) directed by Michelangelo Antonioni is based on Julio Cortázar’s short story; “Las babas del diablo” (1959). In literary terms, it is very difficult to find similarities between both works, except in their outlines. Many critics, therefore, thought Blow-Up was Antonioni’s own film with no special connection with “Las babas del diablo”. But we should focus on the common outlines of the two. Both deal with ‘vision’. The change of seeing through a viewfinder to seeing through a photographic print gives the protagonists a daydream-like experience.
Cortázar was not only a writer but also an amateur photographer, and Antonioni a film director. If both auteurs reveal their interest in ‘vison’ in their works, we can say that Antonioni follows Cortázar regarding this theme and further develops it through his use of abstract paintings. Antonioni was concerned with differences between the vision of the naked eye and photographic vision, and with similarities between the photographic vision and abstract painting. So, what is Antonioni’s understanding of vision?
I think there is a key to resolve this question in Blow-Up itself. One can focus on not only the change of the protagonist’s behavior in following the story’s development, but also on photographs, abstract paintings, and landscape paintings that appear in the film. Then we would find the possibility that Antonioni thinks photographs and pointillist paintings are based on the same principle; the retinal mesh-like structure.
Subject
Michelangelo Antonioni
Blow-Up
abstract painting
photograph
perspective painting
theory of vision
Journal Title
AMJournal of Art and Media Studies
Volume
19
Start Page
59
End Page
68
ISSN
2217-9666
ISSN(Online)
2406-1654
Published Date
2019-09-15
DOI
Publisher
Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade
NII Type
Journal Article
Format
PDF
Text Version
出版社版
OAI-PMH Set
Faculty of Law and Literature