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Blow Up: Original
Soundtrack (MGM/ 1967)
Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up is one of those films that successive
generations of impressionable media studies undergraduates get themselves
all worked up about. This on account of the movie being held up as something
of a profound cinematic meditation on the intensely subjective nature
of perception. But in spite of that self-consciously arty baloney at the
end when a bunch of poncy Marcel Marsaud wannabes enjoy a game of mime
tennis in the park, the movie does capture something of the ebullient
spirit of so-called Swinging London (itself something of a highly subjective
concept).
One particular manifestation of that spirit was the loosening up of previously
rigid class demarcations which, in the words of the cultural theorist
Michael Bracewell, signalled "a new bohemian affair between working-class
creative types and the aristocracy, which brought the likes of David Bailey
or Mick Jagger into the country homes of England." But while I for
one would certainly question Mick Jagger's working class credentials,
it's no secret that the central character (played by David Hemmings) in
Blow Up is based on the real life – and unequivocally working class
– photographer David Bailey.
So to this end, though directed by a foreigner and incorporating such
distinctly European arthouse traits as the indecipherable plot, and confused
characters behaving in a wholly irrational manner, Blow Up
is as legitimate a portrayal of British society as more social realist
offerings of the time, such as Up the Junction and The Family
Way. What's more, the film also contains a number of memorable set-piece
scenes such as the cameo appearance by The Yardbirds, performing "Stroll
On" in a studio mock-up of the Ricky-Tick club (apparently), as well
as the first full frontal nude scene in mainstream cinema, in which Jane
Birkin and actress Gillian Hills assume pseudo lesbian poses for the benefit
of David Hemmings' probing camera lens. And the action is underpinned
with an evocative and broodingly atmospheric jazz soundtrack, scored by
Herbie Hancock, which is as sharp as the cut of a three-button, single-breasted
Italian suit.
I first saw Blow Up in the early Nineties at London's
National Film Theatre, which was running a programme of classic British
movies from the 1960s: this to accompany a retrospective exhibition of
art from the same decade which may or may not have been held at the nearby
Hayward Gallery. It was one of three that my then girlfriend TJR and I
chose to go and see; the others being Lindsay Anderson's If,
and the knockabout Swinging London spoof, The Smashing Time.
Out of the three, it was If that I particularly wanted to see
or more so, introduce TJR too. Firstly because she was American and I
considered If to be one of the most quintessentially English movies ever.
But more so because I'd seen this extraordinary film a number of times
on TV during the course of growing up, and felt sure that its spirit of
revolutionary romanticism had infected me at an early age and had subsequently
helped shape the angry young man I'd become.
In short, then, given that it was still early on in our relationship,
I felt that by encouraging her to see the film with me, I would be opening
her up to a side of my psyche that I would otherwise never have been able
to articulate nearly so poetically as Lindsay Anderson. And after having
witnessed If's explosive power on the big screen for the first
time, I came out fired up with the spirit of the barricades. But though
I didn't doubt her when she said that she enjoyed the film, she did go
on to say that she thought the rebel's (led by Malcolm McDowell’s
Travis character) machine-gunning of all of those innocent people at the
end, was a little extreme. Which sadly made me realise that she hadn't
truly connected to the movie's message, nor the allegorical manner in
which it was put across. Ho hum...
The soundtrack album, meanwhile, was picked up in 1990. It was part of
a particularly catholic selection of five albums, scored for £3.50
each at a record fair (the others being, From Ohio by Firehose,
Time Boom, De Devil Dead by Lee Scratch Perry, The Essential
Astrid Gilberto and The Best of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band).
And though I bought the Blow Up soundtrack prior to seeing the actual
film, I did so on the strength of my having been acquainted with a blistering
version of Blow Up's principal theme, performed by the
James Taylor Quartet on a mini album released in the late-Eighties. This
frenetic slice of hammond-led, neo-mod garage, had quickly established
itself as something of a floor-filler on the all-too-rare occasions that
my friend Paul C and I worked the twin wheels of steel at the weekly college
hop.
But by way of a totally unexpected bonus, couple of years down the line,
Dee-Lite appropriated the original's climbing bass riff for their "Groove
is in the Heart" single. This gifted me the opportunity to show off
at dinner parties, by casually asking friends and acquaintances whether
they were aware that the distinctive riff from the Dee-Lite hit was actually
lifted from Herbie Hancock's signature score for Antonioni's 1966 movie,
Blow Up?
"Priceless!" to quote an ad for a well known credit card.
Copyright: Poke-in-the-Eye Publishing 2006