An article found on http://geekmehard.blogspot.com/ for readability.
Blow Up, Michelangelo Antonioni (1966) / Peeping Tom (The Voyeur), Michael Powell (1960)
first film shot in English by the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow Up is, 50 years later, still preceded by a reputation flattering and has been studied in film school for its intrinsic qualities. The framework, it is far more charming: In the London of the 60s, a fashion photographer thinks he witnessed a murder immortalized on film. Difficult to say any more even if the film looks at project graduation of a student trying to eyeful at anyone who will watch his movie. Viewed in the first degree, the film becomes surprisingly obscure, so that all the keys are laid for a far more ... nervous. After a perfect first hour in which we follow the routine of a photographer himself imbued with the elements Criminals are connected (very slowly), suggesting they might from one moment to another slide to the background investigation, where a witness disturbing plunges headlong into a conspiracy brilliant. Even the codes seem to lend itself to, including this very mysterious woman in distress who finds our hero without ever leaking her identity and the pressure at which it is subject. Loser viewers where they least expect it, the last part of the film is more painful, despite some attempts to theorize the image ratio and our own role as actor / spectator (especially in its last sequence, quite pretty). The hero pays a good time with groupies (including Jane Birkin) in a sequence unbearable, then lost in a concert, before finishing haggard, on the lawn of a park: to question the images too, it will have lost the opportunity to make the ultimate cliché (a quest morbid standing in the way) and its status as voyeur, shared with the audience. Difficult to forget
Blow Out (1981) when we have seen, barely disguised remake directed by Brian De Palma: immersed in the investigation of a sound engineer, there is a real film that twisted plus some special director's obsessions. The outcome of the story, much more murky and Dante, we would almost blame Antonioni to miss about him, especially since 6 years earlier and also in the teeming London of the 60s, Michael Powell realized Peeping Tom , jewel untouchable.
Seeing the two films in quick succession, the difference in visual processing is obvious: while Antonioni seemed to favor the natural scenery as a very European approach his subject, Powell turns the majority of his film studios, scarisant his film's garish. The result is great, between hovels and disturbing film studios (setting abyss obvious) is lost when another Hero, Mark, a young operator obsessed with the idea of capturing fleeting moments with his camera. Which issue in its report very Psycho gender, allows Powell to push the limits of common sense at the time. The film follows the strange Mark majority, timid and sickly combining various odd jobs featuring his talents on all around the image capture (photography, camera). Fully aware of the excesses in which he launches (graphic violence for the time and very Psychology sexual), Michael Powell is engrossed in the autopsy of his troubling character and passes a perfect portrait of beautiful deviant, the victim of his time.
The viewer does become an active witness of the actions of the character, which triggers both an empathy for it and a shared sense of voyeurism, as Mark in advance its fantastic project. Sharing with the Psycho Hitchcock ambivalence and a family trauma obvious (+ the fact that the two men collaborated together before Hitchcock does parte United States), Peeping Tom not know unfortunately not the same film career: vilified by critics, killed through censorship and withdrawal operation, the film will end the career of Michael Powell.
While in the state, Peeping Tom still quite beautiful, we can be saddened by the fact that before such a result, the censorship committees are given them to their heart to remove the film a few pieces, the cuts made (dialogues, scenes explicit) are now considered lost forever. Smarter, MGM, producing Blow Up , had created a false independent commission of censorship committees at the time, to approve the film in its entirety.
Most obviously there is not, both films are full of references and trails to explore more!
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