04/02/2017

I can't recall when I first saw Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, but it was certainly on television in New Orleans sometime in the early or mid-1970s. Back in those pre-cable days the few broadcast stations that there were (NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, and a couple of UHF channels) either went off the air after a certain hour or they showed movies with minimal commercial interruption, particularly on the weekends. I was utterly transfixed by European art cinema as a kid, thanks to my parents (who took me regularly to see films by Fellini, Buñuel and others) and the remarkably adventurous late-night presentations on local television. Considering what a ruckus Blow-Up created in the cinemas back in 1966, the version of the film that I saw on television must have been edited quite extensively, but despite the censors' snipping it still made a huge impression.