Blow-Out!

Blow-Out was a completely different movie from the previous two that we’ve watched in class. This movie was made in the 1980s rather than the 1950s, so the production value was much closer to movies we are used to. Blow-Out is about a sound man, Jack Terry, happening upon an attempt to frame a congressman who is running for president. The framing goes wrong and the congressman is killed, and Jack Terry is the only one of the few witnesses that is willing to tell the truth despite a conspiracy to keep the murder from becoming public knowledge.

I was not very impressed by the actors (though they were not terrible actors) as much as I was by the cinematography of the movie. As Donna said the director, Brian De Palma, was very “ballsy” in this movie. He knew what shots he wanted, what emotion each shot would convey, and how to captivate the viewer very well. And that’s what he did. One of the shots I enjoyed from the movie was in the scene where Jack loses the video of the incident and realizes that someone has erased all his tapes. The camera turns completely around the room a couple of times with Jack in the shot looking in different shelves and all over the room looking for a tape that hasn’t been erased. That scene captures the exact feeling of frustration, agitation, and excitement you get when you lose something. I saw that scene and right away thought about times where I’ve lost things and the feeling and emotion was very similar to what was on screen. I also liked the shot right after. If I’m not mistaken (because it has been almost a week), it’s a birds-eye-view of the room as Jack Terry walks out and you see the tapes and stuff scattered across the room just to show how frantic Jack was. There were a few chase scenes but I’m pretty sure they were car scenes so I don’t think it will help in our movie. However, this movie is inspiring in that it encourages me to analyze my scenes and try different ways to invoke the emotions of the characters and tones in the scenes.

I enjoyed the visual aspects of the movie as well as the overall theme. I think this movie said a lot about American’s and our attitude and culture. It depicted American’s as a whole as being very oblivious to some of the things that occur in government and politics. And I can completely identify with that. It’s crazy to think, but there are things going on every day within our government, military, even schools that we don’t and might never know about. I thought the fact that there was that bell ceremony occurring during the conspiracy sort of emphasized that obliviousness and that feeling of false safety. Moreover, the fact that Jack ends up using the scream of Sally dying in his horror film exemplifies the cold-heartedness and lack of sympathy in American movie makers. I remember asking myself why was that scream so important and having that question linger throughout the movie, so I thought it was clever that De Palma (or most likely the writer) had the scream at the end. I thought that was a powerful way of stress one of the overall themes of the movie. The two themes of obliviousness and a self-centered mentality are related because it says that Americans are very self-oriented and are more concerned about self improvement. Thought this movie doesn’t place Americans in a good light, it does convey those themes very strongly. It’s a good movie in my book…