Metrograph

Antonioni’s 1966 English-language debut sets its scene in a London that’s less swinging than sleepwalking, with David Hemmings a blasé-decadent photographer who finds himself sucked into a vortex of political intrigue when he discovers that a casual snap taken at Maryon Park seems to contain evidence of a murder—but the closer he gets to the mystery the more obscure it becomes, until both the testimony of the camera lens and the human eye are finally called into question. Hemmings’s character was inspired by the figure of David Bailey, and fashion icon Jane Birkin shows up for one raucous, infamous scene.

“As Ariella and I were writing Gazer, we were inspired by Antonioni’s use of the spiral structure. Blow-Up’s protagonist, a fashion photographer in 1960s London, becomes fixated on a series of photographs that he believes captured a murder. This obsession leads him to repeatedly revisit and reexamine the images, creating a spiral of investigation and interpretation. In Gazer, we employ the spiral structure as a means to invite the audience into Frankie’s psyche. Frankie, like Thomas in Blow-Up, finds herself drawn back to a specific event repeatedly, each return revealing a new layer. My favorite scene in Blow-Up is the ending, in which Thomas joins a troupe of mimes in an imaginary tennis match. The camera slowly zooms out, leaving him isolated in a field—an image that will remain imprinted on my mind forever. Has he lost his grip on reality or is he more awake than ever before?” —Ryan J. Sloan

Introduction by Ryan Sloan and Ariella Mastroianni on Friday, February 7th