Blow Up (Cortazar) v. Blow Up (dir. by Antonioni)
TEXT
Most striking in my mind is the self-preoccupied narrative style of Cortazar’s protagonist (Michel) and the grandiose fictional scenarios into which he writes observed characters, and ultimately, himself. The text of the story has strikingly the effect of hypertext in that multiple scenarios and suppositions are introduced and imposed on the characters. Strings of pronouns are used in spots where the writer muses on which is best to employ in this spot or that, and how best to tell this story, if he is to tell it at all. He writes about himself in a sort of omniscient perspective, even as he writes in first person about his own observations. He interrupts himself with pointed parenthetical observations about clouds and birds passing by the window through which he currently looks. His writing constitutes a sort of meta-narration of a pseudo-narrative. He places himself in a setting that is somewhat static, in that he verbally paints a backdrop that does not initially “act” on the narrative… but which functions as a photographic print, not unlike those which become such an important part of his narration.
The actual “narrative,” stripped of the narrator’s ruminations, interjected observations and interruptions of himself, could be retold in about two, maybe three paragraphs. And further, its end is utterly undetermined, although the narrator leaps to an emotional conclusion, which he presumes, as writer, to be utterly and absolutely true, to the point of grief, and narrative psychosis.
What is evident is this: there is a man with a camera, watching a boy and a woman interact with each other; there is a man in a car watching the same couple; man with camera takes a picture and upsets everyone; boy runs away; man in car approaches and converses with woman; man with camera leaves and days later develops and enlarges picture to poster size; man with camera jumps to conclusion that boy is the target of an illicit, presumably sexual predator, that woman is a co-conspirator, and he has failed to save him; man with camera cries.
FILM
Antonioni’s film is fundamentally different in several ways: first, there is a clear narrative structure; the protagonist is far less verbose, but seems far more deliberate and decisive in word and deed; the setting is entirely different (a high-fashion photographer’s studio and flat, a park in London v. Cortazar’s Parisian setting); the protagonist actually DOES witness a crime, and confirms a dead body, which he ultimately does nothing about.
What is lost is the textuality of the written story – although Antonioni does make several attempts to distract his viewer (and his protagonist) with seemingly unconnected meta-narratives (girls in studio, propeller purchase, kitchen scene, voyeuristic sex scene).
In some ways the film itself is a hypertextual link to the text of Cortazar’s story. Both storytellers play with the perception of their readers, baiting and teasing with scenes, discourse and characters all of which are interjected randomly. The hypertext means nothing and everything simultaneously: clownish pantomimes, mannequin-esque models, women without names, and photographs representing a reality that is ultimately erased. Ultimately, all participants are led to take some part in a pantomime tennis match; we wait for Antonioni’s protagonist to pick up the ball and join the virtual game in which we are already engaged.
Antonioni’s protagonist seems perhaps more despicable and devious than Cortazar’s, yet the film and story protagonists are alike in this sense: they each assign meaning to signifiers (they determine a signified) which may be entirely unrelated to the signifier. The signified possesses a high degree of indeterminacy which the viewer/reader recognizes, but which the protagonist seems unable to process with appropriate perspective.
Scenes: Taking pictures in studio; taking pictures in park; girly scene; confrontation with woman; the blow ups; the body; the return to body; the end.