Books2Movies Club discussion

Blow-Up (original title: Las babas del diablo is a story by Julio Cortázar that became better known after the movie Blowup (1966). I personally learned about it only after watching excellent Brian de Palma's movie Blow Out (1981). It was directly inspired by Antonioni's film, just changing the protagonist's medium of living from photography to audio recording. Some might say that even The Conversation (1974) fits the criteria. Each movie (and the story in a way) revolves around protagonists who unwittingly become (or do they?) witnesses of some major events that threatened their lives above their proportions.

I am curious to hear what are you going to think about the story and about the movies!

I've just read the story. It was a weird one. I think it can be shelved under stream of consciousness category, a more abstract one, because the plot itself was so awfully odd. I have no idea what was so ominous in what he saw, as actually no one got hurt or else. I had hard time understanding how his interpretation of the photo was different from what actually happened. Maybe he was in the end horrified how could he have thought originally some seduction was happening, while it was something threatening?

I found curious that the original title of the story, Las babas del diablo (in English In the devil's drool), in Spanish is a a colloquial phrase for finding oneself in a dangerous situation. That it was indeed, both for the photographer (or / and the boy). But nothing else.. I assume that was the point of the story, to shape thoughts of one person distraught after realizing how close to the danger they were.

Last week I tried to watch Antonioni's film, but couldn't - stopped after five minutes. I am sorry, I really wasn't in the mood and disliked it at once.

The second, de Palma's, I could watch - it was a straight-forward 70s style thriller (even though they didn't quite solve much). Exciting movie, but so illogical. So many disastrous decisions by Jack and Sally's unbelievable lack of intelligence spoiled the thing. The scenes about sound and movie craft were the most interesting ones! I even got the feeling both the screenwriter and the director were misogynists at least at that time. The message may be about the exploitation of the women in the film industry, but it would've been better conveyed if the director himself didn't do the same thing with the explicit intro B-film, and even went further in portraying every single woman in the movie either as empty-headed ornaments or mean shrews.