Antonioni's Blow Up: Conceptions of Reality

A movie is not a movie without the editing process. Editing is integral to creating not only the sequence of events and how they unfold in a movie, but is also essential to the thematic content of a film. The right editing can emphasize themes already established by other aspects of the movie (e.g. plot, dialogue, mise-en-scene). I think a great example of this type of editing can be seen in Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up."

Although the editing is outstandingly done throughout the movie, I'd like to concentrate on a specific scene to demonstrate the kind of effect it can produce. The scene being analyzed is the final scene of the film. For the most part, the editing in this scene follows the conventions of continuity editing; that is to say that there are no significant jump cuts or any disjointed cuts. The cutting is done seamlessly; all transitions are smooth. The shots of the mime filled car, although cut and edited together from different angles, keep the essential visual and the auditory elements consistent to establish continuity. This fact in itself is important. Since what the audience is viewing moves so uninterruptedly, it simulates the notion that what is being seen is natural, but more importantly real.

Reality, specifically the perception of reality, is something that is brought into question shortly after in this scene, partly through the editing. The way the mime's tennis game is edited, with shots of the two mimes edited alongside reaction shots from the mime crowd and Thomas (the protagonist), create the sense that an actual tennis game is going on. The crowd of mimes follows the imaginary tennis ball, the camera cuts from face to face to show that they are intently following the game as if it were something really occurring. When one of the players "hits" the ball toward the fence, one of the mimes in the crowd reacts sharply as if in direct correlation with the "stray ball." In fact, the combination of the mimes' participation in this imaginary game and the seamless editing, brings into question one's notion of reality. To further muddle our perceptions on what is real, Thomas takes part in the mimes' game.

At first Thomas is just a bystander, smiling at the mimes and acknowledging one of the players as she recovers the ball. But when the ball crosses the gated realm of the tennis court and out into the fresh meadow of reality, he unhesitatingly decides to take part in the reality that the mimes have created by retrieving the ball for them. Another interesting editing point is how Thomas' eye line match is cut side by side with the imaginary ball that has gone over the fenced court as if he were watching an actual ball roll along the grass.

The overwhelmingly intriguing part of this scene (which justifies ever bringing up the point of reality) is located at the very end of the scene, after Thomas has thrown the ball back to the mimes. The camera does not shift back to the mimes, but stays focused on Thomas as he continues to watch the game. Then we hear tennis rackets; the audio track hear implies that the tennis game has recommenced. But there were no tennis rackets being used; this brings everything we have seen to this point into question. The fact that the camera does not cut away from Thomas and the we are hearing sounds not connected to anything in the scene implies that we are inside his head- we are hearing what he is hearing. Throughout the movie Thomas is trying to solve a mysterious crime, but now we are forced to ask if this crime was ever what Thomas perceived it to be or if it is as imaginary as the game of tennis? Has Thomas' perception of reality (i.e. the events that have unfolded before us as we follow him throughout the movie) been erred all along? At the end of the scene Thomas just disappears, a cut that strongly contrasts the continuity editing that has preceded this moment. Thomas' disappearance brings us back to the theme of reality. It makes us realize that we are not witnessing reality but a framed perception- a movie. We realize that everything we have seen leading up to this moment could have been just as dissoluble as the character of Thomas as he fades away.