The deal with Blowup

In extension to my previous entries about Antonioni's "Blowup," here is the project (in the works) that stemmed from it...

When Dave Hemming's character, the nameless photographer, develops his negatives of the part, the first fishy thing he notices about the print is Vanessa Redgrave's eyeline. Despite her intimate ...what seems like an affair...with the elderly gentleman, her attention gazes off screen (off-photo), onto the fence near by. This gaze arouses the photographer's curiosity. So he blows up the portion of the photo with the fence in it, and sees something. He still can't make out the details, so he blows it up some more. Finally, he finds the gun. Likewise, he does it with the blurry mass behind the trees, which turns out to be a dead body.

This is a classic example of how film, 2D in form, communicates 3D space. By placing these still frames of photographs together, the photographer recreates a reality. Similarly, by using photography as a medium as the metaphor for the construction of real space in cinema, Antonioni immerses the audience into a reality generated by the compositional relationship of the film's montage. There is a keeness to "perspectives" at play throughout the film, especially in this scene. We are made to look closer to find more details, to piece together what is there with what isn't. Decontextualized from the rest of the shots, the close-up of the body looks abstract, but woven into the sequence, the space contains a compelling narrative.

With all this said, here is the project that should articulate my points about film space, in specific reference to this film:

I have converted all the frames of this park scene into stills. Through directions of gaze, character interactions, the peculiar contour of the park, its geographical features, and the photographer's depiction of the space through the arrangement of his photographs, I plan to recreate the park sculpturally, by printing these stills onto paper and weaving them together. I will only work with the visual information provided by this scene. Whatever is missing or implied will remain so.