BLOW OUT (108’)
by Brian De Palma
cast: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow
USA, 1981
Restoration curated by The Criterion Collection
Introduced by Sara d’Ascenzo
“Blow Out is a work of absolute pessimism, that spares nothing and no one. In his own statements, Brian De Palma noted that this was the aspect of the film that was most important to him: “a political thriller”, he defined it, “an intellectual reflection upon Watergate”. From this perspective, the film may be likened to certain film from the 1970s, from Sidney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor to Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View, centred on the theme of the individual’s powerlessness in the face of a corrupt political system. […] In a similar society, dominated by a system of power that seeks to silence every form of dissent, a man like Jack – who in his profession “captures” voices and noises, keeps them, records them, classifies them – necessarily becomes an inconvenience that needs to be neutralised by blunting his weapons, that is by turning the scream of a woman who is really about to be assassinated into a purely fictional effect, to be used in any horror movie.” (Leonardo Gandini)
