On Criterion Blu-ray with a beautiful high definition transfer and an appropriately crisp DTS-HD Master audio track, this was my first time seeing Brian De Palma’s Blow Out and I enjoyed it immensely. A Criterion audience will especially find this a perfect fit for their collection as it speaks to the interest of film enthusiasts, by which I mean people that enjoy going beyond the movie. The people that bask in Criterion’s wealth of special features and the filmmaking insights they bring. In this sense, Blow Out serves as its own special feature as it is just as much a movie about filmmaking as it is a thriller revolving around the political assassination at its core.
The film stars John Travolta as the sound designer and mixer for ’80s schlock horror films and when his director requests he record some “new wind” effects, a late night auditory hunt turns into the witnessing of a possible assassination. As owls hoot and toads croak around him, his equipment captures a gunshot a split second before the tire on the car of a presidential hopeful blows out sending him and his female passenger (Nancy Allen) into a river.
The film draws obvious comparisons to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and me saying so is nothing new. Neither are comparisons to the JFK assassination and Watergate. And, as you would assume, all of this is discussed and then some in the included special features.
The supplements begin with a trio of brand new interviews, the most intriguing being the hour-long interview with De Palma conducted by writer-director Noah Baumbach (Greenberg) as they discuss the film from all angles including De Palma’s inspiration for the script, which pretty much mirrors the opening of the film, his style of shooting, the filming locations and the influences I mentioned above. I found the 26 minute interview with Nancy Allen to be a little bland, but the 15 minute interview with Steadicam inventor, Garret Brown, is very interesting as he discusses the Steadicam as well as its use in the film’s fascinating prologue.
However, as I’ve already mentioned a couple of times, the inclusion of De Palma’s experimental 1967 feature Murder a la Mod was probably my favorite “feature”. Yeah, this is Criterion for you, when an 81-minute film is included as a special feature you know you’re talking about a special package. And while it isn’t a great film, the term “experimental” speaks volumes in this case as a 27-year-old De Palma uses every trick in the book to tell his story.
The rest of the package is rounded out by a batch of behind-the-scenes stills taken by the late Louis Goldman, the theatrical trailer and a 32-page booklet that contains an essay by critic Michael Sragow and Pauline Kael’s original “New Yorker” interview. However, even better is the inclusion of an article taken from a prop magazine for the film featuring all the images of the crash at the beginning of the film along with a faux article detailing the tragedy. This final piece is an example why I really hope movies don’t go to 100% digital delivery. Sure, the movie and all the features can be accessed digitally and you would never know the difference, but the way Criterion packages the films in their collection and the included material is always top notch and adds a lot to the experience.
Blow Out was a great film and it reminds me once again I need to explore De Palma’s backlog of films as my experience with his work pretty much begins with Scarface. Outside of Carrie and now Blow Out, his early work is a mystery to me and I already know I need to watch films such as Body Double and Dressed to Kill. Even looking at the films of his I’ve seen I realize I need to go back and rewatch a few of them, many of which I saw when I was younger and far less perceptive or even interested in the language of film.
