“Sorry, no landscapes”. La volatilisation du paysage dans les atmosphères de Blow up (1966) de Michelangelo Antonioni

Abstract

With Blow up, Antonioni continues his search for an atmospheric cinema: variations in light and sound, effects of instability – of the characters, of the camera - and of decentring create singular atmospheres, by turns claustrophobic, volatile or ethereal. The gaze finds only temporary and illusory respite, before realising that it was itself the object of manipulation. This destabilisation through the atmospheres breaks with conventional representations of the landscape. How can we describe the expressive role played by the aesthetics of atmosphere in Blow Up? What continuities from and breaks with Antonioni’s previous films can be discerned? This article examines the staging of London atmospheres as a deliberate rejection of landscape. This is replaced by a succession of distended, fragmented or cracked spaces, evoking the “moral” disorientation of the characters. Antonioni pursues a quest that is as expressive as it is subtle, concerning the means of constructing a visual critique, through the medium of cinema, of some of the tensions inherent in the “society of the spectacle” of the 1960s - and which remain in part our own.

Keywords

• atmosphere
• ambiance
• art
• landscape
• photography
• Antonioni