People often make swift judgments about surface appearances. Often they later find that their first impressions are incorrect. Such is the case when comparing Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up to Julio Cortazar's short story of the same name, on which the film is loosely based. While the two appear very different at first glance, many of the ideas and themes in Antonioni's picture are the same as those in Cortazar's tale. One such similarity is the way that both Antonioni and Cortazar play with perspective in their narratives in an attempt to trick and mislead the partaker.
Cortazar and Antonioni use the opening of their works to skew a person's observations. Cortazar uses the beginning of his short story to create a sense of confusion and disorder that sets the mood for what is to come. Instead of just starting the account of Roberto Michel from the beginning, Cortazar first wonders aloud how to relate what is going to unfold; according to him, "it will never be known how this [story] has to be told" (Cortazar 114). His puzzling switch between tenses, and his rambling from subject to subject, such as how he wishes that "one might go to drink and [have] the typewriter continue by itself," all combine to give the reader a sense of disorientation (Cortazar 114). Antonioni achieves a similar feeling in the beginning of his movie. It starts with a shot of a group of loud mimes riding through the streets in a dilapidated truck, then it cuts to an almost silent image of old men walking away from a grungy building, and then it goes back to the mimes, who are now out running through the streets harassing people. The camera cuts back and forth between these two images until it finally comes to focus on a disheveled-looking young man in the crowd of older men, whom we later know as Thomas, the main character of the film. The two different scenes finally collide when the mimes surround a nice-looking car driving down the street, and the viewer realizes the man driving the car is the same one that the camera picked out of the crowd before.
The Question of Reincarnation and "A Yellow Flower" There are always going to be people who question what happens to a person upon their death. In his story "A Yellow Flower" Julio Cortazar approaches this subject from a unique point of view. In this story, a man finds himself reinc...
Like Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni began his career as a neorealist. ... "Antonioni's first features broke away from the neorealist conventions to examine the middle-class milieu with which he was most familiar. ... This was heavily used in his Jury Prize winning L' Avventura, where Antonioni created a film that contained seemingly aimless narrative and lacked final resolution. ... To continue this elicited emotion, Antonioni made two more films in which he combined with L'Avventura to form a trilogy. ... L'Eclisee (The Eclipse, 1962) ended the trilogy and presented Anto...
In fact, in the film "Blow Up", Michelangelo Antonioni reveals how women were mistreated in the 1960's culture, I argue that this representation remains inappropriate and sexist. ... In the 1966 film "Blow Up" directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni, a wealthy photographer who snapshots models and high fashion in London during the mid-sixties, shows the portrayal of women with the use of explicit sexual content. ... As this film was introduced in 1966, it became a visual for the Swing Sixties and was also the way Antonioni saw the social and artistic surroundings in London...
Since the mid-1960's, there has been a tremendous increase in the popularity and quality of Latin And South American novelists; in fact, some call this literary movement "El Boom." Mexico has produced, for example, Carlos Fuentes, who wrote The Death of Artemio Cruz. The 1967 Nobel Prize for Literat...
The following paper is on the chapter of light reflection and refraction. The law of refraction states that when a light ray strikes a reflecting surface, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. The angle of incidence and the angle of reflection are measured from a normal...
McCulloch vs. Maryland [1819] is a landmark Supreme Court case because of its impact on the future court cases, passing of laws, and social conscience. The case is one of the most influential cases in Supreme Court history. Chief Justice John Marshall established the doctrine of National Supremacy. ...
The origin of Obergefell vs Hodges consists of six law suits spanning four states. ... Henry vs Wymyslo is the third lawsuit involved in Obergefell vs Hodges (Oyez). ... Bourke vs Beshear is the fourth lawsuit involved in Obergefell vs Hodges. Bourke vs Beshear is strikingly similar to Henry vs Wymyslo. ... Tanco vs Haslam was the final lawsuit included in Obergefell vs Hodges (Oyez). ...
In assessing Brown vs. the Board of Education, there is often mention of its "failed promise". ... Brown vs. the Board of Education has not been able to fully abolish the behavioral practices of Americans. ... In the 1974 decision of Milliken vs. ... While the 1954 decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education was an achievement that brought promise, nearly 50 years later, the equality that it hoped for is still being sought....
