Often addressed as a foley artist's version of Michelangelo Antonioni's BLOW-UP (1966), De Palma's BLOW OUT is unqualifiedly lecherous in his straight-male's exploitation of female bodies, but technically, it is a stunner, and among one of his most accomplished works (standing shoulder to shoulder with CARRIE, 1976), for example, those strikingly juxtaposed split-screen shots are uncannily indelible, or the intricate 360-degree rotating long take in the midstream that goes nearly hallucinogenic to knock you dead.
The plot inherits the '70s paranoia of political conspiracy theory and mixes it with a misogynist strangler on the prowl to snuff disreputable girls (the double-standards in relation to johns and hookers are grossly offensive) with a piano wire. Jack Terry (Travolta) is a Philadelphia sound technician working on low-rent slashers (the perversely voyeuristic set-up is a garish, trashy homage to PSYCHO, 1960), after saving an escort girl Sally (Allen, the then Ms. De Palma) in an automobile accident , he finds out something amiss about it through the sound recorded on the spot, seeking out Sally, whom he is quite taken to, he resolves to get to the bottom of it, which also puts Sally's life on the line, can he save his girl in the eleventh hour? This time, De Palma bents on breaking some hearts.
If anything, in the climax during the Liberty parade, De Palma perversely dials up pathos to the eleven, Jack's inconsolable grief is accentuated under a pyrotechnic sky and muffled by Pino Donaggio's waxing melodramatic score, you never expect De Palma could be so romantic, and the effect might go overboard into mawkishness, but Travolta and Allen steadfastly build their romance on a pleasurable wavelength, Jack and Sally are mutually attracted to each other without being weighed down by their precarious milieu, so when the pathos arrives, it hits home, not to mention “the perfect screaming” coda, De Palma's devious device surely packs a punch albeit his sneakily sadistic streak.
Travolta is a disarming leading man with his double-jaw squareness all over the place, you like him for his righteousness and cool facade; Allen ebulliently endows a working-girl-with-a-gold-heart type with such warmth and naïveté, you cannot help but hope she could make it out alive, until you are pulverized by such a cruel joke. Lithgow, after OBSESSION (1976), again takes a villainous turn in a De Palma movie, and his cold gaze alone can bring the chill down to the bone, then there is a terrific Dennis Franz, who plays a repugnant saddo with slimy assurance.
Boasting a bold range of coloration and compositional grandeur, BLOW OUT might just be the ultimate confluence of De Palma's louche proclivity and high-wire craft, a mesmeric doozy of first water.
referential entries: De Palma's BODY DOUBLE (1984, 6.2/10), CARRIE (1976, 8.1/10); Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974, 7.5/10); Peter Strickland's BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012, 5.9/10) ).
Title: Blow Out
Year: 1981
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Language: English
Director/Screenwriter: Brian De Palma
Music: Pino Donaggio
Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond
Editing: Paul Hirsch
Cast:
John Travolta
Nancy Allen
John Lithgow
Dennis Franz
Peter Boyden
Curt May
John Aquino
John McMartin
Rating: 7.6/10
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