That’s it! That’s the scream!
Blow Out is a perfect film but more so than that it is the perfect thriller. A slowly building set-up that perfectly encapsulates a sleazy atmosphere of insomnia and paranoia, a second act that textures the characters to a level of pure human connection and an explosive finale that blows everything else out of the water. A perfectly told, perfectly structured and perfectly crafted thriller.
Travolta's performance is one of the greatest male performances of his generation, he brings to life a brilliantly characterised and fascinating character as if it were truly him. He becomes his character. Jack is one of the most morally challenging and textured characters to ever come out of American cinema. Nancy Allen is hypnotic, she’s so effortlessly empathetic and yet she’s got a slight edge to her that truly ties the character around, she’s filled to the brim with regret and guilt and each of those emotions are conveyed perfectly.
Brian DePalma time after time proves himself to be a superior rebirth of Hitchcock. The reason I prefer his films to Hitchcocks is because DePalma wasn't pulled back by his time. Hitchcock was too ambitious in his presentation of violence for the day and age in which he made most his films, he couldn't show what he wanted to show, so stepping into the 70s and 80s where New Hollywood caused American cinema to become more unhinged- DePalma was able to craft the perfect Hitchcockian thrillers because he could show what he wanted to show.
Blow Out is truly an audiovisual experience. Films tend to sometimes lean towards one side over the other, but Blow Out is a perfect mix of genius sound design and jaw dropping pastel cinematography. Seriously quite possibly the best sound work done for any film I’ve ever seen, it’s hypnotic really. As for the visuals, the criterion restoration really made them stand out a lot more, some great dulled down colours flying around and the use of split screen is nothing short of truly entrancing.
Politics, morality, culture shock, masculinity and the ever changing world moving from the 70s into the 80s- Blow Out mixes in so many ideas, all of which nail the landing. One of the seminal cult films of the 80s and a cynically brutish masterpiece.
★★★★★
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