Antonioni’s London in Blow-up is exciting, artistic, inclusive, open-minded and a bit queer. It’s full of different kinds of people but with an accent on youth, photography, music, art and fashion. It values old things. Grey cement blocks and old red-brick buildings are the backdrop to new and exciting ways of being with new, more open-minded attitudes to sex that are still anchored in ages-old sexism and in which the pull of a certain kind of realism is over-ridden by a clash of modernist impulses, conveyed graphically. It’s a place of unsolved murders where mimes cavort, justice is sought, but alienation dominates, albeit in green spaces. Why do I think this? See below:
Cement blocks as backdrops to new ways of being
Nuns and Beefeaters (It’s an Italian’s London)
Rolls Royce convertibles against old bricVeroushkaphotography, fashion, the thrust of the camera; new sex, old macho posturings
graphic designs; modernist studios rendered from old placesfashionARTQueersAntiquesGreen parks and smart tayloringAn old realism for old people suffering from old hardshipsPeople from all over the worldAnti-nuke protests for peaceVanessa RedgraveMurder revealed; murder unsolved.Jane Birkin, nude, in a frolicksome threesomeSarah Miles, having sex with one but looking at anothergigsBusy streets with cool shopsFlower power partiesDrugsOld buildings with great views of the ThamesMimes playing tennis in green parksAlienation in green and pleasant fields.
