Blow-up from Cortazar to Antonioni In a short introduction to the script of B/ow-up, Antonioni very dryly declares: “The idea of Blow-up came to me while reading a short story by Julie Cortézar | was not so much interested by the plot as by the mechanism of the photographs. | discarded the story and | wrote a new one, in which the mechanism was taking on a different meaning and a diverse importance.) In fact. willingly or not, there is in his film much more of Cortézar than the mere use of photography and the process of enlargement. Antonioni is as much a literary film director as Cortazar is a “filmic” writer, therefore a synthesis of these two domains is not at all surprising The literary roots of Antonioni have been already underlined by some Italian critics. Guido Aristarco?_has shown Flaubert's, Proust's, and Joyce's influence ‘on him, while Alberto Moravia 3 has sustained the thesis that Antonioni is the first of the great poets and novelists of the camera. Before adapting Cortazar to the screen, Antonioni had already filmed Le Amiche (1955) based on a story by Cesare Pavese, and Italo Calvino4 applauded his success. Antonioni himself recognizes his close relationship with contemporary writers whose experiences he follows with curiosity, interest and attention. In an interview with Godard® he admits, “I don’t feel too distant from the research of the New Novel.” Cortazar, whom the general public discovered only aftet Antonioni’s Blow- up, was, however, already a very important writer. Although he had abandoned Argentina after his first book to five in Paris, he remained faithful to his country and continued to publish the first edition of each new book in Buenos Aires. A "LU idea di Blow-up mi 8 venuta leqgendo un breve racconto di Julio Cortézar. Non mi Interessava tanto la vicenda, quanto 1| meccanismo delle fotografie. La scartai e ne scrissi_ una nuova, nella quale il meccanismo assumeva un peso e un significato diversi” in Michelangelo Antonioni, B/ow-up (Torino: Einaudi. 1968) 2Guido Anstarco, “Cinema letterario,” Cinema Nuovo, Jan.-Feb. 1961 “/alberto Moravia, “Un nuovo senso della realta,” Espresso (Rome: Feb. 26. 1961) 4italo Calvino. “Letter aperta a Antonioni su Le Amiche e Pavese” in Notiziario Einaudi (Torino. Nov-Dec. 1955) partially reproduced in Pierre Lephrohon, Michelangelo Antonioni (Paris: Seghers, 1961). SJean-Luc Godard interviewing Antonioni. p. 10 of Interviews with Film Directors, ed. Andrew Sarris (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967). 68generally ignored fact, of which no mention can be found in any of the international dictionaries or encyclopedias of cinema available in the average library, is that at least three films had previously been based on some of Cort8zar's stories. In 1961 Manuel Antin, also from Buenos Aires, directed La Cifra Impar, based on the short story “Cartas de Mama,” 6 which is a beautiful film totally adhering to Cortézar's style. following it in 1963 with Circe? and by Continuidad de los Parques® in 1964. Although Antin has respected Cortazar’s originals more than has Antonioni, the latter has more effectively captured Cortazar's metaphysical approach to literature. Long before B/ow-up, Guido Fink® had perceived the “whodunit” character of Antonioni’s films. L’Avventura was an upside down mystery, and so were Le Amiche, Cronaca di un Amore, Tentato Suicidio, La Signora Senza Camelie. From his side, Cortézar was developing the same taste for metaphysical quest through the apparent and ambiguous atmosphere of the “thriller.” It is certainly not a coincidence that Cortazar has translated Edgar Allan Poe and G. K. Chesterton into Spanish. All Cortazar’s work is marked by these influences: extra-sensory perception and metaphysical humor. One can not underestimate, however, the propitious ground that the previous generation of such Argentinian writers as Macedonio Fernandez, Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy-Casares had prepared for such experiences. Borges for example. is a constantly present shadow in Cortazar’s short stories. In “La Casa de Asterién” (from E/ Aleph, 1947) Borges revisited the legend of the Minotaur and based the narration not on Theseus, the mythological hero, but on the monster itself which, innocent and impotent, hopes to be saved from monotony and anguish by Theseus’ arrival: Theseus thus becomes a redeemer and not an executioner and an avenger as history and mythology present him. Cortazar reverses the traditional situation even more than Borges, and in his first book, Los Reyes (1949), goes much farther than his predecessor. He inverts the relationships: Ariadne and Minotaur, both children of Pasiphaé, are in love and the latter's seclusion in the labyrinth is a punishing measure to avoid incest. Theseus, the official avenger, is not loved by Ariadne, who gives him the famous thread to reach the Minotaur in the hope that he — the Minotaur — will kill Theseus and use the thread to find the way out from the labyrinth and live happily with her. Having quickly situated both Antonioni and Cort&zar in their respective backgrounds, it is now time to compare the latter's short story and the former's script and film. Initially. the only apparent resemblance between the two works seems to be the presence of a photographer. In fact, while Cortézar’s photographer is a Franco-Chilean translator who occasionally photographs on free days. Antonioni’s is a professional one; moreover, the former wanders around in © Cartas de Mama’ pp. 7-36 of Julio Cortazar, Las Armas Secretas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1966) not inserted in B/ow-up and other stories. ” Julio Cortzar. “Circe.” pp. 91-116 of his Bestiario (Buenos Aires: Ed. Sudamericana. 1966) “Julio CortSzar, “Continuity of Parks” in his Blow-up and other stories (New York Collier Books, 1971), “Guido Fink. “Antonioni e il giallo alla rovescia,” Cinema Nuovo. March-April 1963, n 162, reproduced in Michelangelo Antonioni; L’homme et l'objet, special issue of Etudes Cinématographiques. Paris. 1964, nn, 36-37. 69The deception of sentiments: the photographer at work in the park. 70Paris on a Sunday morning in November, while the latter visits a London park on a spring day. Besides that, the “victim” in the film is a mature man, while in the short story he is a male adolescent who is tempted by a mature woman The only real congruence, then, would seem to be the “blowing-up process” which both photographers do in their homes, and which provokes the discovery. Would they then be right, those-Argentinians whom | have heard say that Antonioni was very generous in paying royalties to Cortézar for so weak a similarity? Indeed, Cort&zar faces linguistic. narrative, and philosophical problems in his story. He finds himself with the impossibility of choosing the narrative point of view and therefore tells his story by alternating both the first and third persons. There seems not to be any beginning or any end to his story: the author-narrator is constantly distracted, either by flocks of pigeons or ‘sparrows, or by the impossible objectivity of concrete objects supposedly representative of objective reality (the typewriter and the camera). or by metaphysical concerns (essential and useless problematics), by linguistic puns (how to conclude a hypothetic sentence starting with /f and finishing without complements), by ontological worries (is he dead or alive?), by literary patterns (the narrative itching which overcomes all other considerations), and by existential problems (how to fight against Nothingness). Antonioni, from his side, endeavors to denounce the state of alienation in which lie his characters. Each of them lives a false life, none of them is willing to accept his social or psychological status and all appear what they are not. The tattered beggar is in fact a sophisticated photographer, so dressed in order to penetrate a public dormitory in quest of “realistic’’ shots. A jazz record and some evocative whispered phrases transform an exhausted and wrinkled model into a future sex symbol, thanks to the tricks of the camera and advertisement. The protagonists seem to participate in sexual intercourse but, even though the camera assumes the role of a phallic weapon, the possession is imaginary. The simulation of pleasure is so convincing that both mates appear to succumb to the postludian weakness. The other models are not more than beautiful objects, so artificial that they become unable to smile. They symbolize perfectly the inauthenticity which is the main feature of all central or minor characters in the film. One is happy with his own state; everyone is alienated from reality or disposed to alienate himself from it. All attempts at communication are frustrated, no communion is ever possible. The couple in the park could, at first sight. contradict this pattern. The photographer is captivated by the happiness of the lovers. The girl tries to attract her companion towards a more comfortable and isolated spot. inducing the spectator to believe that she is looking for more intimacy. She is joyous and cunning; the man hesitates, which is normal, for he is more mature and fears to loose his dignity if caught in such a public. open place. The scene is idyllic and the photographer would like to use it to close Ron's book because of its silence and peace. We learn afterwards how treacherous these appearances were. The characters all want to escape, but they are prisoners of a given reality, or an image of it, or of the illusion that life may be better somewhere else. The owner of the antique store wants to renounce her business because she is tired of antiques. When the photographer tries to explain to her that the Nepal she 71Falsitication of class status: Dressed as.a beggar, the photographer, David Hemmings, leaves the public dormitory. 72dreams of is full of antiquities, she seems surprised but doesn’t understand and decides that maybe she can go to Morocco instead, The photographer could add that Morocco is also an old country full of art vestiges. but it would be a vain effort, for he understands that what she wants is to escape from herself When confronted with the same problem, he is not more lucid himself. expressing the desire to be rich in order to be free, And Ron responds. “Free to do what? Free like him? !0 showing the photographer the photo of an obviously dipsomaniac bum from the dummy copy of the book that they are collaborating upon Ron. a realistic writer whose function is to write realistic captions and sub- titles to realistic photos, evades reality for the artificial paradise of marijuana So does the model whom the photographer surprises at a drug party weren't you supposed to be in Paris?” he asks — “I am in Paris.” she replies. The only character in the film not schizophrenic is the old man in the antique shop. This is why he doesn't want to sell any object and is so evidently antagonistic to the photographer. He is the only one to live in an older world, still a stable one, and his feelings are linked to those of old landscapes. old postcards and old furniture. He doesn’t want to give up that essential scenery, those objects belonging to his familiar world, Aside from him, all characters are divorced from their reality — a very modern reality which they live even if they don’t understand it or are not ready to accept it totally This reality is crowded with objects, functional or superfluous objects: the camera. the radiotelephone, the propeller, the broken guitar, and many other modern gadgets. Antonioni attaches a great importance to this. He has declared to Godard, “What interests me now is to place the character in contact with things, for it is things, objects and materials that have weight today.” '! These objects are given a mythic sense or a fetishistic one. During the “pop” concert, for example, a multitude fights to keep the broken guitar pieces. Once outside the concert hall, on the sidewalk, these have no more attraction for anyone. Another coveted object is the photographer's roll of film. To obtain it, the girl uses threats, violence, seduction, theft; when she finally gets it. she abandons it nonchalantly on’her discarded blouse, being suddenly attracted by the photographer and ready to be possessed by him, which finally doesn't happen Another useless object is the propeller which the photographer buys whimsically and wishes to have delivered even on a Saturday afternoon, Is he going to use it as a vertical sculpture or as a hanging mobile? This leads perhaps to a theory on the randomness of modern art. Bill, the painter, paints abstract canvases and only years later finds meaning in them, Suddenly a recognizable form is perceived, and Bill explains, “It is like finding the key to a mystery story.” 12 It is probably this parallelism which allows the photographer to discover a hidden reality in a picture that Patricia sees as” . . almost a painting done by Bill" 13 Plastic truths lead to psychological truths. Jean-Luc Godard asks '°Libero di far che? Libero come lui?” p. 35 of Michelangelo Antonioni, op cit. "Godard interviewing Antonioni. p. 9 of Andrew Sarris, op. cit. }? Michelangelo Antonioni. op. cit. 'S1bid, 9.61 73Antonioni, “The drama is thus no longer psychological but plastic?” and Antonioni answers, “It's the same thing.” '* The linking between Antonioni and Cort&zar is thus revealed by psychological and narrative identifications. The short story is all parentheses, distractions, invasions of imaginary presences. So is the film. Cortézar declared on one occasion, jokingly, that he was not writing metaphysical stories, for his narrative was only a therapeutic investigation against neurosis. His stories never have a linear structure, but are strayings of the imagination, describing all the occult and opaque presences which lie under the stratum of apparent reality, Another technique of Cort&zar is the immediate negation of a peremptory affirmation, the systematic doubt: | who see only the clouds and can think without being distracted, write without being distracted (there goes another, with a grey edge) and remember without being distracted, | who am dead (and I'm alive, I'm not trying to fool anybody, you'll see when we get to the moment. because | have to begin some way and I've begun with this period, the last one back, the one at the beginning, which in the end is the best of the periods when you want to tell something). 15 This passage makes a pendant to a very successful scene in the film. In it, an enigmatic call is received by the photographer while he is entertaining the girl (Vanessa Redgrave) who came to claim his roll of film. At first. Thomas makes the girl believe that the call is for her. then, instead, he tells the unknown interlocutor that the girl wants to talk to him (her?). Afterwards, he declares that it was his own wife who called, but confesses later that she is not his wife but that they have common children. Later he rescinds even this story, claiming that they have no children, but only a good relationship. Finally he admits that nothing he said was true and that, as a matter of fact, he and the woman in question no longer live together. Thus Antonioni reconstitutes in his way, in this scene, the ambiguous and contradictory atmosphere of the soliloquium of the author-narrator-character in the short story. Antonioni has felt that for the photographer, his work is not a mere profession, but one of the best ways to fight against Nothingness. Antonioni understands that Thomas, the photographer, operates always in a kind of mutation of his own way of seeing the world for another which the camera insidiously imposes on him. Antonioni attempts to systemize Cortazar's parallel monologue by replacing it by an impossible dialogue (in the film, dialogues are all interrupted or are in fact monologues which intersect and give the impression of dialogues). Cort&zar monologizes in the first person, makes his character monologize, and adds other monologues between parentheses. Thomas, the photographer of the film, monologizes with his models (real manikins), with his camera, with the antique seller, with his writer friend, and with the painter's wife. The photographer of the book is convinced of having accomplished a good act (preventing the abduction of an adolescent by a mature lady, she being the bait for an old gentleman, hidden and waiting in a car. for who-knows-what purposes), while the photographer of the film is dissolved and vanishes in the reality of the last powerful scene. Thomas follows the tennis ball in the imaginary game of the student-mimes, and is compelled to pick it up and throw it back into the tennis court. The game continues, but now he hears "4 andrew Sarris. op. cit. p. 20. 18 Julio Cort8zar. Blow-up and other stories, pp. 100-101 74distinctly the tossing of the invisible ball launched by imaginary rackets. '® Life is more real and more powerful than the objectivity he pretended to capture with his camera; for any photograph may be merely an illusion of reality that is itself no longer real to man. a reality which can no longer be relied upon — the reality of personalities and commitment and communication with which men have lost contact and which has now become as much a void as the minds and hearts of the people in it. 17 The short story adopts the proceeding of the counter-language. The dissolution of meaning is not produced by the verbal explosion (as Dadaists would do}, nor by the uncommonness of the image (as Surrealists would do), nor by phonemic. morphologic or syntactic disintegration. No spirit of avant- garde, no interpolations, but simply an asystematic capturing of all the factors which surround the human landscape: noises, odors, thoughts. objects, lights, colors, interior flux, memory and visions. It can be envisioned as a refusal of stagnation, of the “raison-raisonnante” (a la Breton) at the service of a sovereign and cosmic humor, allied to an audacious and serene metaphysical and ontological investigation on the nature of being and on destiny, Thus not only has Antonioni given the essence of Cortézar's short story in his beautiful and perfect film, but he has also inherited through Cortézar some of the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges. The ending of the film is very similar to the short parable of that Borges’ character who, in the presence of God, tells Him. “I, who have been so many men in vain, want to be one man, myself alone. From out of a whirlwind the voice of God replied: “I am not, either. | dreamed the world the way you dreamed your work, my Shakespeare: one of the forms of my dream was you, who, like me, are many and no one!’ This way Borges, Cortézar, and Antonioni become united in their quest for meaning in the meanders of Time. Pietro Ferrua Lewis and Clark College '8This invisible game has inspired at feast one of composer Tom Johnson's pieces called “Imaginary Music for Plucked Strings,” (see his /maginary Music, New York: Two-Eighteen Press. n.d.) as performed by the Colorado College New Music Ensemble at Lewis and Clark College School of Music, on February 27. 1975. "7 Thomas Hernacki, “Michelangelo Antonioni and the Imagery of Disintegration.” Film Heritage. 5 (Spring 1970), n. 3. ‘8 From “Everything and Nothing.” pp. 116-117 of Jorge Luis Borges’ A Personal Anthology (New York: Grove Press, 1967). Translated by Anthony Kerrigan Preparation for the imaginary tennis game: A victory of imagination over reality. 75