In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around them, and their legacy. This week, we're tackling the tongue-in-cheek opening of Brian De Palma's 1981 masterpiece Blow Out.
It's sort of passé to deem Blow Out a masterpiece nearly a full decade after it joined the Criterion Collection, but thankfully the age of loving restoration has brought nearly all of De Palma'soeuvre to home video in the best way possible. This allows film nerds like myself the time to go through and watch his entire progression as a filmmaker, and in doing so, it's very easy to point at Blow Out and definitively see that it's the movie where everything comes together for De Palma.
If you've never seen it, think of it as sort of a mash-up of Coppola's The Conversation and Antonioni's Blow Up, the latter of which was photographed—interestingly enough—by a man named Carlo Di Palma, who lensed several films for both Antonioni and Woody Allen. Being the film nerd that I know he is, there's no way De Palma wasn't aware of this connection. However, it's also not really that, so go see it and then come back and read this, we'll be here waiting.
Travolta's participation is an interesting catch-22 for Blow Out. First of all, he's brilliant, it's hands down his best performance from that period and rivals Pulp Fiction for his best performance ever. On the other hand, he was still hot at the time and tripled the film's original budget,meaning thatits financial failure at the box office hung heavily on its reputation for years. Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino helped bring people to the film by heaping constant praise upon it, but Travolta is both a huge part of the reason the film works and also crucial to the film's underperformance at the box office. His star was beginning to fade, but from a creative standpoint, it's the most experimental performance of his career. He's clearly doing more than has ever been asked of him as a leading man.
In an interview with Noah Baumbach on the Criterion release of Blow Out, he and De Palma discuss Travolta's magnetism in the film and chalk it up to his training as a dancer. His character in Blow Out is aman in almost perpetual motion, and Travolta's dance training—like everyone from Gene Kelly to Patrick Swayze—makes him a dynamic presence on screen. These guys are aware of their bodies and know how to move with a camera, and with De Palma's camera also in near perpetual motion, it makes for an explosive combination of style and actor.I understand the disappointment in Travolta's downward trajectory, but check out his magnetism in this clip with the insufferable Jimmy Fallon. He's still got it, and the right role could put him back on top. Come on Tarantino. Write something for this man for your next movie. Make him a Star Trek villain, I don't care, just pick ol' Johnny back up one last time.
The scene we're talking about today is far removed from the content of the film around it, however, it's also the film's first—of about three—inciting incident. The film comes full circle back to it at the end when B-movie starletMissy Cleveland's embarrassingly bad scream is replaced by the very real death scream of Nancy Allen's doomed call girl Sally. To bring this all together, Travolta's character Jack Terry is a sound engineer working for a low budget horror movie studio, who unwittingly records a fatal car crash on the night he is tasked with getting new outdoor soundsfor the film.
This sends Jack on a paranoid descent into madness as he discovers that the crime he's frantically trying to solvewas committed by men who don't leave any loose ends. He knows he will be dealt with, but tries to stay one step ahead of the bad guys so he can nail them first. What's interesting about this first scene, however, is how completely removed it is from the rest of the film, while still being completely at home in what an audience expects from De Palma by this point in time.
His previous film Dressed to Kill opened with that soapy shower scene starring Angie Dickinson that we talked about a few weeks ago. Carrie opened with a steamy locker room/shower scene. People had come to expect certain things from a Brian De Palma film, and he opens Blow Out with a slasher movie bacchanal aimed squarely at both his detractors and his fans. There's lots of topless dancing girls, but you can't help but admire the craft on display in this three-minute-plus continuous take.
The slasher film was still in its infancy in 1981, but it had been around long enough to establish a look that De Palma could exploit in a far fancier way than the guys making these movies on the regular. We get a first-person look at a girls' dormitory on some college campus, accompanied by lots of appropriately creepy heavy breathing. A police officer moves in front of one of the windows before we see a knife appear in the upper portion of the frame, coming down and killing the guard. As he collapses to the ground we see Cindy Manion and Missy O'Shea dancing in their room... in their lingerie... like you do in college...
The unbroken take continues a few windows down where we spy a topless Missy Cleveland riding a guy on the carpet...
The impeccably choreographed continuous take next moves back around to the front of the building with the killer making his way to the shower, where he spies Missywashing up immediately after sex, like you do. And De Palma gives us an R-rated homage to his favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock, getting to go the extra mile Hitch wasn't able to in 1960, courtesy of Playboy's April 1979 Playmate of the Month, Missy Cleveland...
She lets out not a scream so much as a low pitched wailing sound, which makes John Travolta's character laugh, setting the whole ball rolling when the director of the slasher movie tells him he needs to get a better scream. This entiresequence lasts three and a half minutes and was shot personally by Steadicam inventor Garret Brown.
It's a master class in classy exploitation cinema. Yes, it's exploitation, but it's god damned well made exploitation. The kind of thing that works for both the most and the least cine-literate people in the audience. Like Paul Verhoeven, this is De Palma's bread and butter, being clever and dumb at the same time. Unfortunately thisled to a constant complaint throughout De Palma's career, that he loved to constantly put beautiful women in peril. This isn't the type of website where I have to tell you that there's nothing wrong with that, but I'll go with De Palma's own words on the subject...
It goes back to the old horror films with the girl in the negligee walking around the haunted house with a candelabra. They’re a lot more interesting to look at and a lot more vulnerable than if you had Arnold Schwarzenegger walking around carrying a candelabra. You just wouldn’t be too concerned that there would be any problems." [via]
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" ofDon't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut inUnder the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her toMonster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirlsand the Dangers of High Camp
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut inAngel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Stanley Kubrick, The William Tell Overture, and A Clockwork Orange
—Wild ThingsPresents Every Man with His Dream Threesome
—Chloë Sevigny Goes Down in History forThe Brown Bunny
—Helen Hunt Does Her Best Nudity at 48 in The Sessions
—Anne Hathaway Wreaks Havoc on Her Disney Image
—Body HeatBrings Noir Into the 80s, Sexes Up the Genre
—The Master Gives Serious Drama its Horniest Protagonist Ever
—Analyzing the Dream Logic of Eyes Wide Shut
—Isabella Rossellini's Intentionally Unsexy Nude Debut in Blue Velvet
—Margot Robbie MakesThe Wolf of Wall Streeta Skinstant Classic
—Angie Dickinson Steams Up the Opening Credits ofDressed to Kill
—The Strange Sexual Dynamics of Dogtooth
—How the Remake of Oldboy Stacks Up Against the Original
—Bob Fosse's Dancers Take It Off inAll That Jazz