Blow Out (1981)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Brian De Palma

Writer:

Brian De Palma (written by)

Release Date:

24 July 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

The Blow Out took them to the edge of terror . . . his questions took them way beyond [Video Australia]

Plot:

A soundman accidentally records the evidence that proves a car "accident" was murder, and consequently finds himself in danger.

Plot Keywords:

Sound | Car Accident | Conspiracy | Murder | Witness

Cast

John Travolta	...	Jack Terry
Nancy Allen	...	Sally
John Lithgow	...	Burke
Dennis Franz	...	Manny Karp
Peter Boyden	...	Sam
Curt May	...	Donahue
John Aquino	...	Det. Mackey
John McMartin	...	Lawrence Henry
Deborah Everton	...	Hooker
J. Patrick McNamara	...	Detective at hospital
Missy Cleveland	...	Coed lover (as Amanda Cleveland)
Roger Wilson	...	Coed lover
Lori-Nan Engler	...	Sue
Cindy Manion	...	Dancing coed
Missy O'Shea	...	Dancing coed

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Germany:16 | Canada:18A (Ontario) | South Korea:18 | Philippines:R-18 | Brazil:18 | Italy:VM14 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | France:U (re-release: 2000) | Norway:16 (1982) | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R (certificate #26347) | Argentina:16 | UK:X (original rating) | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

30th Street Station - 3001 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Company:

Cinema 77

Trivia:

Al Pacino was De Palma's first choice for the role of Jack Terry. When he proved unavailable Travolta was signed, prompting a suggestion from at least one studio executive to cast Olivia Newton-John in the role of Sally (which De Palma refused).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Burke murders a girl who looks like Sally, to establish the fictitious serial killer's MO, and turns her over to look at her face, the dead girl blinks.

Quotes:

Sally: Ya know, the only trouble I ever got into was when I was TOO careful!

Movie Connections:

References La région centrale (1971)

Reconstructing truth

"Banal story? Give me a break. I just watched "Snake Eyes" and "Mission to Mars" on DVD from beginning to end. They're very beautiful films. I think you missed a lot. All the critics ever talk about is the banality of my stories!" - Brian De Palma (2002)

Do not treat De Palma's films too logically. He has one agenda, and that is to enable his camera to become multiple characters. His camera, deceives, lies, lusts, stalks and mocks. When it's not adopting a character's point of view, it's literally becoming a character of it's own. There's real intelligence behind some of his films, despite their B movie roots and surface cheese.

Watch the jeep scene again. See how it begins with the camera suddenly changing stance. The music booms and everything becomes operatic. The scene itself plays out like a self contained mini-opera. Of course the whole sequence is illogical, but then one of De Palma's themes throughout his career has always been reconstructing truth. In "Snake Eyes" and "Black Dahlia" it's the truth of a murder. In "Mission Impossible" it's reconstructing the truth of a mission gone bad. In "Femme Fatale" it's reconstructing the truth of a heist. In this film it's reconstructing the truth of an assassination. But what makes De Palma interesting is that this constant theme of "finding the truth" clashes continusouly with his artistic style. He's a formalist who's entire filmography stresses the fakery or superficiality of film.

On one hand he acknowledges the lie that is film (his famous quote: "film is 24 lies per second"), whilst on the other, his character's constantly search for some objective truth.

But back to the jeep scene. Notice how De Palma shifts to slow-motion to heighten the clues. Travolta crashes and we linger on the "Liberty or Death?" shop window as a plastic hang man slowly tips over. De Palma as artist and formalist has the power of deciding Travolta and Sally's fate. Like the end of "Femme Fatalle", he's asking his audience, teasing them, letting them know that his film isn't reality, and that only the artist as God has the power to decide the fate of characters. Do we let them die or do we let them live?

He then inter-cuts this with Sally's conversation with the killer, which suddenly shifts from friendly to hostile. De Palma signifies this newfound danger by jump cutting from day to night. And so with Sally now in trouble, he literally resurrects Travolta, who of course climbs and climbs but still doesn't get there in time. Travolta's guilt and failure rings eternal as Sally's scream is immortalised in the final film-within-the-film. A film kills Sally and a film immortalises her death. A recorded sound (blow out) brings her into De Palma's world and a recorded sound (her scream) brings her out of it. There's a cinematic purity to Sally's life.

9/10- Brilliant opening, brilliant ending and some memorable scenes in the middle. The virtuoso camera work doesn't touch "Snake Eyes" and the purposefully cheesy acting (the porno within a film makes it clear that De Palma sees this as self conscious formalist film-making) at times detracts. Still, this is nevertheless enjoyable and one of the more accessible De Palma films.