MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

Blow-Up

Back in 2015, I recorded my first ever podcast with the inimitable David Blakeslee. Please be kind, I had even less of an idea what I was doing than I do today. Luckily, he was a gracious and considerate host, and thus began our long history of podcasting about Criterion films together.

Here‘s David‘s description from his own site:

“Last week, I sat down on a couple different occasions to compose a conventional written review of Blowup, but I had a hard time getting my thoughts out in a way that felt satisfying. There are a lot of bits in the film that I wanted to respond to, but for a variety of reasons (mostly having to do with circumstances in my personal life that distract me from focusing my mental energies on blogging) the essay I feel like the movie deserves just wasn't coming together. So in order to clear this one off my queue and allow me to move on, I took the podcast route, a format that allows me to more spontaneously voice my ideas in conversational dialogue. A few nights ago, I tossed out a random invitation to discuss Blowup on Skype with whoever felt like talking about it with me. I was happy to accept the request from Arik Devens, author of the Cinema Gadfly blog and a fellow Criterion fan whose online presence I've enjoyed getting to know over the past few months. This was his debut as a podcaster, even though he already has his own show in the works. He certainly found an auspicious film to break into this racket, and I think he presented his case quite well. Arik's blog is definitely one to check out, if you like what I'm doing here. I'm eager to see where he goes from here, and I expect we'll collaborate again. But for now, here's our conversation on Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, recorded earlier this afternoon.:” - May 16th, 2015