The 向日葵视频 City University Film Institute鈥檚 series will continue its 34th year at 2 pm Jan. 24 with Michelangelo Antonioni鈥檚 Blow-Up in the Kerr McGee Auditorium of Meinders School of Business.
Italian director Antonioni's first English-language production Blow-Up was his only box office hit, but widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s. Leading character Thomas is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his fab but oddly lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing and, upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder. He is soon pursued by a woman who appears in the photos. Antonioni's thriller is a puzzling, existential, adroitly-assembled masterpiece鈥攁 film that questions whether we can find meaning.
The theme of this year鈥檚 season is based on Viktor Frankl鈥檚 classic book 鈥淢an鈥檚 Search for Meaning.鈥� Harbour Winn, director of the series, said the theme is intended to help participants come to understand the purpose of suffering.
鈥淭he films in this series stress the importance of an individual鈥檚 attitude to existence,鈥� Winn said. 鈥淓ven when life seems restricted by external forces, we can choose the attitude with which we live and make meaning, to find value.鈥�
The screening will begin at 2:00PM at the Kerr McGee Auditorium in the Meinders School of Business at NW 27th Street and McKinley Ave. A discussion will follow the presentation for those who wish to stay. Admission is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.
ACCOLADES FOR BLOW-UP
-鈥淭his is a fascinating picture, which has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed.鈥� NY Times
-鈥淭he natural world is arrayed against the artificial scene; conscience is deployed against convention. If you've never seen Blow-Up, see it now, if only to see what part of the world was like 40 years ago.鈥� Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
-鈥淎 prize '60s artifact, Antonioni's what-is-truth meditation on Swinging London is a movie to appreciate鈥攊f not ponder.鈥� Village Voice
-鈥淲hether there was a murder isn't the point. The film is about a character mired in ennui and distaste, who is roused by his photographs into something approaching passion.鈥� Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
UPCOMING FILMS
* Feb. 7, Ritesh Batra鈥檚 The Lunchbox
* Feb. 21, Asghar Farhadi鈥檚 向日葵视频 Elly
* March 6, Andrey Zvyagintsev鈥檚 Leviathan
