Blow Out
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“Accident, plain and simple. Accident.”
Overview
De Palma delivers the most 70s thriller of the early 80s with Blow Out, indulging in some of his favourite themes: paranoia, sexual obsession and surveillance all circling around an intricate conspiracy. While conducting a little solo location recording, movie soundman Jack Terry (John Travolta) inadvertently captures audio of a fatal car crash. Drawn in by professional intrigue and personal fascination, Jack's investigation brings him to Sally (Nancy Allen), a young woman connected with the attempted assassination of a presidential hopeful. As the body count rises it becomes clear a serial killer on the loose is trying to cover up the killing by destroying Jack’s tapes and attempting to murder the witnesses.
Why You Should See This Film
De Palma was inspired by both Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up—itself drawn from Julio Cortázar's short story—and his experience editing the sound mix for his previous film Dressed To Kill. Here he's once again in a Hitchcockian frenzy of flashy techniques (with the assistance of legendary DOP Vilmos Zsigmond) but rather than exploring the capacity for visual deception in filmmaking his focus is on the more nebulous world of audio, where a sound could be a gunshot or glass breaking depending on your state of mind. Tense, stylish and with a palpable sense of the noose tightening, Blow Out is one of the few true American giallo.
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