From an article by Roger Ebert:
Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” opened in America two months before I became a film critic, and colored my first years on the job with its lingering influence. It was the opening salvo of the emerging “film generation,” which quickly lined up outside “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Weekend” (1968), “The Battle of Algiers,” “Easy Rider” and “Five Easy Pieces.” It was the highest-grossing art film to date, was picked as the best film of 1967 by the National Society of Film Critics, and got Oscar nominations for screenplay and direction. Today, you rarely hear it mentioned.
Young audiences aren’t interested any more in a movie about a “trendy” London photographer who may or may not have witnessed a murder, who lives a life of cynicism and ennui, and who ends up in a park at dawn, watching college kids play tennis with an imaginary ball. The twentysomethings who bought tickets for “Blow-Up” are now focused on ironic, self-referential slasher movies.
Read the entire article at rogerebert.com
