There is nothing minor league about Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, a tantalizing and taut thriller which is a unique achievement in the filmmaker’s canon.
The Production: 4.5/5
Director Brian De Palma has sometimes been called a derivative filmmaker or minor league Hitchcock, but there is nothing minor league about Blow Out, a tantalizing and taut thriller which is a unique achievement in the filmmaker’s canon. Filled with excellent performances, a terrific script with several twists, and masterful direction that really shows the De Palma at the apex of his career, Blow Out, like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation¸ is a technology-based film which uses its mechanics brilliantly and always in service to its story.
While recording some fresh nighttime sounds for his audio library, Philadelphia sound technician Jack Terry (John Travolta) witnesses and records a car crashing through barriers on a bridge and sinking into a river. Diving in, he rescues the rather simple-minded Sally (Nancy Allen) though the driver, a rising political candidate (John Hoffmeister) being touted as the next President, dies. While being treated in the hospital, he’s approached by the candidate’s political spokesman (John McMartin) to keep it quiet that the candidate had a woman who was not his wife in the car with him. Thinking that odd, Jack begins listening carefully to his audio recording and notices that it was a gunshot that blew out the tire and caused the accident. Synching his audio to a shot by shot on-scene cameraman (Dennis Franz) leads him to believe that he witnessed a murder rather than an accident. Little does he know that the powers that be who wanted the candidate eliminated have now sent a hit man (John Lithgow) to clean up any lingering traces of the crime which means both Jack and Sally are in danger.
De Palma’s film is a textbook example of facile variety in directorial technique. The movie is filled with split screen effects (sometimes obvious ones with the screen deliberately halved; sometimes with two different shots melded into the widescreen frame seamlessly as if in one), overhead and low-level shooting at appropriate moments (a climactic shot involving fireworks never fails to take one’s breath away), a mesmerizing sequence where the camera circles 360 degrees while Jack discovers that his sound studio has been burglarized, tracking shots, slow motion shots, and a creative manipulation of previous images (a directional mic) with current ones (reliving his experience using a pencil instead of the mic). The unending assortment of technique to tell his story (De Palma also wrote the script) makes it the very definition of auteur cinema. What could have been a stale, simple stalk and slash movie in the wrong hands (teased in the opening scenes with a hack slasher movie that Terry is doing the audio for) turns into something deeper and more meaningful as the director constantly surprises us with fresh revelations about motives and modus operandi. And he doesn’t resort to a typical romance developing between his two leads either, which films of this type would generally embrace. Instead, we get a grown-up emotional bond between the protagonists tied as they are to the event and its aftermath. Perhaps the lack of these clichéd elements prevented the film from capturing a large, enthusiastic audience during its initial release, but it certainly plays like a near-masterwork now.
John Travolta gives one of his strongest, warmest, and most heartfelt performances in the movie as the lone wolf professional who finds himself caring for someone else’s well-being. Nancy Allen effects a singsong, hippy-dippy airhead accent to her Sally that’s perfectly in keeping with her persona as someone who’s accustomed to being used with someone else calling the shots. As the sleazy person-on-the-scene, Dennis Franz etches another wonderful character in his De Palma filmography while John Lithgow proves at even this early date in his career he could play sinister and menacing exceptionally well, long before his Emmy-winning turn as the Trinity Killer on Dexter.
Video: 4.5/5
3D Rating: NA
The film is presented at its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and is showing 2160p resolution using the HEVC codec. Apart from the soft, murky rushes of Co-Ed Frenzy which opens the movie, the additional resolution offered in 4K means that sharpness and color saturation (especially keen in the Liberty Parade sequences) is really first-rate with plenty of details in clothing, hair, and facial features. Unfortunately, the addition of HDR/Dolby Vision doesn’t have a noticeable impact on black levels which remain the transfer’s weakest element. The black letterbox bars are always much darker than the night skies next to them. Again, this isn’t a deal breaker in the least, but this prevents the transfer from earning an optimal score. The film has been divided into 16 chapters.
Audio: 4.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo surround sound mix features quite impressive recording of the dialogue with some directional speech making a very good impression. The music score by De Palma regular Pino Donaggio has nice resonance, and sound effects are crisp and nicely delineated, important for a film concerning the efforts of a sound man to get impressive, unusual audio for his library. At no time do the dialogue, music, and sound effects clash with one another, and the mix is absent of any truly distracting artifacts such as hiss, crackle, or hum.
Special Features: 4/5
There are no bonus features on the UHD disc in the set. All bonus material is contained on the accompanying Blu-ray disc of the film.
Noah Baumbach/Brian De Palma Interview (57:48, HD): the filmmaker discusses Blow Out and other of his films with director Brian De Palma in this 2010 interview.
Nancy Allen Interview (25:25, HD): the actress discusses working on the film in this video interview also recorded in 2010. She recalls her work with Travolta previously on Carrie, how she came to work on the film, her experiences with Dennis Franz, and how it felt working with her then-husband De Palma.
Garrett Brown Interview (15:03, HD): the cinematographer (who shot the Co-Ed Frenzy sequences with the Steadicam, his invention) discusses his camerawork on the movie and illustrates with various models of the Steadicam then and now.
Photographic Gallery (HD): a step-through gallery of black and white photographs by late photographer Louis Goldman features both stills and behind-the-scenes shots with the cast and crew.
Murder à la Mod (1:20:23, HD): Brian De Palma’s 1967 feature film about a young director with secrets, his confused girl friend, her wealthy chum, and a mysterious assistant named Otto.
Theatrical Trailer (1:45, HD)
Thirty-three Page Booklet: features cast and crew lists, some color plates and black and white shots, a critical essay on the movie and the career of Brian De Palma by film author Michael Sragow, Pauline Kael’s original review of the movie as featured in The New Yorker, and reproductions of the magazine photo array and movie poster layout both featured in the film.
Overall: 4.5/5
Brian De Palma’s Blow Out is a stylish, thoughtful thriller which is rewarded by multiple viewings. This Criterion Ultra High Definition release, while not a huge leap in quality from the previous Blu-ray, now becomes the most ideal way to experience the film again and again with excellent picture and sound and a good assortment of bonus material. Highly recommended!
Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
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