Blow Out (1981) Blow Out
A conspiracy thriller written and directed by Brian De Palma (Blow Out), starring John Travolta as a movie sound technician who accidentally records audio evidence of a political assassination. The film fuses Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) — a debt explored in The Blow-Up and Conversation Connection — with the paranoid American thrillers of the 1970s, filters it through the Zapruder film and Chappaquiddick, and arrives at one of the bleakest endings in American cinema.
"It's Brian De Palma's finest film, which means it's one of the finest movies ever made, because as we all know, Brian De Palma is the best director of his generation." — Quentin Tarantino, Far Out Magazine (1994)
Quick Facts
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Director/Writer | Brian De Palma (Blow Out) |
| Stars | John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz (Blow Out) |
| Composer | Pino Donaggio (Blow Out) |
| Cinematographer | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Editor | Paul Hirsch |
| Production Designer | Paul Sylbert |
| Production Company | Filmways Pictures / Cinema 77 |
| Distributor | Filmways Pictures |
| Budget | ~$18 million |
| Box Office | ~$12 million (domestic) |
| Release Date | July 24, 1981 |
| Running Time | 108 minutes |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Filmed In | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Key Pages
- Plot Summary (Blow Out)
- Cast and Characters (Blow Out)
- Brian De Palma (Blow Out)
- Production History (Blow Out)
- The Blow-Up and Conversation Connection
- The Chappaquiddick Parallel
- Sound Design and the Act of Recording
- The 360-Degree Shot
- The Ending
- Critical Reception and Legacy (Blow Out)
- John Travolta
- Nancy Allen
- John Lithgow
- Dennis Franz (Blow Out)
- Vilmos Zsigmond
- Pino Donaggio (Blow Out)
- Philadelphia as Setting
- Themes and Analysis (Blow Out)
Genre Context
Blow Out arrived at the tail end of the 1970s paranoid conspiracy cycle — The Parallax View (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), All the President's Men (1976) — and asked what happens when the man who uncovers the truth can't do anything with it. Where those earlier films at least allowed their protagonists the dignity of exposure, Blow Out denies its hero even that. The truth is recorded, the evidence is assembled, and it doesn't matter.
"Blow Out is inhabited by a real cinematic intelligence. It's not a genre exercise. It's the real thing: a movie in which an ordinary man stumbles into the middle of a murder conspiracy." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1981)