"Blow-up" from Cortázar to Antonioni

• Published in: Literature film quarterly Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 68 - 75
• Main Author: Ferrua, Pietro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Salisbury, Md Salisbury State College 01.01.1976; Salisbury University
• Subjects: Antonioni, Michelangelo; Argentine literature; Borges, Jorge Luis (1899-1986); Calvino, Italo (1923-1985); Cameras; Children; French literature; Italian literature; Linguistics; Literature; Metaphysics; Motion pictures; Movies; Narratives; Novelists; Novels; Photographers; Sensory perception; Short stories; Word play; Young adult literature; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 0090-4260; 2573-7597

There seems not to be any beginning or any end to his story: the author-narrator is constantly distracted, either by flocks of pigeons or sparrows, or by the impossible objectivity of concrete objects supposedly representative of objective r-eality (the typewriter and the camera), or by metaphysical concerns (essential and useless problematics), by linguistic puns (how to conclude a hypothetic sentence starting with /Zand finishing without complements), by ontological worries (is he dead or alive?), by literary patterns (the narrative itching which overcomes all other considerations), and by existential problems (how to fight against Nothingness). The game continues, but now he hears distinctly the tossing of the invisible ball launched by imaginary rackets. 16 Life is more real and more powerful than the objectivity he pretended to capture with his camera; for any photograph may be merely an illusion of reality that is itself no longer real to man, a reality which can no longer be relied upon - the reality of personalities and commitment and communication with which men have lost contact and which has now become as much a void as the minds and hearts of the people in it. 17 The short story adopts the proceeding of the counter-language.