Episode 265: BLOW OUT (1981)

The truth behind the assassination at the center of Brian De Palma’s political paranoia thriller BLOW OUT isn’t really the point. It’s more about the ways in which fact comes to be distorted through many lenses, each built on relative understandings of the core event itself.

When he happens to catch the sound of a politician’s murder on tape while scouting new SFX for a movie, sound designer Jack (John Travolta) is driven to piece together the truth. But with only the audible half of the story, he needs the help of Sally (Nancy Allen), a survivor of the crash, to prove what he saw. Unfortunately for Jack and Sally, they’re both loose ends caught in the increasingly dangerous machinations of political rivals, a hitman gone rogue, and a media machine that thrives on the first thing it can call “truth”.

Watch BLOW OUT on the Internet Archive

Get tickets to THE FIFTEENTH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO-NOIR (Winter at the Trylon & the Heights)

“Paranoia, Failure, and Female Representation: Brian De Palma’s Blow Out” by Penny Folger for Perisphere, the Trylon blog

“Do You Hear What I Hear?: The Salacious Self-Flagellation of Brian De Palma’s Blow Out” by Chris Polley for Perisphere, the Trylon blog

“Blow Out: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gadgeteer” by Pauline Kael (originally for The New Yorker in 1981, republished by The Criterion Collection in 2011)

#NoirFestival #35mm

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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: “Main Theme” by Pino Donaggio from the BLOW OUT soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 165: BLOW OUT (1981)

2:18 - The episode actually starts (ARGYLLE (2024) chat)

3:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:00 - A prescient, paranoid political thriller?

18:48 - A manipulative movie about media manipulation

27:37 - Counterpoint: Selling the “bigness” of the conspiracy at the heart of BLOW OUT

38:53 - Collaging “truth” through character ideologies

48:55 - A call to be more affected by the real traumas of the world

1:09:12 - The romantic mechanics of sound design and sound editing

1:15:34 - John Lithgow as Burke

1:24:16 - Other Loves We’ve Tried: 1981

1:26:48 - The Junk Drawer

1:36:04 - Cody’s Noteys: Trylove Feud (Family Feud but with movies that have a niche genre tag on Letterboxd)