Blow Out 1981 is De Palma's take on The Conversation

Blender Dumbass
October 03, 2025

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47th Academy Awards from 1975 ( giving awards to movies from 1974 ) was an interesting spectacle. Francis Ford Coppola's film The Conversation ( which was nominated for Best Picture ) lost to The Godfather Part II also by Francis Ford Coppola. In 1981 Brian De Palma, one of the people who hanged out with Francis at the time, decided to remake a 1966 Italian film Blowup, but doing it like Coppola's The Conversation. Where sound plays a critical role in the plot of the picture.

The Conversation is a paranoid tale about sound spies. They use very sophisticated microphone tech to record people of interest. And the whole movie is about hidden mics, paranoia and surveillance. Brian De Palma's film Blow Out is about a film-studio sound-engineer that by chance records a sound of a car crash. And through listening to the recording, understands that the crash was in fact not an accident, but a murder.

The lead actors in the film are John Travolta, who looks really good in this movie and De Palma's wife at the time Nancy Allen, who survives the car crash and later helps Travolta's character with his "investigation".

The film seems to be a De Palma exercise of sorts. The whole movie feels like a typical De Palma movie from about that time. Something like Dressed to Kill. Where the whole picture is a bunch of scenes of really well crafted ironic tension. As in, we as the audience know about the danger, while the characters don't.

Something about Nancy Allen in this movie was rather strange. If you recall, her previous work with De Palma, in Dressed to Kill involved a lot of nudity. She played a sort of prostitute character. In this movie she plays a sort of prostitute character once again. But not like in Dressed to Kill. While in Dressed to Kill her character is strong and assertive ( which balances out her prostitution ), in this movie she is weak and kind of scared of everything. You can technically say that she isn't really a prostitute here. But more like a sexual bate of sorts. Which the antagonists used for political reasons. But the feeling is similarly strange. While there isn't anything that balances it out.

This was the last movie De Palma did with Nancy. And Allen divorced him not too long after this film. She did survive through him making Scarface though.

Here is what's interesting. Quentin Tarantino's book Cinema Speculation argues that De Palma's second half of the 1980s was a disaster. While his early 1980s films and the films he did in the 70s were peak De Palma cinema. That begs a psycho-sexual analysis. But don't worry about it. I'm not going to go into it as deep as I analyze Luc Besson.

Be aware, my theories are based on bullshit. So the theories are, technically bullshit. Yet, I like to indulge in them, because this stuff is kind of interesting.

So De Palma makes Carrie and marries one of the actors on the film Nancy Allen. He loves her enough that he shoves her into a lot of his movies. Yet something about their relationship isn't right. It is as if De Palma sees her only sexually. Through the years that they are married De Palma makes his "peak cinema" which, if you think about it, are Hitchcock imitation films. All of which are really psycho-sexual murder pieces. Kind of like a light version of the Eli Roth technique.

Eli Roth is known to use real applicable psychology tricks to induce a strong sensation of norepinephrine in the audience. Resulting in a very electric experience. 3 primary ways to do that are: cognitive dissonance ( or showing things people disagree with ), sex and violence.

Brian De Palma's Hichcock imitation films are that very thing, but not amplified to insane levels like Roth likes to do. They are sexy movies about murder. And they have a lot of questionable stuff that might induce cognitive dissonance. Blow Out is one of those movies.

But I think, while Roth does it because he knows the technique. De Palma does it, half because he imitates Hitchcock and half because he likes to show the world how great Nancy Allen looks naked.

( Still taken out of my ass ) I'm pretty sure that at, or after Blow Out Nancy has a real conversation with the motherfucker. Like "what the hell are you doing?" Like "am I just an object for you?" kind of conversation. And De Palma, trying to grow up a little bit, makes Scarface next. Which if you have seen, is a lot more of a serious movie. It is no longer a Hitchcock imitation piece.

Yet something about their relationship doesn't work and in 1984 they divorce. Nancy goes to make RoboCop while De Palma, depressed out his wits, makes his not so great second half of the 80s movies.

Bullshit psycho-sexual analysis of De Palma is complete. Or?... Wait a second. His second wife in 1991 was Gale Anne Hurd, who just divorced ( a few year earlier ) from James Cameron. And who is a prominent film-producer... Hm... That is interesting... But I have no lead here. At least not yet. I need to watch more De Palma movies, and perhaps revisit the 80s Cameron films too. To complete the picture.

Happy Hacking!!!