A ‘Blow-Up’ mystery

The photos are mysterious. No one seems to know who shot them, or why precisely, or even how many photographers were involved.

But there’s nothing cryptic about their contents: Practically anyone with a penchant for Mod fashion, Swinging London or European post-New Wave cinema will recognize these images as coming from Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” (1966), one of the most influential and groovily attired movies of the past 40 years.

Deceptively slow-moving but visually and psychologically hypnotic, “Blow-Up” tracks the misadventures of a successful London fashion photographer named Thomas (David Hemmings), who is living a life of photogenically jaded hedonism. Fed up with his aimless existence, he decides to start documenting the grittier side of the modern urban milieu.

One day, fatefully, he snaps off some photos of a couple trysting in a park. Thinking he’s stumbled on a mere episode of hanky-panky, he’s surprised when the couple’s enigmatic and alluring female half (Vanessa Redgrave) pursues him to plead for his undeveloped film. Only later, while perusing the prints, does Thomas realize he may have witnessed a murder, albeit through the cool, promiscuous eye of his camera lens.

Now it appears that as Antonioni was making his movie about voyeurism and virtual realities, an unknown (or largely forgotten) observer was taking photos of him and his cast, both while the cameras were rolling and between takes.

The result was about 800 black-and-white negatives, some identical to frames from the movie, others offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of Hemmings, Redgrave, Sarah Miles (who plays an unhappily married friend of Thomas), Antonioni, famous models, and the production crew. Several dozen have been made into prints and are on display through Wednesday at Headquarters gallery in Hollywood. David Wills, 32, who organized the show, says that among the negatives are images of Redgrave at home, playing with her children and taking voice lessons.

Which raises the question: Who would’ve been granted such access? A film unit photographer? A journalist? Or someone closer to the director or the stars? “I’m not going to say they were taken by a friend of the family,” Wills says. “My guess is they weren’t all taken by one person. I do see different styles, but it is hard to tell.... It’s very experimental.”

The Australian-born Wills, who admits that “Blow-Up” is something of a personal obsession, has helped curate shows at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and worked on several coffee table books on photography and pop culture. He says the “Blow-Up” negatives had belonged to a New York collector, Ken Galente, before coming into the possession of their current owner. According to Wills, Galente couldn’t remember how he’d acquired the negatives, virtually none of which had been seen publicly or made into prints prior to the Headquarters exhibition. For the show, all the prints have been strung on wires with large paperclips, mimicking a scene from the movie in which Hemmings scrutinizes two telltale images.

Wills says he has made many inquiries to try to determine who shot the photos. He has exchanged e-mails with Hemmings, and has met and spoken with others connected to the film, including ‘60s supermodel Veruschka, who attended the exhibition’s opening-night party with Paul Morrissey, the documentary-maker and Andy Warhol collaborator. Strangely, no one could recall anything about who took the photos.

“I don’t remember being photographed or even the face [of the photographer],” says Veruschka, speaking by phone from New York this week. “It’s funny that nobody can find that out.” Wills says he hopes the exhibition will prompt whoever took the pictures to step forward, or elicit some information about his, her or their identity.

Given the self-cannibalizing tendencies of today’s fashion industry, the Carnaby Street couture on display in “Blow-Up” still looks remarkably hip, Veruschka says. “It was in a way a very inventive time,” she says. “People were very creative in trying to break through old traditions. There was a student movement, there were many things happening. And people were feeling the war [World War II] was finally forgotten for everybody, so you could break through and do something.”

The movie also broke ground in its sexual frankness, Wills says; it was among the first, if not the first major feature film to show pubic hair. And like such other Antonioni mid-century classics as “L’Avventura” (1960), it captured an ambience of sexual friskiness spiked with moral malaise. “It really was what the ‘60s was at that time,” Wills says. “It wasn’t an Elvis movie, it wasn’t ‘Beach Blanket Bingo.’ And it really was the only film of that time that depicted the fashion industry.”

Even those who’ve never seen the movie might be able to get a fragmentary feel for its moody themes and storyline from the prints on exhibition, Wills believes. “It’s like a murder mystery played through this narrative of David Hemmings’ thoughts,” Wills says. “You don’t know if he’s mad or not mad. It could all be in his head.”

Undoubtedly the movie’s most iconic images come from the extended photo shoot scene involving Hemmings and Veruschka, romping around against a dark backdrop, posing and clicking as they build to an orgasmic crescendo. Asked what advice Antonioni gave her about how to play the scene, Veruschka laughs. “He said, ‘The only thing I want is that you finish on the floor.’ So that was what I did.”

Wills says there’ve been several previous opportunities to display the photos, but he’s pleased that they’re being shown in Hollywood’s backyard. “L.A. has such disregard for its own heritage, in a way, unless they’re going to trot things out for the Academy Awards,” he says. But why should L.A. care about this film in particular?

“There are films which tried to capture the ‘60s and films that were the ‘60s,” Wills says, betraying no doubt as to which category “Blow-Up” belongs.

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‘Murder, Models, Madness: Photographs From the Motion Picture ‘Blow-Up’ ’

Where: Headquarters, 1654 Schrader Blvd., Hollywood

When: Open 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. daily

Ends: Wednesday

Contact: (323) 962-6634