Adaptation, translation and indeterminacy in Michelangelo Antonioni’sBlow-Up: Towards a third space of representation

Abstract

Michelangelo Antonioni’s films are rarely associated with translation and adaptation. Yet, his work consistently explores the very essence of images, their ambiguous relation to reality and the deceptive nature of perception. It is a cinema of uncertainty par excellence, thus of translation; at least, a conception of translation (and adaptation) that does not solely rely on principles of faithfulness, transparency and systematic semiotics. This article thus proposes to look at one of Antonioni’s most compelling films,Blow-Up, through the prism of indeterminacy. Drawing upon Gilles Deleuze’s time-image to present the film as a hermeneutic event that opens up a third space of representation, this article examines the indeterminacy at the heart ofBlow-Upon two levels. As a film adaptation, it first considers how Antonioni visually translates the indeterminacy of Julio Cortázar’s short story. This preliminary reading then leads to a sustained attempt at exploringBlow-Up’s filmic landscape, with the view to show how the indeterminacy running through Antonioni’s aesthetics becomes itself a form of translation.