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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
antonioni always specialized in portraying empty worlds
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Yeah, but when I watch Blow Up I come away thinking it's a bit of an empty film, which I never do with L'Avventura, or L'Eclisse or any of his Italian films up till then. Blow Up for me seems to suffer from the same problem as Zabriskie Point in that I'm not convinced Antonioni ever really got the culture(s) he was commenting on, so wasn't able to say anything particularly interesting about it/them.
Another big problem with both films I think is that I'm not sure the cast understood him at all. He benefitted enormously from having Monica Vitti in those earlier Italian films. She seemed to instinctively get what he was doing and it could be argued that his films always suffered when she wasn't around. Certainly Hemmings (a competent actor at best) seems totally out of his depth and even Vanessa Redgrave has admitted she felt inhibited by Antonioni's reputation and unsure what he expected from her.