Wes Craven: 10 Movies that Shook ME Up

BLOW-UP (1966)
Directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni

I saw Antonioni's Blow-Up when it first came out, in a theater in Potsdam, N.Y., the small town where I was teaching at the time. Clarkson College, Department of Humanities. I went back to see it three times in the next week, fascinated by it. The oblique, non-linear, suggestive ambience, the incredible control of color (Antonioni painted whole streets to accord with his needs), the shocking (for that time) sexuality, and the impenetrable complexity of its mystery absolutely beguiled me. It wasn't long after seeing this film that I quit my job and headed off to New York to seek my fortune in the film business. Absolutely naïve as to what it would take, but utterly determined. The impulse seems to have worked out rather well.