Blow-up, or "The Devil's Drool" is the first piece of literature I have read by Julio Cortazar, and I was enamored. I very much enjoyed the disassociative quality of the text, the shifts between first and third person narrative, vulnerability of the main character, and the subtlety of the disturbing climax/conclusion. Interesting, then, that what I felt were some of the essential details of the story - Paris in November, the amateur photographer who is vocationally a translator, and of course the implied pedophilia were changed in Antonioni's film Blowup. The movie is successful in the mainstream because it is sexy and "fantastic" where the story is melancholy and solitary. The film's components have the makings of a blockbuster, plus all the correct zeitgeist and exciting cameos (Veruschka! Jimmy Page!). The film most resembles the short story in two places - when David Hemmings' character makes the blow-ups of the photos and becomes fixed on them, after the he has made the discovery of the murder: the mood he comes to inhabit is more withdrawn, distracted and morose than his earlier self. No matter how you choose to view the film, the main characters reality becomes markedly distorted after he sees the corpse (or maybe he felt funny from all the pot). I enjoyed the final scene of the movie the most because for me it represented Hemmings accepting the reality of his imagination and maybe finding solace in that (wonderful use of sound by Antonioni throughout the film).
I wonder if the pedophilia in the story was just too off-putting and base to have been part of the adaptation. In the story, even the slightest hint of it is enough to sicken the narrator. And the general public doesnt seem to stand for it - movies depicting the sexual abuse of children are relegated to the fringes (though I could be wrong, I don't know so much).
All that being said, I would love to see someone make a 100% faithful adaptation of "The Devil's Drool". It would be quiet, a bit sad and a bit sordid, my favorite kind of film. And the female character in the park would have a very ugly face (that's how I picture her; there are too many beautiful people in Antonioni's film).
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I agree that portraying pedophilia may just be too much for the vast majority of viewers. Although it is interesting to note that in the story, Roberto Michel is less critical, though not approving, of the possibility of a heterosexual seduction. Interestingly enough there was a greater tolerance during the 1960s and early 1970s to representations of interage sexual relations than there is today. (There were actors who thanks to looking younger than their age had a film career) There is a recent sexually explicit video adaptation of the story which I haven't seen titled Les Ruissellements Du Diable directed by Keren Cytter. If you google it, you can find the actual video.
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