PCM- Cortazar

Both the movie and the short story Blow Up possess few similarities in their composition and are less related than one might think. The one glaring commonality is the use of magical realist devices in both the text and the film. Each respective piece centers around a fusion of time of the past and present, where the reader is introduced to events and ideas that are seamlessly tied together by Cortazar. The writer transitions from past to present and back again with regularity and permits the reader access to scenarios that are arguably fictitious in nature. That brings us to the second binary of real versus imaginary. Cortazar uses this binary to provide immense amounts of detail in the text and introduce plausible situations that are merely insinuations of the narrator. Throughout the text for example, he provides intimate details of the characters thoughts that are being collected together by someone who does not have access to the characters thoughts, but is simply making inferences based upon what he is observing. The movie makes use of this as well by having characters partake in situations where things are not real. Cortazar's work is very descriptive and effectively uses other literary elements to provide a story that is both captivating and intriguing. He pushes the reader to the point of confusion through his use of magical realist devices and provides a feeling of "back and forth" when it comes to the character's thoughts and opinions. This sense of back and forth is further supported through the fusion of time.

AWR- Blow-Up

Although Julio Cortazar and Michelangelo Antonioni have a different plot in their respective versions of Blow-Up, both the story and the movie concentrate on similar magical realistic devices. Cortazar and Antonioni emphasize concepts such as the nature of reality, parallel worlds, and cyclical time in order to exemplify magical realism. The main similarity between the protagonist in both the movie and the story is the how the photographer is able to go into a deep analysis of why he sees things the way that he does. When he was taking pictures in the park of the man and woman, he continuously kept coming up with imaginary scenarios based off of their slightest actions. The photographer has a keen eye scenes that are picturesque. Even though he may not fully understand the true meaning of something that he is taking a picture of, he uses his imagination in order to come up with his own explanation. Because of this ability of the photographer to see beyond what is solely in front of him, the idea of parallel worlds is displayed. The best example of this is the people with the white faces in the movie who randomly are shown. These people are constantly running around in the movie doing random things, and when the photographer runs into them, he tries to interpret what these people are really doing. After watching these people play imaginary tennis at the end of the movie for a little while, he was eventually able to see them playing real tennis after using his imagination. The idea of using one's imagination to see a parallel world is big in Blow-Up. Although cyclical time isn't the biggest concept in Blow-Up, it is most certainly present. The entire story/movie is quite repetitive, as all the photographer does is go from scene to scene, taking pictures of whatever he desires. There is no huge plot that unravels as the movie progresses, it just repeats itself. Antonioni incorporates cyclical time to show how there is no boundary between the past and present when it comes to one's imagination.

Blow Up - JPA

Two magical realism devices that are presented in both the movie and the story are parallel worlds and the nature of reality as seen through imagination. In the short story, Cortazar is able to create parallel worlds between the realities and photo where the characters are able to act with imaginary personalities which we cannot know for sure if they are real. The other device used is the nature of reality. In both the movie and short story the characters use their imaginations and to magical things during their everyday lives. It is our job to find the reality in the things they are doing. For example, at the end of the movie when they are playing tennis with an imaginary ball Thomas must believe that the ball is actually there before he can “enjoy” the game being played even though it is all in their imaginations. In the story, the characters trespass through different imaginary worlds during different periods of time as the story evolves bringing about the questioning of what in the story is real and what is imaginary.

neb. blow-up

       Julio Cortazar and Michelangelo Antonioni have similarities and differences in their uses of Magic Realism for their works; the short story and the movie respectively. The binaries used are: real and imaginary, life and death, and past and present fused.

          Firstly, in Cortazar’s story the protagonist trespasses the boundaries of time, different imaginary worlds, and the binary of life and death as the story evolves. On the other hand, in Antonioni’s movie the main character appears as it is from the beginning and he does not change worlds, or travels in time. To illustrate, his blue house in contrast with all the red houses surrounded it can be a sign that the protagonist personality is a little arrogant and distant. Another example can be that in the first scenes of the movie when he is in his photo studio, the way he treats his models gives the reader an assumption that he might be a ''womanizer/player''.

      Secondly, in Cortazar’s story the narrator is the one who reveals the plot and the imaginary worlds, entirely under his point of view, based only on his "mental work" as: assumptions, reflections, interpretations, etc. Similarly, the movie of Antonioni also gives great importance to the unsaid, with long silences and a emphasis on non-verbal gestures. Another important point in the Cortazar’s story is that there are three narrators of the plot. First is the authorial narrator in first person (which does the reflections). The second one is in third person (to present Roberto Michel). Lastly, an ultimate first-person narrator, which participates in the events associated with Roberto Michel. Quoting Cortazar to illustrate this: ‘’It’ll never be known how this has to be told, in the frist person or in the second, using the third person plural or continually inventing modes that will serve for nothing’’. This is a very unusual way to begin a story but yet this way to attract the attention of the reader creating new realities is a very important aspect of Magic Realism.

Thirdly, there are different worlds in Cortazar’s story, which is another characteristic of Magic Realism. The three narrators are interchangeable and there is a possibility that both first-person narrators are the same. In contrast, in the movie from the beginning, there is only one world and everything revolves around that one character.

Blow Up- ERK

Between the movie "Blow Up" and the short story by Julio Cortazar, there are few similarities in plot. However, the underlying magical realist themes and devices of the two works are very similar. Both examine the nature of reality by exploring the magic in every day life and by challenging our conventional understandings of reality through their analysis of the cyclical nature of time and by questioning what is real. In the story, Cortazar explains that what makes reality real is how it is observed, he cites how if he goes, his remington will "sit turned to stone on top of the table" to explain that existence is in the eye of the beholder. Similarly, in the movie, the white-faced people are playing tenis at the end with a ball that is not real, but when Thomas decides to believe in it, the tenis game becomes real and observable to him. Also, the cyclical nature of time is demonstrated in both works while Cortazar indicates that he is "not afraid of repeating [himself]," Antonioni chooses to demonstrate the cyclical nature of time through the consistency of events such as the appearances of the white-faced people, and the monotony of Thomas' everyday life demonstrated through his time at work and his social interactions with women. In addition, the concept of parallel worlds is also demonstrated in the movie by the clear disconnect between the white-faced people and normal society and also in the story by the analysis of photography, the author is able to create parallel worlds between reality and the photo where the characters take on imaginary roles and personalities that we cannot know are real.

SK - Enormous Wings

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is one of the most well-known examples of the magical realist style, combining the homely details of Pelayo and Elisenda’s life with fantastic elements such as a flying man and a spider woman to create a tone of equal parts local-color story and fairy tale. From the beginning of the story, García Márquez’s style comes through in his unusual, almost fairy tale–like description of the relentless rain: “The world had been sad since Tuesday.” There is a mingling of the fantastic and ordinary in all the descriptions, including the swarms of crabs that invade Pelayo and Elisenda’s home and the muddy sand of the beach that in the rainy grayness looks “like powdered light.” It is in this strange, highly textured, dreamlike setting that the old winged man appears, a living myth, who is nevertheless covered in lice and dressed in rags.

Enormous Wings-jlg

Marquez using the binaries of dream vs reality in this story as one of the main binaries to criticize religion in Latin American culture. We have the imaginary and reality living in the same setting. This fallen man in their yard is said to be an angel. They pay no attention to him, except to make money off him by having people pay to come see him as if he is a member of the circus. On page 203 is says that “the light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what is was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard.” This sense of darkness contradicts what we would normally associate with an angel. When I think of angels I think of bright lights. But here we have a fallen angel associated with the weak light. I see criticism of religion first when keep this angel, who is supposedly to be one of gods messengers, in a chicken coop, and charge people to come see him “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal.”(205) We see greed and selfishness here, they are mistreating this supernatural being for some money. Then I see criticism of the church when the Father Gonzaga comes to the chicken coop. Because the angel does not understand Latin , the priest’s “first suspicion of an impostor when he saw he did not understand the language of God” (205) , he also says that the angel looks to much human, he smelt and his feathers had been mistreated. The priest then “warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that eh devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary.” (206) As a priest the father should have seen this angle as a sign from god, as supernatural figure, but instead he doubts the angles existence as an angel. Everyone was a nonbeliever, but in the end they are all proven wrong. They were all so focused on his appearance they did not recognize that he “seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he’d been duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house”(209) or his strength to survive the “worst winter”. They had all doubted this religious being, their biggest worry was that they did not know what to do with him if he died, and in the end when he regains strength and flies away everyone was proven wrong and all have lost the opportunity to appreciate somewhat of a miracle, something that they will never be able to see again. No one followed had faith in their religion and truly believed his existence as an angel, not even the priest.