Blow Up! Idiocracy! The dumb will rule the earth

Yeah Baby! I watched two movies today that were made a good 40 years apart and yet had some similar things to say about society. The first was Blow Up (1966) an English film directed by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonini and the other was Idiocracy (2006) written and directed by Mike Judge (of Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill & Office Space fame). From different perspectives, both films mourn the loss of feeling and ethics in society.

Blow Up is considered a classic film about a fashion photographer in 60's swinging London. The main character, well played with total self absorbtion by David Hemmings, is a successful photographer. Both on and off the photo set, he fixes his attention on one thing at a time at the exclusion of all else. He directs others in how to sit, stand and everything else and then ignores those same people once they have passed his interest. It's obvious the Austin Power's character is partially modelled after Blow Up, particularly during the photo shoot sessions where Hemming's climbs over the model shooting pictures yelling "Yes!!! Yess!!! Move your head. Move that arm. Yess!!!" like Mike Myers at the start of The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).

Antonini uses his familiar neo-documentary camera style to depict the coldness and detachment between the characters. But, unlike say L'Avventura there seems to be a more definite statement about the lack of empathy here. Hemming's character comes across a murder while shooting pictures, but can only think of the murder in terms of how it affects his career and artistic ambitions. Like L'Avventura, the main plot device (in L'Avventura a woman goes missing, here a man is murdered) seems to have the least camera time because it's really about how a tragedy is ignored. Blow Up is done in that slow Antonini style as well, but as always it goes to underscore the waste of time these peoples lives are.

There's one bit of real excitement, the movie features the Yardbirds performing with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck in their youth. It's the best part of the movie by far. Blow Up is OK, having a trendy setting is bound to date it and I liked L'Avventura more. As far as a portrait of selfish 60's Londoners go, I liked Michael Caine in Alfie a bit more.

Forty years later, Mike Judge made Idiocracy (2006) about how a militairy suspended animation experiment gone wrong sends Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph 500 years into the future. In the future, they find the world has eliminated intelligence by having smart people out bred by dumb people. The future is run on automation and corporate conglomeration run amok.

Idiocracy doesn't hesitate to point the finger at a society that values sensationalism, indiscriminate capitalism and pure hype over decency, ethical behavior and realism. It has some amusing bits, such as the thought of Carl's Jr. dispensing food through electronic kiosks that gas upset customers. But ultimately, Idiocracy spends so much time looking down on everyone that it doesn't really connect as a movie. It actually would have worked better as a cartoon, but there is already a better version available in Matt Groenig's Futurama series. The one highlight is that it shows Maya Rudolph is a comic talent waiting for the right vehicle. It seems unlikely that she will find that vehicle, but if she does it could be huge.

Put the two movies together and you end up with a theme of society becoming a selfish place where people are stupid and uncaring. It's a very cynical message and while I cannot completely refute either movie I do have more hope than these filmmakers that society can become a place for cultural and technological advancement. Now I think I'll go watch Busted on the Job 3 on the Fox Reality Channel. It's disgusting when people put boogers in your hamburger!