131. Brian DePalma's 'Blow Out' (1981)

In this episode, we revisit Brian DePalma's 1981 thriller 'Blow Out', which reunited the director with his 'Carrie' supporting actor John Travolta, who, fives years later, was post-'Saturday Night Fever', 'Grease' and 'Urban Cowboy' and was now one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

'Blow Out' was one of DePalma's most personal films, stemming from his obsessions with the Kennedy Assassination, voyeurism, filmmaking, Hitchcock, and Garrett Brown's new filmmaking invention, the Steadicam. Shot in his hometown of Philadelphia among locations he was intimately familiar with.

Topics in the episode: DePalma's flirtations with directing 'Prince of the City' and 'Flashdance'. His Hitchcock revelations. How his small conspiracy film took on larger proportions with the arrival of an unexpected star. The layers and layers of meta meaning in 'Blow Out'. A revisionist take on 'The Conversation'. Appreciating 'Blow Up'. Siskel & Ebert, Pauline Kael, and MORE!