Italian Wasteland Allegory

Abstract

Desert landscapes figure prominently in Italian cinema of the 1960s and ‘70s. Accordingly, this culture effectively demonstrates how the wasteland is mythologized both in its specific and larger Western contexts. Several prominent Italian directors from this period such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Sergio Leone incorporate landscapes of desolation, shot on location, in order to reflect a larger spiritual crisis symptomatic of the increasingly urban, “technologized” climate of an expanding middle class. Like the western genre’s evolving “duel in the sun” allegory and its assimilation into the larger pessimistic allegory of futility, the resulting films challenge narrative conventions by requiring closer intellectual involvement. The spectator must acknowledge that such landscapes are no longer mere backdrops, but characters in their own right.KeywordsInfinite SpaceSpatial InfinityDesert LandscapeBrute RealityUrban ExperienceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.