Landscape Allegory in Cinema: From Wilderness to Wasteland

220 Pages·2010·2.23 MB·English

by  David Melbye

Landscape Allegory in Cinema
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Landscape Allegory
in
Cinema
From Wilderness to Wasteland
David Melbye
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LANDSCAPE ALLEGORY IN CINEMA
Copyright © David Melbye, 2010.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–0–230–10407–5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Melbye, David
Landscape allegory in cinema : from wilderness to wasteland / David
Melbye.
p. cm.
ISBN 978–0–230–10407–5 (alk. paper)
1. Landscape in motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.9.L29M35 2010
791.43966—dc22 2009050883
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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For My Parents:
Ann Davis Melbye and Roy Wilbur Melbye
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Defining Landscape Allegory 1
Pre-Cinematic Appearance of Landscape Allegory 8
Landscape Allegory as an Avant-Garde Gesture 11
Narrative Cinema’s Assimilation of
Landscape Allegory 14
Mainstream Allegories of Imperialist Politics 16
Continuation of Landscape Allegory 18
One Landscape Depiction before Cinema 21
Anthropocentric Landscape in the Middle Ages 22
Classical Landscape in the Renaissance 25
Landscape as Subject in Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Painting 27
The Influential Sunscapes of Claude Lorrain 30
Neoclassical Landscape as Subject in the
Eighteenth Century 32
Two Spiritualized Landscapes of the Nineteenth Century 35
European Sublime Landscape 37
American Sublime Landscape 39
Landscape Sketches of Edgar Allan Poe 42
Three Advent of Filming Landscape Allegory 47
Early Wilderness Photography 48
Early Abstract Landscape Photography 51
Early Cinematic Depiction of Landscape 52
Four Depiction of Landscape in Avant-Garde Films 59
Brakhage’s Dog Star Man 59
Confluence of Avant-Garde and Mainstream Cinema 62
Enrico’s La rivière du hibou 63
La rivière du hibou’s River Progression 66
La rivière du hibou’s Overland Segment 68
La rivière du hibou’s “Home” of the Avant-Garde 69
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viii Contents
Five Spiritual Wasteland Films 73
The Western’s “Duel in the Sun” Allegory 73
The Wasteland Informed by Space/Place Theory 78
Jodorowsky’s El Topo 81
Six Italian Wasteland Allegory 85
Antonioni’s Island Allegories 87
Pasolini’s Mountain Allegories 91
Desert Allegories: From Spaghetti Westerns to
Zabriskie Point 93
Seven Australian Outback Allegory 99
Roeg’s Walkabout 100
Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock 103
Eight Landscape Allegory in Hollywood 111
The Western Megalomaniac versus the
Third World Landscape 112
Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia 113
Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King 116
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now 118
Nine River/Jungle and Other Imperialist Allegories 123
Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God 123
Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo 126
Boorman’s Deliverance 128
Friedkin’s Sorcerer 130
Futureworld Landscapes: Planet of the Apes,
Zardoz, and 2001: A Space Odyssey 132
Reversal of Landscape Allegory 135
Ten Landscape Allegory in Other Narrative Contexts 139
Landscape in Noir Films 140
High Sierra 141
Treasure of the Sierra Madre 142
Landscape in Hitchcock Films 144
Spellbound 145
Vertigo 146
Landscape in Road Films 148
Easy Rider 149
Vanishing Point 150
Landscape Allegory as a Critical Discourse 151
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Contents ix
Conclusion: Landscape Allegory into the Future 153
Landscape Allegory Returns to Avant-Garde Origins 154
Landscape Allegory in Recent Hollywood Films 156
Landscape Allegory in Asian Cinema 159
The Human Mind as Macroscopic Space 161
Appendix: Chronology of Landscape Allegory 163
Notes 183
Bibliography 189
Index 197
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