Landscape Allegory in Cinema: From Wilderness to Wasteland

This interdisciplinary study offers an introduction to the relatively unexplored area of the form of cinematic space referred to as “the landscape of the mind.” Exploring the psychological use of natural setting in both avant-garde and mainstream cinema, this study seeks to understand how these settings serve as outward manifestations of characters’ inner subjective states. David Melbye traces cultural trajectories of landscape depiction as far back as the Middle Ages in painting and literature to nurture a greater awareness of visual allegory in the films of the silent era up through the present, focusing specifically on the prolific appearance of landscape allegory in films of the 1960s and ‘70s.