In Zabriskie Point (1970), the California desert serves as a mystic source of freedom: freedom from social pressure, freedom from the laws of man, and freedom from the anxiety of the urban world. The long swathes of flat, dry, dusty desert punctuated by gnarled valleys and mountains calls to those seeking to evade the building tension and unease of American culture centers in 1970.
In “The Western, or the American Film, par excellence," Andre Bazin states that the myth of this landscape in the classic Western lies in that “the Indian, who has lived in this world, was incapable of imposing on it man’s order,” and that “he mastered it only by identifying himself with its pagan savagery” (145). Mark and Daria reenact this same escape to the
In “The Western, or the American Film, par excellence," Andre Bazin states that the myth of this landscape in the classic Western lies in that “the Indian, who has lived in this world, was incapable of imposing on it man’s order,” and that “he mastered it only by identifying himself with its pagan savagery” (145). Mark and Daria reenact this same escape to the