Monday, February 1, 2010

Place over Action


Film stills with EUR Tower from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse (1962).

This weekend I watched Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse, which is largely set in Rome's EUR District, named for the thwarted Exposicione Universale di Roma. The mushroom-shaped water tower shown above still stands, but now that it has been crowned with advertising signage, it doesn't seem quite so menacing. Film credits include a nod to EUR/Rome Master Plan Architect Marcello Piacentini.

If you are interested to read related articles in JSTOR, one of Tulane University Library's electronic databases:

Paul Baxa, "Piacentini's Window: the Modernism of the Fascist Master Plan of Rome." Contemporary European History 13:1 (February 2004): 1-20.

Clara Orban, "Antonioni's Women, Lost in the City." Modern Language Studies 31:2 (Autumn 2001): 11-27.

Gilberto Perez, "The Point of View of a Stranger: An Essay on Antonioni's Eclipse." The Hudson Review 44:2 (Summer 1991): 234-262.


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