Abstract

This article outlines Antonioni’s viewpoint on modernity and its representation in The Eclipse (1962) and Red Desert (1964). It does so by expanding Di Chiara’s research (2014) on the relationship between the director and science-fiction, and by analysing documents dating from the period 1960-64 in the Antonioni Archive in Ferrara. It demonstrates that the director made use of an imagery that has significant science-fiction features. These were developed as a symptom of his socio-cultural context, and sought not to communicate a completely negative view on progress – the idea was shared by most intellectuals – but rather to emphasise the sense of inadequacy that Antonioni’s generation felt regarding modernity’s changes.