How odd to see Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth (Sidney Salkow 1964) wandering alienated through the same virtually deserted suburban neighborhood of Rome
through which an alienated Monica Vitti wandered in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’eclisse (aka The Eclipse, 1962).
Odder still to see how the ending of L’eclisse dovetails into the beginning of The Last Man on Earth. The famous ending of L’eclisse is a montage of all the locations that Vitti’s character and her lover played by Alain Delon visited together during the tentative beginnings of their relationship, a relationship that goes nowhere, not because of any flaw in the lovers themselves, but due to the sterile, oppressive nature of the world they live in, and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. It is a montage of places, buildings, and streets from which human life is virtually absent.
The Last Man on Earth begins with a remarkably similar montage of deserted locations. In that same suburban Italian neighborhood!
Only in The Last Man on Earth, the neighborhood is supposed to be in America, and the reason why it’s deserted is due to a worldwide plague that has turned everyone except Vincent Price into shuffling zombie-like vampires who sleep during the day and prowl at night. (The Last Man on Earth was based on Richard Matheson’s classic sci-fi/horror novel, “I Am Legend,” which was also the inspiration for The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston, I Am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith, and – uncredited – George A. Romero’s 1968 The Night of the Living Dead.) The closing montage of L’eclisse foreshadows a world without humanity. The opening montage of The Last Man on Earth shows us that world.
Aside from the ‘shroom-like tower common to both films, there are the distinctively modern curved lamposts that appear in so many of both films’ exterior shots. Antonioni seemed to find them particularly alarming. The last shot of L’eclisse is a close-up of one such lamp, glowing unnaturally – a portent of mankind’s end.
Woah, interesting observations. Need to rewatch to look more at the synchronicity.
I just found one of these, too. I discovered that Jesus Franco’s Venus in Furs (which I just saw for the first time, and loved) and DJ Caruso’s The Salton Sea (which I have a disproportionate fondness for) share a bizarre number of similarities, as if the filmmakers for the two films were riffing off the same brainwave. It’s all in the blog (linked above). Finding serendipitous correspondences is one of the most useless but gratifying aspects of being a cinephile.
Amazing. Give us more like this!
C. Jerry, you seem fairly certain the threat of nuclear war is what keeps the L’Eclisse lovers apart, but after 3 1/3 viewings I’ve never received that impression. The choking sterility of society yes, but Delon’s choice not to go to their rendezvous seems based on how he has more fun chasing the almighty lira – he can’t not answer his trillion phones – Monica doesn’t show up because — I forget why. Still, good call on linking the two films, what with that giant spaceship mushroom thing, it represents to me more a retro-futurist stall-out, as if built for some long ago world’s fair and left to rot – you can get the same eerie vibe looking at the old parachute jump tower at Coney Island. It’s a feeling he explored also in Red Desert
Erich – The overhanging nuclear threat is just one of many factors including the others you mention that *might* be separating the lovers – Antonioni keeps it enigmatic – but he does emphasize the nuclear threat by including a shot of a newspaper headline, “Atomic War Near” or something like that, in the final montage, and underlines that theme in the final closeup of the unnaturally flaring light which, to me at any rate, suggests nuclear annihilation. Some might even say that the “giant space mushroom thing” suggests a mushroom cloud. This movie was released just before the Cuban Missile Crisis when atomic war was on everyone’s minds.
Other than the mushroom-shaped building, I find the resemblances between the two films to be spurious, especially as their stories and directorial styles are completely dissimilar. The subtext of Delon and Vitti’s tenuous relationship is the atomisation of the individual in modern society, not the effect of encroaching atomic war.
“Atomisation of the individual in modern society” – I’d buy that. PLUS a generalized feeling of uncertainty and instablility to which the threat of nuclear annihilation contributes.
The astonishing visual similarities – especially the films’ opening and closing montages – speak for themselves. One film (L’eclisse) is pre-apocalyptic in feeling; the other (The Last Man on Earth) post-apocalyptic.