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significant that as a couple, they only come to terms with their relationship as they sit and
watch the sun go down, over a vast plain, at the time when the two lights pass each other. It is
only then that they find their truth/ (Storaro, 1990: 88). The dialogue, the acting, the lighting
and the use of different framings ranging from extreme long shots highlighting the
insignificant vulnerability of Port and Kit in the desert - at times their act of lovemaking
almost dissolves into the landscape - to extreme close-ups, are used to indicate that the
characters' response to the desert's overwhelming natural presence is a form of emotional
annihilation.
The affective experience of the characters could be termed sublime. William Hope's
cinematic contextualization of the sublime is relevant to this analysis of The Sheltering Sky,
clarifying the concepts underpinning this sequence's emotional structure (Hope, 2002: 134).
The aspects of the sublime relevant here include the overwhelming affective impact that
natural entities can have on humans, and the link between experiences of the sublime and
ethical aspirations, particularly the longing for an ideal life. Among natural entities as sources
of the sublime, Dionysius Longinus indicated large rivers like the Nile and immense oceans
as having awe-inspiring properties (Longinus, 1819: 28). In later debates on the concept,
Longinus's indications were extended, and references to landscapes such as that featured in
The Sheltering Sky can be found in Joseph Priestly's references to 'extensive plains' (Priestly,
1777: 119-123), and Joseph Addison's observation that 'a vast uncultivated desert' can
possess sublime qualities (Addison, 1712: 62). Philosophers agree that the inherent qualities
of objects which elicit the sublime are those of vastness and uniformity, perspectives
summarized by John Baillie: 'Where an object is vast and at the same time uniform, there is
to the imagination no limits of its vastness, and the mind runs out into infinity (Baillie, 1747:
90). These concepts are perfectly represented by the desert, since its size and uniformity of
colour, together with the idea of its origins going beyond human memory, elicit a sense of the
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