Desert Hollywood: Celebrity Landscapes in Cinema

Desert Hollywood explores the “celebrity careers” of prominent Southwestern landscapes in film and television. More than mere backdrops, these landscapes including Monument Valley, the Imperial Sand Dunes, Lake Powell, the Moab area and the Sonoran Desert surrounding Tucson have become familiar, even iconic, through their supporting roles in film. 

Featuring stills, film clips, props, posters and ephemera, this exhibition explores how these landscapes have starred in a variety of genres from westerns to sci-fi, whether it's Monument Valley portraying central Arizona in John’s Ford’s 1939 Stagecoach or Yuma’s Imperial Sand Dunes portraying desert planet Tatooine in Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

Read more about the exhibition in our blog article: What We Saw At the Tucson Desert Art Museum.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

IMAGE: Installation view of Desert Hollywood