ITALIAN NEOREALISM AND

AFTER
< Cinema was born with neorealism.> Bertolucci
Nations in shambles

Poverty and unemployment were rampant

Overwhelming sense of shame and horror

Revelations of WWII: the atom bomb, concentration
camp, etc

Filmmaking almost halted in Europe during war
years. Helps ascendancy of Hollywood.

POSTWAR SITUATION
Cold War attitudes

The spy film

The Nazi spy as lover (as in Notorious)
POST-WAR IMPACT ON US CINEMA
Denial of guilt in some countries (Japan, Germany) led
to manic materialism leading to economic miracles


In Italy, fall of Mussolini's Fascist regime in 1943


Legacy of realism from the Fascist period


Guilt reflected in looking at the Wars impact on children
and how they have been corrupted by adults


EUROPES POST-WAR GUILT
These films tended to be socially conservative, promoting
family values, respect for authority, a rigid class hierarchy
and country life.


The Neorealist filmmakers saw their gritty films as a
reaction to the idealize Telefono Bianco
films.tyle.
WHITE TELEPHONE FILMS
1943- 1953

Highly critical view of Italian society

Attention to glaring social problems and impact of the
War and Resistance

Created a sense of realism through the use of real
people rather than seasoned actors.

The rigidity of non-actors gave the scenes more
authentic power.


THE NEOREALIST FILM
MOVEMENT
Chronicled the undramatic lives of ordinary people
stories set amongst the poor and working class

Filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional
actors.

Contend with the difficult economical and moral
conditions of post-World War II Italy, reflecting the
changes in the Italian psyche and the conditions of
everyday life: defeat, poverty and desperation.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF NEOREALISM


Highly critical view of Italian society


Focused attention upon glaring social problems, such as the effects
of the Resistance and the war, postwar poverty and unemployment.
INHERENT QUALITIES OF
NEOREALIST FILMS

Roberto Rossellini


Vittorio de Sica & Cesare Zavattini


Luchino Visconti
MAJOR DIRECTORS
Ossessione(1943) / Visconti
Rome, Open City (1945)/ Rossellini

The Bicycle Thief (1948)/ Vittorio de Sica
Paisan (1946) / Rossellini

La Terra Trema (1948)/ Visconti
Germany Year Zero (1948) / Rossellini
Umberto D (1952) / de Sica
La Strada (1954) / Fellini
MAJOR FILMS
Avoidance of neatly plotted stories in favour of loose, episodic structure
that evolved organically

Documentary visual style

Use of actual locations--usually exteriors--rather than studio sites

Use of nonprofessional actors, even for principal roles

Use of conversational speech, not literary dialogue

Avoidance of artifice in editing, camerawork, and lighting in favor of a
simple "style-less" style

Rejection of Hollywood-style sweet happy endings







FORMAL QUALITIES OF NEOREALIST FILMS

Reconciliation between Marxism and Roman Catholicism and
thereby resolution of the most serious ideological division

a new democratic spirit, with emphasis on the value of
ordinary people
a compassionate point of view and a refusal to make facile
moral judgments

a preoccupation with Italy's Fascist past and its aftermath of
wartime devastation

an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract ideas

IDEOLOGICAL CONCERNS
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
The Children are Watching us

Ossessione

The Bicycle Thief: touches on Italy's institutions and cultures--the government
bureaucracy, political parties, the Church, popular beliefs, neighborhoods, the
family, soccer

Miracle in Milan and later films
DE SICA AND ZAVATTINI
Hostility

Washing dirty linen in public

Box-office failures
INTERNAL RECEPTION OF
NEOREALISM
A genre of films made in Italy between 1945 to 1955.
A concept, an aesthetics, a politics, a radical
reorientation of cinema <triumphant
rediscovery of the fundamentals of cinema.> Satyajit
Ray.
Neorealism marks the BIRTH OF A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS IN
THE CINEMA.

TWO MEANINGS OF NEOREALISM
Thematic and Stylistic influences

In US: Emergence of New Hollywood- Bonnie and
Clyde, Easy Rider, etc

Sympathy for the underdog

Location shooting.


INTERNATIONAL IMPACT
Do Bigha Zameen
Garam Hawa
Pather Panchali
Indias Parallel Cinema

IMPACT ON INDIAN CINEMA
Emergence of the New Cinema movement
Brazil, Cuba, Argentina
Cinema Novo movement
Their adaptation of neorealism
IMPACT IN LATIN AMERICA
Contemporary relevance

Emphasis on children and their pov

Child as the focus of a kind of new consciousness. Victimised by adults.
Criticism of adult society.
IRANIAN CINEMA
Italys development from agricultural economy to a modern industrial
economy
Guilt factor minimalised
Shift of emphasis from social & economic circumstances to the inner world
of the individual

POST-NEOREALIST ITALIAN
CINEMA
Federico Fellini: Amarcord, La Dolce Vita,
Michelangelo Antonioni Red Desert, Blow-up
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gospel According to St Mathew
The larger social concerns of humanity gave way to the exploration
of the individual: his/her needs, alienation from society and the
tragic failure to communicate became the main focal point in the
Italian films to follow in the 1960s. Antonioni takes the neo-realist
trappings and internalize them in the suffering brought out by Italy's
post-war economic and political climate.
THREE GREAT ITALIAN MASTERS