Italian Film and Neorealism

Editing is an art of its own, and is the sole backbone of a film. Classical Hollywood Cinema and Neorealist Cinema depicted reality through their numerous films, however their approaches were very different from one another. Classical Hollywood Cinema leaned towards enhancing a shot with extravagant lighting, music, and very carefully thought out camera angles. Neorealist Cinema focused on the story itself and the way film replicates reality and projects it on screen. A film like Mildred Pierce is a prime example of Classical Hollywood Cinema, where the story is enhanced by the editing techniques. On the other hand, a film like Bicycle Thieves follows the editing techniques of Neorealist Cinema, where the focus is not on the editing, but rather on the replication of reality and how raw the setting of

Paisan is a revolutionary, documentary-style film, consisting of six separate but seemingly related episodes. Director Roberto Rossellini uses this film to portray the drastic consequences of war on a nation, the people, and overall society. Neorealism was a pivotal movement, and Paisan brought attention to the Fascist influence by showing the harsh economic and social reality of World War II. Rossellini also uses Paisan to allude to regionalism and the importance of a unified nation. Paisan exposes a fundamental truth and emphasizes a need for reconstruction through the use of a complex setting, elements of humanity, and reoccurring themes of revival.

“Crocicchio” by Ardengo Soffici is a poem written in the era of the historic avant-garde in which Italy was facing a technological revolution; railways, cars and trams were all being transformed and as such the country saw a rise in the Italian Futurist movement. This movement praised all things modern by exploring new forms and technologies, treating them as a spectacle to be revered. The influence of these futuristic ideologies is clear in Crocicchio as Soffici paints a series of pictures of city life characterised by the chaos and activity which he experiences in his passing.

The gangster genre within films in America has accomplished numerous positive criticisms and constant willing audiences due to containing outstanding spectacles and mind-blowing action. The Godfather, being second on the IMDb Top 250 Movies, has set a new popular concept to life within the Mafia from their point of view. Doing so, creating a positive association. Yet within Italy, the same topic contains a complete different view. Movies such as I Cento Passi demonstrate unenthusiastic view by those whom are outside yet negatively affected by those members. Unlike American films, the gangsters are not as often viewed at the protagonist and are the main causes for the problematic events. But how different is Italian Mafia and American

This film was created after the fall of Benito Mussolini’s government, Rossellini wanted to create the film to show the realism and the after effect of the war, the films were created majority on the streets of Rome all the buildings and the infrastructures were damaged the film was well thought out Neorealism was a sign of cultural change and social progress that Italy was going through.

Italian Fascism is an authoritarian and nationalistic system of government and social organization, it was the political result of the relationship between socialist and nationalist rhetoric. It is a form of governance which employs intolerant views and practices, advocating traditionalism, interventionism and sameness rather than individualism. In order to promote their totalitarian ideals during the 1930s to 1945 fascist politicians such as Benito Mussolini, who had previously been a socialist newspaper editor, employed propaganda that included virtually all modes of media: the press, posters and film. The widespread dissemination of totalitarian ideals infiltrated into the school system where young Italians born from 1910 to 1935 were taught to “obey and fight.” The purpose of this paper is to analyse the diffusion of the Italian Identity through fascist propaganda from 1922-1943 and the identity that was diffused as a result of the exploitation of Mussolini’s various propaganda mediums. Did fascist propaganda contribute to the diffusion of an Italian identity? If so, what identity was diffused?

In Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni’s essay “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” they put forward the central argument that film is a commercial product in the capitalist system and therefore also the unconscious instrument of the dominant ideology which produces it. In opposition to the classic film theory that applauds camera as an impartial device to reproduce reality, they argue that what the camera reproduces is merely a refraction of the prevailing ideology. Therefore, the primary and political task for filmmakers is to disrupt this replication of the world as self-evident and the function of film criticism is to identify and evaluate that politics. Comolli and Narboni then suggest seven categories of films confronting ideology in different ways, among which the second category resists the prevailing ideology on two levels. Films of this group not only overtly deal with political contents in order to “attack their ideological assimilation” (Comolli and Narboni 483), but also achieve their goal through breaking down the conventional way of depicting reality.

Hollywood cinema is primarily subjected to telling stories. The inclination of Hollywood narratives comes not just from good chronicles but from good story telling. The following essay will discuss Hollywood’s commercial aesthetic as applied to storytelling, expand on the characteristics of the “principles of classical film narration” and evaluate alternative modes of narration and other deviations from the classical mode.

	Another fine example of neorealism is The Bicycle Thief (1948), written by Cesare Zavattini and directed by Vittorio De Sica. The narrative of this film unfolds in post-W.W.II times. The film is a portrait of the post-war Italian disadvantaged class (the majority) in their search for self-respect. It is a time of struggle for the Italian people, amplified by a shortage of employment and lack of social services. In the first scenes of the film, these conditions are evident as Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorami) meets his spouse Maria (Lianalla Carell) on his way back home. We see the "men" arguing at the employment "office" as the "women" argue about the shortage of water. Although the director's

Realists attempt to portray the illusion that their film world has not been manipulated and is almost like a mirror to the real world. Their techniques are different to those of any other film. They try to make the film seem as real and as close to normal life as possible by using natural lighting instead of special lighting equipment, they also mostly use hand held cameras and employ non- professional actors to really uphold this realistic image.

Italian neorealism (1945-1953), through directors like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, made its trademark on cinematic history not only in Italy, but also throughout the world. It was films such as Rome Open City (Roma città aperta, 1945), The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette, 1948), and Umberto D., (1952) whose style of depicting the harsh economic and social realities of the poor and working class of Italy took off as a new cinematic style after World War II. Neorealism is a response to desperate economic situations and often illustrates suffering, poverty, injustice, and/or discrimination. Many argue that neorealism is a way of seeing reality without prejudice due to the documentary-like technique of the film and its ability

In Italy, directors focused on the moral and economic conditions that came with the postwar generation quickly after the war and addressed the war instead of not acknowledging as German cinema did for so long. Unlike Alice in the Cities and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, films such as Bicycle Thieves depicted dislocation during the postwar period in the Neorealist style, made in 1948, this film differs greatly from the two former films discussed. In Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica delivers a political message regarding the difficulty of survival in postwar Italy, but also conveys a sense of psychological dislocation through the character development of Antonio Ricci. In many ways, Italy’s economy is much to blame for Ricci’s two-year unemployment in which the film begins, however, Ricci has as many internal struggles as he does externally. Neorealism lies heavily on the depiction of real life problems depicting common people and often used people from the street as actors, in this film the man who played Ricci, Lamberto Maggiorani, actually was a factory worker, which helps solidify the film’s authenticity. Towards the end of Bicycle Thieves, Ricci’s efforts to retrieve his stolen bicycle fail when the people that live near the boy who stole it side with the epileptic boy as he has a

In La Dolce Vita, we are given a glimpse of a filmmaker that has moved far neo-realist roots. While Nights Of Cabiria was certainly a departure from neo-realism, (and far less neo-realist than La Strada, which was just one picture before this one) it certainly had many more neo-realist elements

By making small but significant changes to the conventions of cinema, the artificiality of the

The Italian Neo-Realist movement began to emerge with the fall of Mussolini's Fascist regime in 1943 and was able to entirely establish itself with the end of World War II with the end of German occupation. This caused audiences all around the globe to be “suddenly introduced to Italian films” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.) through works by “Roberto Rossellini