Italian Neorealism ( 1945-1953 )

The political history of Italy is quite extensive. The Greeks were the first to settle in Italy and established colonies in the southern part of the country and in Sicily. There was not a sense of political reality as much as there was a civilization (Windows on Italy- History). While the Greeks controlled the south the Gauls, or Celtic people, ruled the north and the Po Valley. But the most important group to settle in Italy was the Etruscans. Because of their advanced civilization, the Etruscans were the only ones to establish political and cultural ideas before the Roman Empire (Windows on Italy- History). At the end of the Etruscans rule, Rome began a unification of Italy and established Latin to be the general language (Defusco).

In the surreal, dim lighting of her bedroom Paulina is shaken by a strangely disturbing laugh upon recognising Roberto Miranda's voice as that of her tormentor. This moment sees the birth or manifestation of another facet of Paulina's character, the part of Paulina's mind that fantasized about doing to her torturers what they had done to her. This is the unbelievably unreasonable Paulina; she is a Fury, a mythical deity, the embodiment of vengeance, unsusceptible to male logic or opportunistic, careerist rationalisation. Polanski makes Paulina throw the car over the cliff-edge. In doing this she is not only destroying a phallic symbol, and thus undermining Roberto's sexuality and any claims he has on sexual dominance or superiority, she is destroying a perfect symbol of the male thirst for power and control, and the pragmatic logic to which her need for revenge has been sacrificed, into the infinite, chaotic abyss that defies all these principles, and unquestionably swallows it up. In doing this she breaks the railing, civilized society has created to guard itself

With the historical importance of its time with the war ending Rossellini wanted to show what the citizens of Italy had to endure, the working class life and of the struggles the people have to go through and social conditions, one of the major aspects of the film Open City was that Rossellini used nonprofessional actor in anticipating the real expressions and feelings of the character, he wanted to show the raw film and the realistic faces and the genuine emotions of the actors in where they showcased the way the character felt, where there acting was more real, where the character acted in accordance to their emotions of the after effect of the war in which this was a personal effect on the characters. Italian Neorealism came about as World War II ended and Benito Mussolini's government fell, causing the film industry to lose its idea and the foundations of the film, the majority of the films needed to be very carefully written and directed

Italian Neorealism was a movement of art, which strived to illustrate the normal lives of the ordinary, working class people in post war Rome, usually with the use of non-professional actors. As one of the best Italian Neorealist film, Bicycle Thieves showed an absolute depiction of the war’s impact on daily life and exposed a world in which sufferings, unkindness and corruption jeopardized the rationality of human beings and action of men (Schoonover). By utilizing a depressing and gloomy cinematography, De Sica implies the somber lives of the poor and their crisis in losing their self-identity and moral conscience as a result of parochial society that make a fetish of personal belongings as a mode of social acceptance. By examining the cinematography, ‘mise-en-scene’ and events in the film, the daily struggles of the working class in post war Rome can be seen through the crisis of masculinity, class struggle, ethical dilemma and a profoundly patriarchal society.

We see alleyways, overflowing soup kitchen, and brothel neighborhood, and everywhere hordes unemployed men whose frustration gives the film an urgent energy. Amidst this contextual background, Bicycle Thieves therefore, makes a rare, true entry in the Neorealism form in which only a handful of films qualify, even though, it does not portray or refence the times of its making within the film, it rather shows class division, and ineffective employment system.

Individualism explains the degree of interdependence amongst members of a society. In individualistic societies, members are socially expected to look after themselves and close family only in most circumstances. In collectivist cultures the opposite occurs, members belong to ‘in groups’ which take care of them in return for their loyalty (Cohn & Russell, 2015). While Italy is considered a moderately individualistic society, compared to the US a drastically individualistic country, it is seen as collective. Italians are renowned for taking care of themselves and immediate families as depicted by their world-renowned mafia cartels such as the Sicily mob. The more collective nature of Italian society compared to the US can be seen in various

Nationalism became like a religion in Europe and the United States because people began to almost worship their country; not literally worship but the belief in the country and its well being became more important to the people. Many people did not want to be under the traditional monarchy like before; the people who wanted change was larger than that of the people who wanted a monarchy so nationalism came through in many places. Italy is an example of great nationalism because they went from being little nothing states to a big unified nation through the beliefs of Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour; who wanted nationalism and unification achieved. The United States also showed great nationalism in the revolution to become its own nation and

Set in the depression times of post-World War II Italy, Graziadei and De Sica’s (1948) The Bicycle Thief narrates the story of Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), who, after finding a job as a bill poster, loses his bicycle to a young thief. He tries to look for it with his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola); however, despite seeing the thief, he fails to recover his bicycle. Desperate, he tries to steal a bike himself but is easily thwarted by a group of bystanders. They plan to bring him to the police station until the owner notices the weeping Bruno and, in an act of compassion, ask others to release the thief. In this paper, I argue that The Bicycle Thief

World War I began in August of 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, in what is now Yugoslavia. Following this period Italy was in a state of civil war, with the parliament incapable of providing effective leadership. There was a rise in social tension, as well as economic problems. This resulted in a new, more aggressive breed of Italian politicians. They followed a violent anarchic political credo, also known as fascism. Although Italy’s economy was weak, following World War I, it was effected more by political factors, such as the rise of fascism, and social factors as seen through the newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia.

Futurism was a primarily Italian movement that expressed the ideals of industrialization, and strived to evoke all kinds of sensations through their paintings. The movement also wanted to demonstrate the beauty of modern life and developed an entire philosophy that extended to social and political beliefs. (Roth-Davies pg 10) Futurism was a movement born out of boredom with Romanticism, debauchery and sappiness.

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

The Fascists’ social and economic policies up to 1939 significantly aided their control over Italy yet may not be cited as the sole cause. The Fascist party’s social and economic policies along with other factors attributed to the overall control of Italy. Through such policies it was a certainty that the Fascist party would hold complete power over the population of Italy in each aspect of an individual’s life whether it was their leisure time through the Dopolavoro or at work under the corporate state system which was formally introduced in 1934. This complete domination of the Italian peoples’ lives could be argued to have been the instrumental factor behind the Fascists’ control over Italy up to 1939. Other factors which assisted the

De Sica claimed a film is “reality transposed into the realm of poetry” (Turan 103). So, the principle of his directing is to be genuine and realistic. This shares some similarities with the ideas of Italian neorealism. According to ‘Ten points of neorealism’ published by the Paris Journal in 1952, a neorealist movie should have some of the following features: a message; topical scripts by concrete events; a sense of the masses; realism; the truth of actors (often non-professionals) and lighting; refusal of the studio (Lielm 131-132). Bicycle Thieves comprise with most of the characteristics mentioned above and made good use of them:

It is based on a view of the individual as primarily fearful, selfish and power seeking. Individuals organize in states, each of which acts in pursuit of its own national interest (Mingst and Arreguin-Toft, 2014: 79)

She was the ideal of Italian femininity. The “Magnani persona” embodied the working class, mature, maternal, and emotional woman. She was the emblem of experiences and aspirations of he working and lower middle class as well as the uncertainties women in the working and lower middle class had in postwar Italy. In the movie Open City it focuses on ordinary people opposing or accommodating to the reality of fascism and occupation in Italy. “Anna Magnani’s character was based upon the story of Teresa Gullace, a pregnant mother of five shot by Nazi guards as she attempts to throw food to her detained husband.”(Celli and Cottino-Jones, 47) Magnani played a woman named Pina, a “woman of the people” widow with a young son and expecting another with Communist fiancé, Francesco. While Francesco hides the resistance leader in their apartment and puts him self and the family in danger, Magnani is prepared to fight for her family and for a better world, representing a strong working –class woman. However in the end Pina dies, is objectified, made powerless, and ultimately shown as inferior to Francesco because of her class, education and