Italian Neo-Realism
This Essay will discuss how neo realism only lasted ten years and how it was committed to representing life as it was lived, in complete contrast to the fascist propaganda films it superseded. It will discuss and debate this by analyzing some of the most prominent films and their directors that represented the movement.
The main exponents of the neorealist movement were Visconti, Rossellini and De Sica (Hayward, 2000), “The Movement lasted from 1942 to 1952, even though critics credit Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 (Rome Open City) as being the first truly neo-realist film, Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione (1943) was really the herald of the movement, and in fact the scriptwriter of Visconti’s film, Antonio Pietrangeli, coined the term neo-realism in 1943 when talking about Ossessione” (Hayward, 2000 p.202) The majority of films being made in Italy before the movement started came to be known as white telephone films, these were lighthearted melodramas usually laced with fascist propaganda and highly censored by the authorities (Bordwell and Thompson, 1980 p.316), they showed life in Italy in a completely different light to the reality of the time. They showed an Italian society that was happy contented and well structured. There was no real meaning to these melodramas, they just ambled along showing the supposedly easygoing contented life of the Italian people living at the time, often depicting melodramatic conversations of affluent characters talking on the telephone. Which ultimately gave them the label white telephone films. There was never any mention of Mussolini’s travesty, the real society, with the oppression, poverty, desperation and lack of solidarity that was playing out on the city streets.
“The Neorealist filmmakers saw their gritty films as a reaction to the idealized Telefono Bianco style. They compared and contrasted the high-almighty gimmicks of set and studio production, with the devastated beauty of everyday, rigorous human life and
The main exponents of the neorealist movement were Visconti, Rossellini and De Sica (Hayward, 2000), “The Movement lasted from 1942 to 1952, even though critics credit Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 (Rome Open City) as being the first truly neo-realist film, Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione (1943) was really the herald of the movement, and in fact the scriptwriter of Visconti’s film, Antonio Pietrangeli, coined the term neo-realism in 1943 when talking about Ossessione” (Hayward, 2000 p.202) The majority of films being made in Italy before the movement started came to be known as white telephone films, these were lighthearted melodramas usually laced with fascist propaganda and highly censored by the authorities (Bordwell and Thompson, 1980 p.316), they showed life in Italy in a completely different light to the reality of the time. They showed an Italian society that was happy contented and well structured. There was no real meaning to these melodramas, they just ambled along showing the supposedly easygoing contented life of the Italian people living at the time, often depicting melodramatic conversations of affluent characters talking on the telephone. Which ultimately gave them the label white telephone films. There was never any mention of Mussolini’s travesty, the real society, with the oppression, poverty, desperation and lack of solidarity that was playing out on the city streets.
“The Neorealist filmmakers saw their gritty films as a reaction to the idealized Telefono Bianco style. They compared and contrasted the high-almighty gimmicks of set and studio production, with the devastated beauty of everyday, rigorous human life and
Bibliography: Susan Hayward (2000). Cinema studies the key concepts. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. p202. David Bordwell, Kristin Thomson (1980). Film Art. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. p316. Laura E. Ruberto, Kristi M. Wilson (2007). Italian neorealism and global cinema. Michigan: Wayne State University Press. Gordon Gray (2010) Cinema: a visual anthropology. Berg Editorial USA. Mark Shiel (2006). Italian neorealism: rebuilding the cinematic city Wallflower press. London. p11. Millicent Joy Marcus. (1986) Italian film in the light of neorealism. New Haven: Yale university USA. p 263. De Sica,V. (1948). Ladri di biciclette [DVD]. Arrow films Rossellini, R Loach. K. (1969), Kes [DVD], MGM Entertainment Webograthy http://filmdirectors.co/italian-neorealism-film-techniques/ (Woody Lindsey, 2010) Accessed on, 10/04/2011 http://wolfe-fil3037.blogspot.com/2011/02/reading-assignment.html (Jesse Wolf, 2011) Accessed on, 03/04/2011