Film History and Criticism
lecture 3
Italian Neo-Realism (1944-49)
Week 3, January 22nd
Italian Neorealism:
Readings: Thompson & Bordwell Chapter 16 Neorealism and its
Context pp.330-341 and Visconti, Rossellini Box, p338
Supplementary Readings: Hayward, S. Key Concepts: Italian NeoRealism pp.191-2.
Corrigan, Timothy, White, Patricia, with Meta Mazaj, Critical Visions
in Film Theory; Classical and Contemporary Readings Part 3
Modernism and Realism: Debates in Classical Film Theory. Andre
Bazin “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema” pp 309-325 &
Cesare Zavattini “Some ideas on the Cinema pp 915 -924
Screening: Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini dir. 1945) and clips
from Miraculo a Milano (Miracle in Milan) (1950) and Ladri di
Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) dir. Vittorio De Sica.
www.robertorossellini.it/ official site
Introduction
Key Questions:
• When did it begin and end?
• What were its sources?
• Characteristics?
• Was it new/neo?
• How Italian was it?
• How realistic?
Responses
1. Term as a movement closely tied to the
social-political situation in post-war Italy.
Neo-realism coined by Italian Critic
Umberto Barbaro.
2. French poetic realism Marcel Carne’s late
films: Port of Shadows (1938) Daybreak
(1939) and Jean Renoir, Rules of the
Game (1939), and Grand Illusion (1937).
3. Characteristics of neo-Realism
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
Location shooting
Post-synchronized sound shooting
Use of non-professional actors
Not interested in entertainment
A commitment to representation of social
reality/actuality
f) The narrative reflects actual duration
g) Racked focus and long takes c.w. Renoir
4. Major Figures
Roberto Rossellini (1906-1977) Rome Open
City,(1945); Paisan (1946) , Germany Year Zero
(1947).
Vittorio De Sica (1902-1974) and Script writer
Cersare Zavattini (1902-1989) Shoeshine, Bicycle
Thieves, Miracle in Milan and Umberto D (1952)
Luchiano Visconti (1906) Ossessione (Obsession
1942), The Earth Trembles (1948)
Guiseppe de Santis (b1917) Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice
1949) Tragic Hunt (1948), No Peace for Under the
Olives (1950)
Characteristics continued
5. Was it New as the term Neo suggests – yes and
no for the reasons cited earlier.
6. How Italian? Very, although there are also
similar elements in earlier French cinema within
poetic realist films.
7. How realist? With emphasis on location
shooting more so than studio cinema.
8. To the Italian neo-Realists, reality and truth are
not the same: reality (considered that which is
possible to observe in everyday life) is the way
to truth, and truth is the set of production
relationships that rules society - the Marxist
inspiration is evident here.
Roberto Rossellini
b. May 8, 1906, -d. June 3, 1977, Rome, Italy.
“The father of neo-realism”
•
Biographical details:
Roberto Rossellini was born in Rome May 8, 1906
the eldest son of a prominent Italian architect, had a
younger brother named Renzo and sisters Marcela
and Micaela.
By all accounts Roberto lived a fairly stable life in a
bourgeois – middle class home which enabled him to
secure a good education and prospects for a career.
General Guide to his films:
1) The Fascist period (1941-1944): Being 16 when Mussolini
took power, Rossellini's formative period as a film maker
was under fascism. He started his directorial career with
three fascist propaganda features: La nave bianca (The
White Ship) (1941) Un piloto ritorna (A Pilot Returns)
(1942) L'uomo della crocce (The Man with the Cross)
(1943)
2) Postwar trilogy (1945-1947): Only two years after his last
fascist feature, Rossellini completed Roma, città aperta
(1945), one of the most important - and immediate antifascist films, considered by many the beginning of Italian
neo-Realism. This direction was emphasized in his following
Paisà (1946) and Germania, anno zero (1947), is considered
the most powerful anti-war film of his trilogy.
Paisà1946
Germany Year Zero 1947
3) His 'Modern' film period (1949-1954): Stromboli
(1949), a period is marked by his marriage to Ingrid
Bergman and her participation in his work.
4.) Disenchantment (1957-1962): After his divorce from
Ingrid Bergman, Rossellini traveled to India in 1957,
where he completed a ten-part documentary series on
16mm. for Italian television and a 90-minute 35mm.
feature. Later he began a four year period producing
war films, and he also began exhibiting
disenchantment with cinema.
Cultural history (1964-1977):
5. In 1963, Rossellini abandoned cinema to work in
television. He directed nine telefilms on historical
subjects and six short documentaries, claiming TV
could be used as an educational device. Near the end
of these years, he completed two biographical
features - Anno uno (1974), about Alcide de Gasperi,
a Christian democrat politician and first postwar
Italian president, and Il messiah (1975). Both were
very badly received by Italian society, and Rossellini
- who claimed they were within the realm of his
history project pursued thus far on television - was
accused of being reactionary and selling out.
Rossellini's films are as much documentaries as they
are fiction.
Roma, città aperta (1945) is based on a narrative
focusing upon three martyrs of the second world
war. As Rossellini had few resources the film was
shot on the actual locations, using different film
stocks, in conditions that made lighting difficult,
thus providing a documentary visual style. This,
added to the colloquial dialogue, and very
naturalistic acting, represented the core of this new
"style" - Italian neo-Realism. The national and
international success of the film earned Rossellini
the title of "father of neo-Realism".
Roma, città aperta differs from the neo-realist
corpus (even from Rossellini's Paisà, his closest to
neo-Realism) in significant ways. One of them, not
the most important though, is the use of professional
actors in the leading roles
A few book titles for further research
Bazin, André, Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? Paris,
Editions du Cerf, 1962.
Bergala, Alain (ed)., Le cinéma révélé. Paris,
Editions de l'Etoile, 1984.
Bergala, Alain et Narboni, Jean (eds.), Roberto
Rossellini. Paris, Editions de l'Étoile/Cahiers du
cinéma, 1990.
Brunette, Peter, Roberto Rossellini. New York,
Oxford University Press, 1987.
www.robertorossellini.it/
Vittorio de Sica 1902- 1974
Began as an actor who starred in some 150 films.
Over 50 years De Sica also directed 34 feature
films, for which he won numerous international
prizes. Four Academy Awards: two Special
Awards, preceding the creation of the Best
Foreign Film category, for Shoeshine (1947), and
The Bicycle Thief in 1949, and Best Foreign Film
Awards for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
(1964), and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis in
1971.
De Sica was born in 1902 in Sora, near Rome,
grew up in Naples in a middle-class family. His
father, Umberto a bank clerk with a love of show
business, who encouraged his handsome son to
pursue a stage career. De Sica first appeared at age
16 in the film The Clemenceau Affair and his
career took off in the 1920s when he joined a local
theater company and became a matinee idol. He
later formed his own company, producing plays
and co-starring with his first wife, Giuditta
Rissone. Began making films during the war years.
The first four films that he directed were routine
light productions. The fifth, The Children Are
Watching Us, has been described as a mature,
perceptive, and deeply human work about the
impact of adult folly on a child's innocent mind.
This film marked the beginning of De Sica's
important collaboration with author and
screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, a creative
relationship that was to give the world two of the
most significant films of the Italian neo-realism
movement, Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief.
Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette). 1948
With no money available to produce his films, De
Sica initiated the use of real locations and nonprofessional actors. Using available light and
documentary effects, he explored the relationship
between working and lower-class characters in an
indifferent, and often hostile social and political
environment.
Vittorio De Sica died in 1974 at the age of 72.
Luchino Visconti di Modrone,
Count of Lonate Pozzolo
Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, of Lonate
Pozzolo (November 2, 1906 - March 17, 1976)
was an Italian theatre and cinema director and
writer, best known for films such as The Leopard
(1963) and Death in Venice. He died in Rome of a
stroke at the age of 69. There is a museum
dedicated to the director's work in Ischia.
Visconti was born in Milan into a wealthy
family (one of the richest of northern Italy).
Visconti’s father was the Duke of Grazzano, and
V. had six siblings.
Visconti was exposed to high culture, to art,
music and theater, and met some of the major
Italian figures in each discipline, including the
composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor
Arturo Toscanini, and the writer/poet Gabriele
D'Annunzio. After World War II Visconti joined
the Italian Communist Party.
Together with Roberto Rossellini, Visconti
joined the salotto of Vittorio Mussolini (the son
of Dictator Benito Mussolini, who was during
the fascist period the national arbitrator for
cinema and other arts) and here presumably
met also Federico Fellini. With Gianni Puccini,
Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis he
wrote the screenplay for his first film as
director: Ossessione (Obsession) (1943), the
first neorealist movie and an adaptation of the
novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Visconti Neo -Realist Films
Ossessione (1943, based on James M. Cain's 1934
novel The Postman Always Rings Twice)
La Terra trema (1950)
Bellissima (1951)
Siamo donne (We, the Women) (1953) (episode
Anna Magnani)
Senso (Livia), 1954
Le notti bianche (White Nights), 1957
Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers),
1960
Films continued
Boccaccio '70 (1961, based on Boccaccio's
Decameron). (episode Il lavoro)
The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), 1963 - based
on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel
Il Gattopardo)
Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra of a
Thousand Delights), 1965)
Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra of a Thousand
Delights), 1965)
The Stranger (Lo straniero), 1967 - based on
Albert Camus' novel L'Étranger)
Le streghe (The Witches), 1967 (episode La
strega bruciata viva)
The Damned (film) (La caduta degli dei), 1969
(TV movie, 1970)
Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia), 1971 Based on Thomas Mann's novel)
Ludwig (1972)
Conversation Piece (Gruppo di famiglia in un
interno, 1974)
L'Innocente (1976)
Visconti Quote
“I believe in life, that is the central point ...
I believe in organized society. I think it has
a chance”.
Next week
• Film Noir: Thompson & Bordwell (2nd edition)
• pp 228, 233-235; and Chapter 17 pp 373-390.
• Supplementary Readings: Leo Braudy “Genre:
The Conventions of Connection” (613-629)
• Screening: Scarlet Street (1945) Fritz Lang; The
Big Sleep (1946) Howard Hawks; Rebel without a
Cause (1955) Nicholas Ray.