Italian Neorealism
1945-1951
“Neorealism was attached to the present
as sweat was to the skin” (C. Zavattini)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgncW
RGRyl0
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Point of departure: The urge to tell the truth, and the need to take the
camera into reality, into life as a sort of moral liberation from the conventions
and restrictions of the Fascism Era.
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Principles:
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Authenticity: To show things are they are and not as they seem; to capture and
reflect reality with little or no compromise; to reveal the everyday rather than
the exceptional; to depict common people rather than overdressed heroes; to
show a person’s relationship to the real social environment rather than to
his/her romantic dreams
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Influence of the social environment on basic human needs (for food, shelter,
work, love, family, sex, honor...)
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Use of the external social environment to define a human being
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Essential themes: “The sociological struggle with the squalor”; the conflict
between the contemporary common person and the IMMENSE social,
economic, and political forces that determined their existence. Focus on
underprivileged and unpowered.
Cinematographic style
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Shooting on location whenever possible (Cinecitta’ Studios had been
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Use of untrained, non professional actors in the majority of roles: “All
films of a popular nature need characters very far removed from the
professional actors, who usually are middle-class...there are more characters
than actors, so not every actor has the face for all the characters that can
arise from the author’s imagination”
(V. De Sica)
use of regional dialects
Social squalor was visually represented in the primitive kitchens, squalid
living rooms, peeling walls, torn
clothing....(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE_vhIB6yAo)
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damaged by the war and occupied by the evacuated and displaced people)
The truth was transfigured by poetry and lyricism
Different souls and paths
Late ‘40ies:
various directors developed variations to the
theme in their films in which the main
characters usually succeed in asserting their
humanity (Poetic or Historical Neorealism):
 Less sociological and more psychological
 More polished scripts
 More carefully constructed sets
 More conventional fictional theme
 More professional actors
Politics: Andreotti’s law and the censorship

1944: Christian Democratics dominated the politics of
Italy for almost 50 years

1946: Constitutional Referendum which established the
Italian Republic

1948: Italian Constitution

Andreotti’s law supported the film industry, but at the
same time denied export permits to any film depicting
Italy unfavorably (De Sica’s Umberto D.)
FIRST GENERATION POST-WAR DIRECTORS
L.VISCONTI
The “Aristocrat
and Marxist”
PRECURSOR: the
one who predicted
the potential
direction of Italian
realism!
The most elegant
visual sensitivity,
an almost
sensuously formal
approach to
camera movement
and composition
(1943)
(1948)
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ROSSELLINI: “Landscape as a companion of
consciousness”
landscape reflects internal states; sightseeing as a
powerful moral and emotional force.
War trilogy: Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero
(’45,’46,’ 47) Italian Resistance
Voyage to Italy (1953) : R. moved away from
Neorealism.
Women characters: Ingrid Bergman, Anna Magnani
Fellini_ The Flamboyant Romantic
Examining sensuality and spirituality
as a duality
Places of mystery, magic, grotesque:
circus, the variety theatre, nightclub,
the opera house;
Characters: in search of happiness,
love, meaning (and not for social
security)
Main women characters: Giulietta
Masina: a pure spirit of love in La
Strada (The Road, 1954), and Nights
of Cabiria, (1956)
Movies: fast, flamboyant, grotesque
and richly emotional
La Dolce Vita (1960, U.S release
1961)
8 ½ (1963)

Antonioni_ The abstract expressionist painter and
documentary photographer

landscape and characters as integrated mystery

Emotional resonance of the environment Nature/Architecture
to convey the internal states of the people within it

Trilogy which represents the mastery achieved and declares the
New Italian Cinema:

L’Avventura (1960) the fullest and most sensitive statement of
Antonioni’s vision

La Notte (1960)
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L’Eclisse(1962)
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Red Desert (1964): his first color film, the most revealing A’s
technique crucial step in the history of Expressionistic color
filmmaking )After Ivan The Terrible, Part II (1946)

Words are de-emphasized; are not very effective tool to
communicate feelings

Crucial elements: sound and colors
(influences from Eisenstein)

recurrent subjects: education “human are fallible”
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Theorema (1968): sexual
passion knows no
moral/social boundaries
Porcile (1968):
Cannibalism /capitalism
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Bertolucci and
Pasolini_ The two
most influential Auteurs
to emerge in the mid1960_
Political films “The
Eisestein and Vertov of
Italian political cinema
Abandon Neorealism
but not the poors and
politics
Movie: more abstract,
complexly structured.
ferociously aggressive
moral, political
investigations
Film language as a form
of visual-intellectual
poetry
Before the Revolution
(1964)
Last Tango in Paris
(1972)
SECOND GENERATION POST-WAR DIRECTORS
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GERMI: In the name of the law(1948)
Dominant theme: contrast of appearance and
reality
Satirical comedies: Divorce-Italian Style (1961, U.S
release 1962); Seduced and abandoned (1963)
MONICELLI
WERTMULLER
OLMI: the most Neorealistic (The Tree of Wooden
Clogs, 1978)
THIRD GENERATION POST-WAR DIRECTORS
Ettore SCOLA,
 PAOLO and VITTORIO TAVIANI
 Francesco ROSI
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Umberto D. (1952)V. De Sica)
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Umberto D. is a 1952 Italian neorealist film, directed
by Vittorio de Sica. Most of the actors were nonprofessional, including Carlo Battisti, who plays the
title role. It tells the story of Umberto Domenico
Ferrari (Carlo Battisti), an old man in Rome who is
desperately trying to keep his room on a small state
pension, but whose landlady (Lina Gennari) is
expecting to drive him out to fit her social lifestyle.
He tries to find the money but is unable to beg to his
richer friends, and cannot be helped by his only true
friends, a maid (Maria-Pia Casilio) and his dog, Flike
(called 'Flag' in some subtitled versions of the film).
The movie was in the "Time Magazine's All-Time 100
Movies" in the 2005.