Neorealism

Neo-realism is the inaugural film movement that originated in Italy. Not since 1913 had Italy been an important film power. The huge silent spectacles of 1912 and 1913 were replaced by the Griffith films that were not only big but active. Early Italian film swung between the two-poles of pro-Mussolini propaganda and escapist comedies. These trends within Italian film makers furthered the inclination for free cinematic exertion. Neo-realism was a film movement that rose in response to the anti-fascist trend and Nazi occupation of Germany. It was a post world-war II phenomenon and emerged as a retort to ‘white telephone’ film. Similarly, it opposed the so called “white telephone pictures, dubbed such due to the inevitable white telephone in the fancily decorated apartments that served as sets for these films.” It’s hostility to the white telephone film arose, not only on an ocular level, but also from conflicting fundamental attitudes towards film. The white telephone films represent a lack in sophistication, failing to manifest the actuality of the Italian populace. Italian films under Mussolini were remarkably similar to those under Hitler. Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship during the early 1940’s created the necessary conditions conducive to an eventual renaissance in its cinema. The brutal repression of Mussolini conceived neo-realism. Neo-realism was a reply to the restriction of liberty after the fascist regime fell. Although Mussolini spent enormous amounts on the film industry in Italy, it lacked the free creative exertion, being driven by either dogma or nonsense. With the fall of the fascist regime erupted a new creative intensity in Italian film. The new freedom allowed the Italian film makers to combine their skill in making pictures with the subjects that interested them.

Cesare Zavattini was a prominent element in the neo-realist persuasion. He was a script writer for many of the neo-realist films. Zavattini defined the general principle of the genre as “to show things as they are, not as they seem. To use facts rather than fictions. To depict the common man rather than silken heroes. To reveal the every day rather than the exceptional. To show man’s relationship to his real society rather than to his romantic dreams.” The neo-realist film developed the influence of the social environment on basic human needs. The need for food, shelter, vocation, love, familial comforts and sexual gratification. Neo-realist films repeatedly show that unjust and perverse social structures threaten to distort essential and intrinsic human values.

The essential theme of the neo-realist film was the conflict between the contemporary common individual and immense societal forces that, while being external to him, completely determine his existence. First the war, after it the means of making a living and the struggle to keep a home and family together. “Neo-realist cinema is political in aspiration. It is posed with what is the formal methods of film.” It was a cinematic form of a popular resistance movement against utopianism. Moreover, when people left the political neo-realist film they were considered to have committed political betrayal. Similarly, neo-realism has its roots in a populist movement. It is both about and not about class struggles. There exists a strong rejection of Hollywood throughout the criterion of neo-realism. The stylistic markings of this type of film are that it is a realist cinema. Visually there was a slowing down of the image. It is essentially a slow cinema. Moreover, it is a film with “minimal sequence shots, insignificant editing and little close-ups.” In addition, neo-realist film is distinctly functional and deals with much space and time. Neo-realism, despite the social squalor and economic misery surrounding it, reveals central figures who assert the human and humanity within themselves. The films are about misery without surrendering to misery.

An example about neo-realism must include Vittorio DeSica’s brilliant film “The Bicycle Thieves.” It is considered to most representative embodiments of the neo-realist theory. The film is about degradation and perversion. It deals with a mysterious man who steals the protagonist’s bicycle and with the protagonist himself, who eventually becomes a bicycle thief out of necessity. Through use of the opening shots, DeSica begins his development of the kind of social environment that turns men into bicycle thieves. DeSica’s camera constantly emphasizes things that are embraced by the masses rather than the exceptional few. There are many men who are unemployed. Furthermore, these men have wives and children to support. The individual whose bicycle is stolen, Antonio, is among the lucky few who has a job. However, his bicycle is the reason he is employed. Thus, upon the theft of his