Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Strength and weakness of neo realism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In this essay I will look at the emergence of Italian neo-realist cinema and how Italian Neo-realism has been defined and classified in the film industry as well as how its distinct cinematic characteristics could only have been conceived in Italy and how these characteristics set the neo-realist style apart from other realist movements and from Hollywood.
The Italian Neo-Realist movement began to emerge with the fall of Mussolini's Fascist regime in 1943 and was able to entirely establish itself with the end of World War II with the end of German occupation. This caused audiences all around the globe to be “suddenly introduced to Italian films” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.) through works by “Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977), Vittorio De Sica (1902–1974), and Luchino Visconti (1906–1976)” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.). With the oppressive shackles of fascist censorship now gone, Italian directors began to pursue a new style of cinematic realism. A style which combined the realist cinema and German expressionism that was already present during the fascist era but combining it with new unexplored topics such as social, political and economic issues that the regime would simply not of tolerated. As a result neo-realist cinema often took a critical approach to how it viewed Italian society and culture and tended to focus attention towards the social issues the country was facing. With directors often looking at the effects of the “resistance, post-war poverty and chronic unemployment” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.). Neo-realism for many Italian’s allowed them to “put an image to the resistance” (Ratner, n.d.) which before the emergence of neo-realist cinema had seen little to n...
... middle of paper ...
...ved with the characters but also allows the audience to see how difficult life was in post war Italy.
Works Cited
Associated Press. Published in The New York Times. Lamberto Maggiorani Obituary. April 24, 1983. Last accessed: April 6, 2011.
Famodimu, J. (2006). Neorealism. Available At: http://www.ayjw.org/articles.php?id=545333. Last accessed 6th April 2011.
Film Reference.com. (n.d.). Historical Origins of Italian Neorealism. Available at: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Neorealism-HISTORICAL-ORIGINS-OF-ITALIAN-NEOREALISM.html (Last accessed 29th Mar 2011.)
Forgacs, David. (2004). Space Rhetoric and the Divided City in Roma città aperta. Gottlieb, Sidney. Ed. 2004. Cambridge
Megan Ratner. (n.d.). Italian Neo-Realism . Available At: http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/neorealism1.jsp. Last accessed 6th April 2011.
Although distinctive melodramatic traditions developed in multiple countries, the Italian model is the most similar to that of the 1970's epic. While some melodramatic traditions evolved through novels or the theatre, "in Italy, ...
Ginsborg P (1990). ‘A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics: 1943-1980’ Published by Penguin; Reprint edition (27 Sep 1990).
To draw the conclusion, it can be effectively said that it is very difficult to incorporate the ideas contained in books into films, especially when one has to prove some theory. Pasolini has done it successfully by incorporating his film theory contained in the book Heretical Empricism into the film Mamma Roma. Pasolini’s creativity is an integral part of the classical art. He gave his life to change the world for the better through his films. He has not only presented his socialistic thoughts in the film, but also included religious motifs of Christianity to show the plight of a woman in this materialistic society. The development of unforgettable emotions and memories are guaranteed in return. Modern society should know and remember the
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
These days more and more audience like to see their beloved actors and actresses portray superhero or heroine figure in spandex suit blasting laser beam from their eyes, turn into fire then fly away to outer space, or even a scientist who turn into a huge, green, car-throwing, head-smashing monster with indestructible pants when he transforms. But not small amount audience like films with classical-antiquity geographical and timeline set such as Ben-Hur, 300, Spartacus, etc. Antiquity and modernity always be an important part in filmmaking, whether in its screenplay, set design or character design. In some movies these aspect can be shown separately or combined in sort of a new way in filmmaking.
Bondanella, Peter. (2009), A History of Italian Cinema, NY, The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
From the beginning of cinema as an art form to cinema today, film has evolved and developed drastically. Each era of film from the Silent Film to the French New Wave was influenced by prior film generations and influenced those films that came after it. The era of Silent Film was very basic as it emerged when motion pictures had only begun. Across the sea, the age of German Expressionism, a film genre with features of the Silent Film era which conveyed the German people's struggle after World War I had started. Afterwards, the Studio Era surfaced and portrayed larger than life heroes in narratives with the gloss of a storybook. During the Studio Era, films like these were produced quickly because of success and began to appear mass produced
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The Godfather is the “dark-side of the American dream story” (Turan, pp2). The film follows the practices of a fictional Italian mafia family, the Corleone’s. Though most Americans do not condone the practices of the Italian mafia, they cannot deny that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a cinematic masterpiece. This film gave insight to a mysterious way of life that the average person does not have knowledge of. As the audience is educated about the mafia they also are introduced to many stereotypes.
Since the beginning of its existence as a country, Italy has faced enormous challenges in establishing itself as a unified political and social entity. The geographic, economic, and linguistic differences between its various regions and the artificial manner in which they were amalgamated created a legacy of internal divisions that continues to dominate the country's political climate to this day. Italy's numerous historical fiascoes, such as its disastrous involvement in the two World Wars and the rise of fascism, further escalated the domestic problems that had haunted it since the Risorgimento. At first, the anti-fascist Resistance movement, which dominated the end of World War II, seemed to bring Italy a ray of hope, promising a new era of freedom, reform, and democratic representation. However, this hope was quickly extinguished, as widespread poverty, government corruption, and deep divisions between regions and classes persisted and no true social reform was attained. These harsh conditions were depicted by a group of Italian film directors whose neorealist works have since been celebrated as masterpieces of world cinema. One of the most prominent of these is Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief. This 1948 film discusses the prevalent themes dominating Italy's social and political history, within the context of the unsettlingly poor post-War urban proletariat.
Brown, Patricia Fortini. Art and Life In Renaissance Venice. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997.
It is no doubt that Martin Scorsese has heavily influenced the emulating of American film making from European influences. He is a prime example of a ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ director, not only from his ethnicity and background, but from his sheer interest in this form
Before the dawn of Neorealism, Italy was under great turmoil in the early 1920s suffering from major economic crisis, bank failures and a collapsing government, which would also mean a collapse in the Italian film industry and the ‘Silent Era’ of cinema (Roberts, 2005). When Benito Mussolini took control as the 40th Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 the revival of Italian cinema would be once again be relived, but this time ruled under the control and guidance by Mussolini and his fascist government (Bondanella, 2001).
In the 1950’s there was an emergence of new film practices. It started with the introduction of the French New Wave Cinema. A group of filmmakers who wanted to start creating films that were different than the classic Hollywood Cinema. Andre Bazin was one of these filmmakers, and he started a seri...
Martini, G. (2013) I Festival sono ancora necessari?, Spec. Issue of 8 ½- Numeri, visioni e prospettive del cinema italiano (2013).