Italian Neorealism in Film

Neorealism developed as a reaction against the Fascist film style that typified Italian cinema under Mussolini (Prince, 2004, p. 353).

Under Mussolini’s rule the film industry in Italy predominantly created epic historical films or upper-class melodramas that only served as a form of propaganda, advertising to the world the magnitude of the country. In reality the Italy was far from flourishing, plagued by unemployment, housing problems and severe poverty, the population was suffering, an idea not reflected in the Italian film industry. Having seen the difference in film to reality, filmmakers started to rebel against Mussolini’s tightly controlled movie industry and portray Italy as it was, choosing to focus on the everyday problems of its citizens.

Following Mussolini’s fall from power in 1943 filmmakers had a new freedom, until then movies were heavily censored to project a positive image of Italy, now filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini (1906 -1977), Vittorio De Sica (1902 – 1974) and Luchino Visconti (1906 – 1976) were give freedom to explore social, political and economic problems faced by the population. Now began a new kind of cinema, capturing the realities of the people, ‘the basic tenets of this movement were that cinema should focus on its own nature and its role in society and that it should confront audiences with their own reality’ (Hayward, 1996, p. 192). Hayward goes on further to state ‘it should project a slice of life; it should appear to enter and then leave everyday life’. A cinema of truth and ideas was their goal, but with very little money and no studio backing they had to use their ingenuity to get the message across.

Reality was the key to these films, so they took many measures to ensure this, firstly...

... middle of paper ...

...al issues.

Where the Italian filmmaker before them such as, De Sica and Visconti used political and factors, Kids used social issues such as sex and societal decline to convey its message. Social issues were a large part in Italian neorealism, in the Bicycle Thieves, the protagonist was living an impoverished life, stuck in a circle of poverty and lack of hope, in contrast, the social issues in Kids are shown as the white American dream being fraught with issues such as isolation, sexual health and race. These are used in the same way Rome, Open City used isolation and fear from the Nazi’s, it can be looked at in many ways, firstly, it was the class system thrown on its head, no longer lower class people struggling with wealth, but middle class kids suffering from self-caused problems. Although the content differs from Italian Neorealism, the styles are still there.