Italian Neo-Realism Cinema

1864 Words4 Pages

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...

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...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.

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