“You live and you suffer” — a translated quote from Antonio (from the film The Bicycle Thief), is a brief statement that summarizes the feelings of those who lived in the post world war II “civilization”. This paper will preview Italian Neorealism, and the way it’s elements are incorporated into the movie “The Bicycle Thief” to reveal the ideal Italian setting, as it was after the second world war.
Italian Neorealism was a nationwide film movement that occurred between 1945-1952. It portrayed the psychological, physical and economical effects that were faced in a Post World War II society. Italian Neorealism was aimed to show the adverse outcomes; including hopelessness, pauperism and inequity — caused by the war.
The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, 1948), is a film set in such a society; post-war Italy. The main character, Antonio Ricci, tries to find work to fend for his family; wife and two children. When he finally finds an opportunity, the job requires him to have a bicycle. His wife manages to raise enough money by selling their bed sheets to the Pawn broker so Antonio may get a bicycle, which is later stolen whilst he is hanging posters. The movie subsequently follows Antonio’s quest to find his stolen bicycle.
De Sica aims to depict what is going on in a post war society by incorporating features from the Italian Neorealism film movement, but also by adding some of the typical Hollywood elements that ensure the film is entertaining. He does this through creating a film that feels as if the viewer is experiencing real life events being captured, as opposed to watching a scripted play. To achieve this, the film did not have a “set”. The movie was shot in a documentary style to ensure that a connection was made between...
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The story unfolds with the increasing limitations on the rights of Jewish people in Italy. Mussolini 's racial laws are beginning to take force on the rights of the Jewish people. Prohibitions such as no servants, no library
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A set of practices concerning the narrative structure compose the classical Hollywood Paradigm. These conventions create a plot centering around a character who undergoes a journey in an attempt to achieve some type of goal (). By giving the central character more time on screen, the film helps the audience to not only understand the character’s motivation but also empathize with his/her emotional state. Additionally, some antagonistic force creates conflict with the main character, preventing immediate success(). Finally, after confronting the antagonist, the main character achieves his or her goal along with growing emotionally(). This proven structure creates a linear and relatively easily followed series of events encompassing the leading character and a goal.
Italian neorealism emerged after World War II, and had profound historical and cultural impacts on society and the film industry. Three specific traits of neorealist style included, but were not limited to: the use of working class characters (non-professional actors); the use of real locations as settings; and open, oftentimes unhappy, endings. In the closing scene from Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948), all three of these neorealist elements are present.
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.
Bicycle Thieves portrays the economic turmoil of Italy at the time and the moral chaos of its society. There is a significant message concerning the working class. The idea of individual conflict and struggle is diminutive in comparison to the conveyed struggle of the masses. Such notions are evident when Ricco and his wife Maria pawn their bedsheets in attempts to reclaim Ricco’s bike. The audience is confronted with the shot of the pawn broker climbing a huge set of shelves to toss Ricco and Maria’s bed linen among many hundreds more.
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...
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.
After Scorsese’s father asking him a question about a character, a young Martin raised his fingers to make an impression of him shooting a gun. This image is one of the most memorable images in Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver, where we see Robert De Niro repeating the same image pointing to his temples. This image is shown at the height of the film. When Scorsese got a television at home, no more did he have to leave his house to engross himself in the most recent movie best seller. Already we can see Scorsese’s love of filmmaking from an extremely young
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).
Bicycle Thieves is considered an example of Italian Neo-realism. The plot demonstrates Italians of the working class in Italy and unfolds their day to day lives. One could argue it portray the reality and develops into an emotional storyline towards the end. Antonio, the main character is offered a job requiring a bicycle and on his first day it was stolen on the streets. You immediately feel drawn to the character as you want to see a happy ending. Watching the film, automatically feel sorry for him as he’s got no money and needs to make a living as soon as possible for his wife with two children to support. From the close ups and observational shots it clearly shows he is desperate as Antonio and his son Bruno go around searching for it for hours. The opening sequence uses the conventions of documentary to introduce the film giving an impression of realism and authenticity, which attracted me to the film instantly. These shots were used to capture realism. The function of this scene is to illustrate the nature of surrounding and an insight of Italy at this time.
The neorealism is also known to be quite larger than just film it’s a movement that is in politics and in socialism and is clearly seen as a movement made by the Italian people to provide reality to their people and to the world and they used that concept through their cinema.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
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