Readings:

• The Bicycle Thief

Mandatory movie for this learning unit:

• The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

• Film movement lasting from 1943 to 1952.
• The term is a creation of the Film critic Umberto Barbaro.
• The other theorist of this artistic style was Cesare Zavatinni,
• Zavatinni wrote:
  • “The ideal film would be ninety minutes of the life of a man to whom nothing happens”.
• Neorealist directors wanted to take distance from the escapism of the Hollywood star system, which, in their opinion, only produced shallow and banal movies.
• They were also against the propaganda movies of the fascist time.
• The Neorealism was also a stylistic fashion, and most of the directors evolved and tried other genres and styles in the course of their career.

Historical Background

• 1942 – Visconti’s “Ossesione” is released.
• Sep. 1943 – Italy broke with Germany.
• Oct 1943 – Italy declared war on Germany.
• June 1944 – Rome is liberated.
• Spring 1945 – Fighting ends.
• April 1945 – Mussolini is lynched.
• Sep. 1945 – “Roma, Città Aperta” is released.

Thematic Motives

• Resistance against Fascism (fight against Mussolini and the German occupation).
• Political involvement:
  • After the traumatic experience with the fascism, most of the directors had a high political consciousness. Some of them, like Roberto Rosellini or Luchino Visconti, were during that time members of the PCI (Italian Communist Party).
• Social Consciousness:
  • The directors frequently set their stories among poor and working class.
  • The Neorealism tries to depict the terrible conditions in the post war life in the everyday Italian life.
  • Defeat, poverty and desperation are always present.
• Children play a key role in most of these movies. They are the victims of the terrible situation and, at the same time, the observers of the struggles and tragedies of their parents.

Style Elements

• Motto: “Simplicity is beauty”
• Film-makers avoided any kind of sophistication – as a way to pay respect to the simple lives they try to depict.
• Naturalistic “mise-en-scène”. (They had no other way because the traditional Cinecittà studios in Rome, where Italian pictures were produced, were totally destroyed during the liberation of Rome in 1944. The directors had to take their cameras into the Italian Streets and they selected poor neighborhoods and the countryside).
• They shoot with available light.
• Their goal was to attain a documentary-like spontaneity.
• Frequently, they worked with non-professional actors to achieve more credibility.
• They improvised dialogues and frame compositions.
• To make the realistic effect stronger, they also give up camera movements (tracking or crane shoots).

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Filmmakers

Roberto Rosellini (1906 – 1977)

• The most political of all neorealist directors – and also the most intellectual.
• For some years he was a member of the PCI (the already mentioned Italian Communist Party)
• For many critics, he is the real creator of Neorealism with his movie Roma, Città Aperta (Rome, Open City,1945)
• This movie, that was shot when the Germans were still in Italy, is a description of the life of the most humble people of Rome during the time of the German occupation. Children, play an important role in this movie.
• The other two movies that form Rossellini’s war trilogy are:
  • Paisá (Paisan, 1947).
  • Germania, Anno Zero (Germany, Year Zero, 1947)
• His films became more and more intellectual in the course of time, and less and less intelligible.
• We have to wait ten years to find another notable movie:
  • General Della Rovere (starring Vittorio de Sica).
• They lost the freshness of the first neorealist movies, although kept the heavy political content.

Vittorio de Sica (1901 – 1974)

• He already was a popular actor when he started his career as director.
• Movies as an actor:
  • Gli Uomini, Che Mascalzoni (1932)
  • Il Signor Max (1937)
  • General Della Rovere (1959 – directed by Roberto Rossellini).
• In the 1940ies he started to work with Cesare Zavatinni, the intellectual creator of Neorealism, and together wrote the best movies of this film movement, and the movies with the deepest social denunciation:
  • Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946)
  • Ladri Di Biciclette (Bicycle Thief, 1948)
  • Umberto D. (1952)
• For all this movies, he used unknown and non-professional actors.
• He also develop from Neorealism. His later movies are much more sentimental, but always intelligent and with a deeply human sense of humor.
• Some highlights:
  • Miracolo A Milano (Miracle in Milan, 1951)
  • La Ciociara (Two Women, 1961)
  • Matrimonio All’Italiana (Marriage Italian-Style, 1964)

Ladri Di Bicciclette (The Bicycle Thief, 1948)