Transcript Italian neorealism 2 for wiki

Italian Neorealism, 1945-1951
Part two
Lecture 24
ITALIAN NEOREALISM: STYLE
• *Mise-en-scene*
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Location shooting
Non-professional actors
Vernacular dialogue
Natural lighting
• Editing
– Continuity editing
– Unobtrusive
• Camerawork
– Long takes
– Stable camera
– Medium and long shots
ITALIAN NEOREALISM:
NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING
• Loosening of plot linearity and causal links
– Chance encounters
– Missing causes for events (ex: Paisá; Rome Open City)
– Unresolved endings
• Ex: Rome Open City; Paisá; Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D
– Episodic (dictated by passage of time rather than importance of events
to the action)
• Ex: Bicycle Thief
– Dead time/dwelling on “microactions”
• Ex: Umberto D
• Consequences of the loosening of plot linearity
– Dedramatization: “Big events” and “small events” become
indistinguishable
• Treated in the same way with the same care
– The daily and familiar become the object of scrutiny
– Generic/tonal mixing (ex: Rome Open City—comedy and tragedy)
Rome Open City (Rossellini, 1945):
Not a paradigm exemplar of Italian neorealism
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
First film of the movement
Manichean poles of good and evil
Plot linearity and tight causal links
Retains dramatic/melodramatic effects
Constructs a unified national myth and a
sense of Italian solidarity
6. Optimistic ending
7. Commercial success
Rome Open City: Catholic undertones
Umberto D (Vittorio de Sica, 1951):
Stylistically Paradigm Case
• André Bazin: “In Umberto D one catches a
glimpse, on a number of occasions, of what a
truly realist cinema of time could be, a cinema
of “duration.”
• André Bazin: “…what is so unsettling about
Umberto D is primarily the way it rejects any
relationship to traditional film spectacle.”
Umberto D (Vittorio de Sica, 1051):
Paradigm case
1. One of the last films of the movement
2. Stylistic severity
– Dead time
– dedramatization
3. Episodic plot structure
4. Dissolution of the sense of solidarity after the
war
5. Pessimistic about the postwar period
6. City defined by alienation and separation
7. Commercial failure
ITALIAN NEOREALISM:
NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING
• Loosening of plot linearity and causal links
– Chance encounters
– Missing causes for events
– Unresolved endings
• Ex: Rome Open City; Paisá; Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D
– Episodic (dictated by passage of time rather than
importance of events to the action)
• Ex: Bicycle Thief
– Dead time/dwelling on “microactions”
• Ex: Umberto D
ITALIAN NEOREALISM:
NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING
• Consequences of the loosening of plot
linearity
– Dedramatization: “Big events” and “small events”
become indistinguishable
• Treated in the same way with the same care
– The daily and familiar become the object of
scrutiny
– Generic/tonal mixing (ex: Rome Open City—
comedy and tragedy)