Realist Film Movements

1. Realist Film Movements Neorealismo (2) Films of Vittoria De Sica

2. 1) Neorealismo as personal film 2) Films of Vittorio De Sica 3) Ladri di biciclette 4) CesareZavattini

3. Neorealismo as Personal Film • Traditional films - studio bound; genre bound; star bound: the studio, genre and star dictate the way a film is made. • Films made according to the studio’s production interest and plan; to genre requirements; and to the demand of stars. • Personal films reflect film makers’ personal concerns – Neorealist films.

4. PERSONAL CONCERNS and INTERESTSof Neorealist filmsare … • Ordinary lives in the post-war era • Social issues - unemployment, immigration poverty, social and moral decay, political corruption • Lives of ordinary people in ordinary situation

5. Influence of French Poetic Realism • Films in the 1930s by Julian Duvivier, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Jean Vigo, Jacques Feyder and others • Ordinary people living in ordinary situation involves in tragic affairs. • Ordinary lives of ordinary people are portrayed in lyrical, but realistic images • Location, sets, costume, make-up without embellishment or glamorization.

6. JulienDuvivier, Pepe le Moko

7. Jean Renoir, Toni

8. Marcel Carné, Le Jour se lève

9. What is realism in literature? ‘… more extensive and socially inferior human groups to the position of subject matter [in literature].’ (Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, p.491)

10. Jean Renoir, La Bête humaine (1938) • Based on Emile Zola’s naturalist novel, it is a story about an engine driver who murders his lover who asked him to kill her husband.

11. Jean Renoir, Toni (1935) • Based on a police dossier, it is about a crime of passion. An Italian immigrant worker in a Provencal quarry is entangled in complicated love affairs and jealousy.

12. Marcel Carné, Le Jour se leve(1939) • A foundry worker is forced to murder a man who betrays and tricks him.

13. Neorealismo as Personal Film • A captain of a canal verge is estranged from his wife but they reunite after a sad separation in Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante

14. Subject matters – ordinary people who are in ordinary situation but fail to gain ordinary happiness. • Stories of ordinary people in authentic settings • No idealization, no flattery, not larger-than-life portraying

15. Films of Vittorio De Sica • Vittorio de Sica (1902-1974) • A matinée idol turned into a film director. • The collaboration with CezareZavattini lead to the three great neorealist films

16. Sciusciá (Shoeshine, 1946) - two shoeshine boys save money by delivering black-market goods to buy a horse. They are caught and sent to overcrowded boys prison. One boy betrays the other and after their release the latter kills the former by mistake.

17. Ladri di biciclette(Bicycle Thieves, 1948) - a man in Rome found a job after two years’ waiting on the condition that he has his own bike. It is stolen on the very first day in his job. He searches all over Rome with his son. In desperation he himself turns to a bicycle thief.

18. Bicycle Thieves Elements which made Bicycle Thieves a ‘realist’ film in its day ①subject matters ②narrative strays ③the use of non-actors and location shooting ④no facile solution to the problem illustrated ⑤other aforementioned techniques (casual co- mposition, no fancy mise-en-scène or montage, grainy photography, documentary style)

19. Bicycle Thieves • Subject matters: Unemployment, poverty, petite crime, disintegration of the society in the post-war Italy

20. BicycleThieves • Narrative strays • Bruno tries to pee during the hot chase of the thief who may have stolen his father’s bike.

21. Bicycle Thieves • Non-professional actor: LambertoMaggiorani was a factory worker found by De Sica.

22. Bicycle Thieves • Bicycle Thieves was shot entirely on location in various places in Rome – Piazza Vittorio, PortaPortese market, and the River Tiber.

23. Lungotevere, Rome

24. Bicycle Thieves • No facile solution made though it looks as if father might restore his son’s trust in him. Father will remain unemployed and the family will face more difficulties. Typical open ending.

25. UmbertoD (1952) - a retired civil servant, pensioner, finds difficult to make end meet in ridiculous inflation. He is kicked out of his apartment and has to abandon his dog, his only possession and companion.

26. Umberto D Elements which made Umberto D a ‘realist’ film in its day ①subject matters ②narrative strays ③the use of non-actors and location shooting ④no facile solution to the problem illustrated ⑤other aforementioned techniques (casual composition, no fancy mise-en-scène or montage, grainy photography, documentary style

27. Umberto D • Subject matters: hyper-inflation after WWII, poverty, disintegration of the community, aging, animal welfare

28. Umberto D • Narrative strays: a moment of solace. Maria, a maidservant of the lodgings is the only person who understands and care for Umberto.

29. Umberto D • Umberto was played by Carlo Battisti, the linguistics professor (dialects) at University of Florence, had no acting experience before and after the film.

30. Umberto D • Umberto D was shot entirely in Rome. The begging sequence was shot at Piazza Rotondo (Pantheon) in historic centre of the city.

31. Pantheon, Rome

32. Umberto D • No facile solution. Umberto failed to kill himself and his dog and more problems are expected to torment them. Another typical open ending.

33. Ceare Zavattini • Screenwriter, director, painter, writer and theorist • Collaborated with Vittorio De Sica in Sciusciá, Ladri di bicicletteand Umberto D • Teacher at Centro Sperimentale di Cinema • Critic at Bianco e nero PURIST

34. Ceare Zavattini ‘A well-know American producer told me, “This is how we would imagine a scene with an airplane. The plane passes by … a machine gun fires … the plane is crashed. And this is how you would imagine it. The plane passes by … the plane passes by … the plane passes by once more.”’ CezareZavattini, ‘Some Ideas on Cinema’

35. Cesare Zavattini • ‘The dream of Zavattini is just to make a ninety-minute film of the life of a man to whom nothing ever happens.’ (Andre Bazin on CesareZavattini) • The duration of actual time is equal to that of film’s narrative time. • ‘Little-man' principle’ – ‘a hole in the wall of a family house in order to peep inside.’