Tony McNeill

1. Tony McNeill Introduction and Contextualization Neorealism/Postwar Italian Cinema/Postwar Italy Brief Analysis of Film Seminar Discussion church/restaurant scene tony.mcneill@sunderland.ac.uk

3. Italian Neorealism Roberto Rossellini Luchino Visconti Vittorio De Sica Carlo Lizzani Cesare Zavattini

4. Luchino Visconti b.1906 d.1976 Ossessione (1942) La terra trema (1948) Bellissima (1951)

5. Ossessione unauthorized adaptation of James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice set amongst ordinary people in the Po delta �the movie is a concoction of repulsive passions, humiliation and decay. It is an offense to the Italian people, the life it pretends to portray on a thoroughly imaginary and impossible level.� (Avvenire d'Italia) �This is not Italy!� (Vittorio Mussolini)

6. Roberto Rossellini b.1906 d.1977 Roma citt� aperta (1945) Pais� (1946) Germania anno zero (1947)

7. Roma citt� aperta Shot in the streets while the Germans still occupied Rome heroic unity of Italian nation (e.g. Communist and Catholic fighting against the Nazis) hope of political renewal in the postwar years

8. Vittorio De Sica b.1901 d.1974 actor (150 films) Sciusci� (1946) Ladri di biciclette (1948) Miracolo a Milano (1951) Umberto D (1952)

9. Italian Neorealism Method: real-life locations non-professional/unknown actors Attitude: desire to represent ordinary life as accurately as possible Subject: il popolo - working-class life Politics: anti-fascist, anger at slow pace of change in postwar Italy

10. Location Shooting Roma citt� aperta Bicycle Thieves � and many more

11. Non-professional Actors Enzo Staiola who plays Bruno Ricci was discovered by the film crew Lamberto Maggiorani who plays Antonio Ricci was a non-professional actor chosen by De Sica

12. Ordinary Life The Bicycle Thieves the best example the Ricci family�s struggle to survive in postwar Italy

13. Ordinary Life refusal to glamourize rejection of �Hollywood� values and escapism of telephoni bianchi films of the fascist era

14. Working-class Life not seen in any fully developed way before heroism and beauty of everyday Italians Left: Anna Magnani

15. Italian Neorealism There must be no gap between life and what is on the screen ... I want to meet the real protagonist of everyday life ... Neorealism has perceived that the most irreplacable experience comes from things happening under our eyes, from natural necessity. [�] the ideal film would be ninety minutes of the life of a man to whom nothing happens. Cesare Zavattini

16. Italian Neorealism My purpose ... is to find the element of drama in daily situations, the marvellous in the news, indeed, in the local news, considered by most people as worn-out materials. Vittorio De Sica

17. Italian Neorealism Why seek extraordinary adventures when we are presented daily with artless people who are filled with real distress? It has been a long time since literature first discovered that modern dimension of small things, that sstate of mind once considered too �common�. [�] Thus my film is dedicated to the suffering of the humble. Vittorio De Sica

18. Italian Neorealism Neorealism found allies on the Left realism in general has positive connotations (involvement with the working class, clarity, engagement with ordinary life etc.) The Communists saw it as part of progressive Italian cultural tradition (i.e. it shows working people struggling for what is legitimately theirs in a context of social inequality)

19. Italian Neorealism Neorealism found detractors on the Right the Christian Democrats took exception to the representation of social inequalities, poverty, lawlessness and delinquency Neorealist films showed Italy in a poor light, presenting an unfavourable image of Italians to the outside world the strength of the Christian Democrats in the early 1950s led to the demise of Neorealism

20. Italian Neorealism Neorealism was a spent force after 1952, superceded by light-hearted variants - the so-called Neorealismo rosa growing dominance of other genres - romantic comedies and peplum films like Ulysses (1954) � but influenced a range of national cinemas (France, Spain, Greece, Latin America, Indian sub-continent)

21. Cinema in Postwar Italy Fascist government of Mussolini (1922-1943) carefully controlled film production fall of Mussolini (1943) left a vacuum in the Italian film industry infrastructure (e.g. Cinecitt� in Rome) badly damaged protectionist legislation dismantled - influx of US product (five year backlog of 2,000 films)

22. Cinema in Postwar Italy Guilio Andreotti, state under-secretary for culture introduced law in 1949 la legge Andreotti limited imports and provided loans for domestic production a government committee - Direzione Generale del Spectacolo - read film scripts and approved projects. by the late 1940s and early 1950s the Italian film industry was effectively under state control

23. Cinema in Postwar Italy church censorship via the Centro Cattolico Cinematografico certified films according to their suitability for exhibition in parish cinemas 1945-1955 4,500 parish cinemas were opened to combat the Communist menace With the support of the Christian Democrats, parish cinemas suceeded in limiting screenings of Neorealist films whose influence they felt to be less than morally uplifting

24. Cinema in Postwar Italy church censorship via the Centro Cattolico Cinematografico certified films according to their suitability for exhibition in parish cinemas 1945-1955 4,500 parish cinemas were opened to combat the Communist menace With the support of the Christian Democrats, parish cinemas suceeded in limiting screenings of Neorealist films whose influence they felt to be less than morally uplifting

25. The Bicycle Thieves De Sica initially unable to find investors and a distributor doubts about commercial viability of the film according to legend, David O Selznick of RKO only agreed to finance and distribute if Cary Grant was given the leading role De Sica eventually secured finance from a small consortium of Italian businessmen and distribution from the state-owned ENIC distribution company

26. The Bicycle Thieves cost of 100, 000, 000 lire or �50,000 at the then rate of exchange - small budget for UK film of the period but huge for Italian film Porta Portese market scene - 40 stallholders hired to work as extras Roman fire brigade paid to provide rain and douse Antonio and Bruno with water theft and escape scene involved 6 cameras, some of them concealed in cars 6 writers worked on script

27. The Bicycle Thieves exemplary Neorealist film (e.g. narrative, setting, non-professional actors etc.) script by Cesare Zavattini (member of Italian Communist Party) adapted from a novel by Luigi Bartolini story initially from a newspaper fatti di cronaca

28. The Bicycle Thieves No more actors, no more plot, no more mise-en-sc�ne. It is in the end the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality: no more cinema. [�] one of the first examples of pure cinema. Andr� Bazin

29. The Bicycle Thieves unemployment in Italy in 1948 was around 22% or 4 million workers the economy was still weak acute poverty in agrarian south

30. The Bicycle Thieves devaluation/dedramatization of content unsettles plot linearity - no strong sense of causality (one damn thing after another) 54 scenes separated by simple dissolves blurring of the distinction between major and linking scenes

31. The Bicycle Thieves The Vatican newspaper L'osservatore romano criticized the film for its harse depiction of Catholic charities. Over fifty years later, however, the film appeared in the Vatican's list of best 45 films in the section on values. (Il venerdi repubblica, 29 January 1999)

32. The Bicycle Thieves long takes and depth of field suggest Antonio�s isolation stark walls and windows and straight lines suggest impersonal world Antonio and his family inhabit

33. The Bicycle Thieves Antonio trapped in uncomprehending society loses everything - job, respect, hope etc.- and is criminalized in the process