Realist Film Movements

1. Realist Film Movements Neorealismo (1) Films of Roberto Rossellini

2. Table of Contents • Neorealismo • Roberto Rossellini • Roma, Citta Aperta and Other Films '… as the theatrical sense of drama stems from reality, people in real situations will produce drama…' Richard Leacock

3. Neorealismo Documentary Films and Fiction Films DIFFERENCE? • Documentary Films → To be true to what they depict; to reflect truthfully the issue they raise

4. Neorealismo • Fiction Films → free to shape and alter what they tell to suit the needs of the story. We cannot ask whether they are true to facts and circumstances outside themselves, but we can ask whether they create a convincing make-believe.

5. Neorealismo Italian NEOREALISMO • One of the first conscious attempts in the fiction film to be true to facts and circumstances • Classical American Films - conscious attempts to create a convincing make-believe • Filmmaking ‘movement’ in the mid- and late 1940s.

6. Neorealismo • One of the first significant alternatives to the Hollywood-style realist aesthetics. • Neorealismo - the name given by hindsight to the films of such directors as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Giuseppe di Santis, Pietro Germi and Luchino Visconti • Documentary-style rendering of actual lives

7. Neorealismo • The Parma Conference on Neorealismo in 1953 COMMON FEATURES - ideological • a new democratic spirit, with emphasis on the value of ordinary people • a compassionate point of view and a refusal to make facile (easy) moral judgements

8. Neorealismo COMMON FEATURES - ideological • a preoccupation with Italy‘s Fascist past and the aftermath of the wartime devastation • a blending of Christian and Marxist humanism • an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract idea

9. Neorealismo • COMMON FEATURES - sylistic • an avoidance of neatly plotted stories in favor of loose, episodic structures • a documentary visual style • the use of actual locations--usually exteriors--rather than studio sites • the use of nonprofessional actors, even for principal roles

10. Neorealismo COMMON FEATURES - sylistic • use of conversational speech, not literary dialogue • avoidance of artifice in editing, camerawork, and lighting in favor of a simple "styless" style

11. Roberto Rossellini • Roberto Rossellini • Father of Italian Neo-realismo • 1906-1977 • Director and screenwriter

12. Pre-Roberto Rossellini • Italian realism before Neorealismo and Rossellini • Realist impulse in literature and cinema • ‘We are convinced that one day we will create our most beautiful film following the slow and tired step of the worker who returns home.’ Di Santis and Mario Alicata (1941) • Reaction to the filmmaking tradition in Italy - historical epic, fantasy and romantic melodrama (‘telefono bianco’)

13. Pre-Roberto Rossellini • Neorealist and neorealistic films before Rossellini • Alessandro Blasetti’s Four Steps in the Cloud (1942), Vittorio De Sica’s The Children Are Watching Us (1943), Ossessione (1943)

14. Roberto Rossellini • War-time trilogies made with Federico Fellini - Propaganda films

15. Roberto Rossellini • Two months before the liberation of Rome, Rossellini prepared for making the self-financed film, Roma, Citta Aperta with the help from Fellini and Aldo Fabruzzi

16. Roma, citta aperta • Roma, Citta Aperta (Rome, Open City, 1945) The (half-) true story of the struggle against the German troops occupying Rome and a priest executed by Nazis.

17. Roma, Citta Aperta IMPROVISATION AND SCRIPT • Rossellini never used a script in a conventional sense. His script was collectively written and showed only its narrative outline. The film is based on blended pieces of the true stories which took place in the winter of 1943-44.

18. Roma, Citta Aperta LOCATION SHOOTING • 'Take the camera out into the streets' Rossellini avoided studios whenever possible. • (Imaginary) geography created out of various settings and places. Roma, Citta Aperta was one of the rare films which kept to the correct streets and directions of the city in which it was filmed.

19. Roma, Citta Aperta

20. Roma, Citta Aperta

21. Roma, Citta Aperta NON-PROFESSIONAL ACTORS • Mainly amateur actors with some professionals in the key roles. • ‘… In order to really create the character that one has in mind, it is necessary for the director to engage in a battle with his actor which usually ends with submitting to the actor’s wish. Since I do not have the desire to waste my energy in a battle like this, I only use professional actors occasionally.’ Roberto Rossellini

22. Roma, Citta Aperta • Only professional actors are uesed • Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi

23. Roma, Citta Aperta • GRAINY PHOTOGRAPHY • Documentary feel • The film owes its uneven look to the stock, some of which was given by the American occupation army or bought from street photographers.

24. Grainy and out-of focus photography

25. Washed-out colour

26. Roma, Citta Aperta Montage • Pina's death scene: the imitation of our real experience. We hear a crack (though, we do not see the one who has shot her) - we see her fall - we make connection. Briefness, the episode told by sound.

27. Roma, Citta Aperta REALITY EFFECT • Non-diegetic scenes and realistic details • Small incidental details → a choirboy kicks a German soldier; another soldier molests Pina; a long ladder in Pina's stockings must be noticed.

28. Roma, Citta Aperta 'This is the way things are.’ Roberto Rossellini -- A motto of neorealismo

29. War-time Trilogy • Paisa (1946) • Six episodes of the Allied advance from the South at the end of WWII. • Germania, Anno Zero (1948) • A story of a German boy in Berlin under occupation.