Italian Neorealism, 1945-1951Part two

Lecture 24

ITALIAN NEOREALISM: STYLE• *Mise-en-scene*

– 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. First film of the movement2. Manichean poles of good and evil3. Plot linearity and tight causal links4. Retains dramatic/melodramatic effects5. Constructs a unified national myth and a

sense of Italian solidarity6. Optimistic ending7. 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 movement2. Stylistic severity– Dead time– dedramatization

3. Episodic plot structure4. Dissolution of the sense of solidarity after the war5. Pessimistic about the postwar period6. City defined by alienation and separation7. 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)