Understanding Italian Neorealism: Key Filmmakers & Legacy

[00:00:00]The film movement known as Italian Neorealism  was one of the most important in cinema history and left a massive legacy on the art form.  The movement took place in the 1940s and 50s and was heavily impacted by the conditions of  post-WW2 Italy. The fascist regime led by Benito Mussolini that fell in 1943 strictly censored the  film industry, and its demise led to new artistic freedom. However, fascism also caused a general  disillusionment about the world among Italians, which is clearly visible  in the Neorealism movement.

[00:00:33]Neorealism had a monumental influence on  cinema, especially art house films. Two huge ways in which it did so were shooting  on location as opposed to in studios, and the use of first-time untrained actors.  Neorealist films also had a cynical outlook on life and often focused on the working class  or other marginalized members of society.

[00:00:55]The plots were structured differently than most  at the time. They were less formulaic, sometimes episodic, and often ended in an intentionally  unsatisfying or ambiguous way. Neorealists were inspired by Poetic Realism, a French movement  from the 1930s that included director Jean Renoir, as well as Soviet Montage, and the early  work of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu.

[00:01:18]Within Italian Neorealism, many film  historians have noted that there are three directors that clearly stand  above the rest in terms of significance.

[00:01:27]Director Roberto Rossellini was one and he  exemplifies many of the traits I just described.

[00:01:32]His statements "I do not want to make  beautiful films, I want to make useful films.” and "I try to capture reality, nothing else." do  a great job of summing up the aims of Neorealism.

[00:01:44]Rossellini broke through gaining international  acclaim in the aftermath of World War Two. His 1945 film Rome, Open City, set during  the Nazi occupation of the title city, was a commercial and critical success. It  was a huge step forward for Italian film, as it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film  festival and was even nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, something  very rare for a movie not in English.

[00:02:10]The leads are played by professional actors, but Rossellini went with first-time  actors for the smaller roles.

[00:02:17]Although partially due to budget constraints, this  film helped define Neorealism in that it was shot on location and used lots of natural lighting.  There was no need to create sets as Rossellini filmed on the real war-torn streets of Rome, and  many of the props and outfits were real as well.

[00:02:35]Rossellini also bucked the  traditions of narrative cinema by having a main character be  killed halfway through the film.

[00:02:41]The character is murdered by an anonymous soldier  and the film simply moves on without them.

[00:02:46]Despite all this, the film is  not completely without artifice and it doesn’t shy away from melodrama  backed up with a sentimental musical score.

[00:02:55]Among the scriptwriters was Federico Fellini,  who collaborated with Rossellini multiple times and would eventually become the  preeminent Italian director of all time.

[00:03:04]I’ll discuss Fellini more later in this video.

[00:03:06]Rome, Open City is considered  part of a loose thematic trilogy, with the second entry being Paisan.

[00:03:13]It is also set during World War Two,  but instead of focusing on a city, it deals with the entire nation of  Italy. Paisan is made up of six segments and Rossellini would often use an episodic  structure in his films. Rossellini again used first-time actors, as well as mixing in authentic  documentary footage with his fictional narrative.

[00:03:32]For his final film in the trilogy, Germany,  Year Zero, Rossellini moved from Italy to post-war Germany under Allied occupation.  The cast was found on the streets of Germany and the main character was played by a  boy Rossellini found at the circus. It was Rossellini’s darkest ending and the pessimistic  tone led to a lukewarm reception from audiences.

[00:03:54]Rossellini made a series of films with his wife  Ingrid Bergman in the 1950s and his work in this era still maintained some Neorealist  sensibilities. By the 1960s, he had moved away from Neorealism entirely and started  making movies about historical philosophers.

[00:04:12]The second director to  discuss is Vittorio De Sica.

[00:04:15]He gained international attention in 1946,  with Shoeshine, often considered his first masterpiece. It was actually the first foreign  film to receive an honorary Oscar in what would eventually become the best foreign film category.  Shoeshine was written by Cesare Zavattini, who would collaborate with De Sica many more times  and become one of the major figures of Neorealism.

[00:04:31]De Sica directed the most famous  Neorealist film, Bicycle Thieves, again collaborating with Zavattini.  Like Rossellini, De Sica used first-time actors and shot on location. Another hallmark of  Neorealism was a focus on poverty in postwar Italy and we see that here as the film follows an  unemployed man desperate for work. Of course, this was an unflattering portrayal of Italy, and  this was also common in the Neorealism movement.

[00:04:56]Like Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves also  earned an Honorary academy award, giving him two in three years, and its reputation  has only increased in the decades since.

[00:05:07]It’s often been called one  of the best movies ever made.

[00:05:10]De Sica’s other major Neorealist work with  Zavattini was also one the last, Umberto D, a sad story of an impoverished elderly man and his dog.  Umberto D is a retired government employee whose paltry pension isn’t enough for him to pay rent.  The title character was played by linguistics professor Carlo Battisti, and this was his only  film appearance. His friend, the maid, was also portrayed by a first-time actor, and there were  some professionals in the supporting cast as well.

[00:05:40]We see a portrayal of the mundane when De Sica  shows us the maid’s daily routine in detail.

[00:05:45]Umberto D. is remembered more now for  its more realistic and depressing parts, but these aspects were juxtaposed  throughout with whimsical humor, mainly in the form of the  antics of Umberto’s pet dog.

[00:05:57]Umberto D was a flop at the box office, and was even attacked by politicians for  making Italy look bad. So it’s no surprise that De Sica moved away from Neorealism  afterward to more lighthearted fare.

[00:06:11]The third director was Luchino Visconti, who started his career as an assistant director  for Jean Renoir. Visconti was openly bisexual and even claimed to have a relationship  with Umberto II, the final king of Italy.

[00:06:24]His debut and preeminent work of the era was  Ossessione, which having been released in 1943, is the earliest of the big Neorealist films. In  fact, it even came out a couple of months before the fall of fascism, and it was made despite  strict government scrutiny and censorship.

[00:06:42]The film’s dreary portrayal of Italy  was not what the Fascists wanted and it was removed from  theaters after early showings.

[00:06:49]They even went so far as to destroy the  negatives, but luckily Visconti saved a duplicate.

[00:06:55]The film was based on the 1934 James Cain novel  The Postman Always Rings Twice, but the Marxist Visconti added sociopolitical commentary.  Ossessione centers around a wife cheating on her husband, and the focus on sexual immorality  didn’t help its censorship problems. The film does not present her infidelity as a moral failing,  but instead the result of a broken society.

[00:07:20]Unlike later Neorealist films,  Visconti used established actors.

[00:07:25]The bored wife was played by Clara Calamai, one  of the biggest Italian actresses of the era.

[00:07:31]However, we do see the Neorealist tendency of  focusing on members of lower social classes, as her lover Gino is a drifter. Visconti was  born an aristocrat but he was a member of the Communist Party for much of his life. The film was  also shot on location in the Italian countryside and features scenes of a mundane routine.  Ossessione is also considered a forerunner of the Italian horror genre known as  giallo that thrived in the 1960s and 70s.

[00:07:58]Visconti did exclusively use nonprofessional  actors in his second feature film, The Earth Trembles, from 1948. In fact, they aren’t even  credited by name, but rather collectively as “Sicilian Fisherman”, which fits in with  Visconti’s Marxist ideology. The Earth Trembles is more explicitly Marxist than most Neorealist films  and was funded in part by the Italian Communist Party. The film deals with the exploitation  of working-class fishermen by the upper class.

[00:08:27]Like the previous two directors, Visconti  abandoned Neorealism by the mid-1950s.

[00:08:33]Those are the three big names of the movement,  but there’s definitely more to mention.

[00:08:37]The aforementioned Federico Fellini is  also often associated with Neorealism, especially his first films that  came out in the early 1950s.

[00:08:45]His 1953 film I Vitelloni is often described  as being at least Neorealist adjacent.

[00:08:52]It was filmed on location but did  have a cast of experienced actors.

[00:08:57]His 1954 film La Strada contains aspects of  Neorealism, but is more often referred to as Fellini’s break with the movement, or at least  a bridge to his later, more fanciful work.

[00:09:08]The acclaimed Italian director Michelangelo  Antonioni started out with a neorealist apprenticeship and his early documentary  shorts were done in the Neorealist style.

[00:09:19]A lesser-known filmmaker involved with  Neorealism was Giuseppe De Santis.

[00:09:24]We see the influence of Marxism and working  class characters in his 1947 debut Tragic Hunt, which features peasants forming a collective.

[00:09:32]His most well-known work came two years later,  with Bitter Rice, which got De Santis an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story. This film  portrays the working class but also criminals, fitting in with Neorealism often  showcasing societal outsiders.

[00:09:47]Another less remembered Neorealist director  was Alberto Lattuada. His 1946 film The Bandit, which played at Cannes, criticized post-war  Italian society and dealt with taboo topics like prostitution. Two years later  Lattuada made The Mill on the Po, which centers around peasant farmers and  contains some anti-capitalist sentiment.

[00:10:06]He was also the co-director on Fellini’s  first film as director, Variety Lights.

[00:10:11]Other Neorealist directors include Luigi Zampa, Aldo Vergano, and Raffaello Matarazzo. Also  screenwriter Suso Cecchi d'Amico deserves a mention for her collaborations  with Visconti, De Sica, and others.

[00:10:25]Unfortunately, Neorealism was a very short-lived  movement, but its influence was anything but. It even inspired mainstream filmmakers like Martin  Scorsese, as seen in his documentary on Italian cinema, My Voyage to Italy. The films noir of the  1940s and 50s were also connected to Neorealism, with the director of the seminal noir The  Naked City stating that the movement led to him utilizing location shooting and non-professional  extras. These techniques became more common in Hollywood in the 1950s, as seen in the classic  starring Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront.

[00:11:00]Neorealism changed art house cinema forever and  its influence can be felt in basically all of art house film. It was some of the earliest European  Art Cinema that broke through internationally and showed a generation of filmmakers that you  don’t need big names or a fancy studio to make something great. This was especially true in  developing areas like Latin America and Africa.

[00:11:22]A direct inspiration can be seen in many  of the movements of the 1950s and 60s, most notably with the French New Wave,  with Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut both citing Rossellini as influences. French  New Wave films often used location shooting, nonprofessional actors, and had social  and political commentary. Furthermore, both movements started with film critics who  weren’t happy with their country’s cinema.

[00:11:47]Renowned director Akira Kurosawa’s work from the late 1940s is often  compared to Italian Neorealism, with specific examples being Stray Dog, One  Wonderful Sunday, and No Regrets for Our Youth.

[00:12:00]The most celebrated Indian art house  director, Satyajit Ray, was inspired to become a filmmaker when he saw Bicycle Thieves,  and that’s clearly seen in his Apu Trilogy.

[00:12:10]Neorealism made Italy one of the major nations  in the world of cinema for decades to come, and even to the current day, films are often cited  as being influenced by it. Active directors with connections to Neorealism include Chloé  Zhao, Sean Baker, and Alfonso Cuarón.