How Neorealism before 1950 Affected Film History Essay

How Neorealism before 1950 Affected Film History - Essay manakinInstead of overblown and idealistic propaganda films celebrating the ideals of a fascist state, film makers turned to the simple lives of rural peasants, and the struggles of characterless workers in the cities. The three most famous neorealist directors are Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchina Visconti. One critic notes that the neorealist movement is widely regarded to chip in started with Rossellinis gritty and unsentimental about a resistance prieced Rome, Open City in 1945. This descriptor of film became famous for a sparse style of shooting on actual locations, with mostly unpaid players, and emphasizing themes of basic human problems and issues. (Hamilton, 2006, p. 61) Children often boast, as in the film Shoeshine by Vittorio De Sica, which tells the at times harrowing tale of two sons who dream of owning a horse and fall into the hands of some slander policemen. The realistic portrayal of the sufferings of the boys in prison, raises issues about the kind of society that Italy can and should be setting up now that the war is over. Another critic notes neorealism became the repository of partisan hopes for social justice in the postwar Italian state. (Marcus, 1986, p. xiv). The films of Rossellini deal with the devastation that has been caused by the war in Europe, and he made a trilogy which explored how the poorer deal in Italy and German came to terms with the turmoil. These films do not have a traditional narrative line, hardly show episodes which between them build up a picture of life in those difficult days. olive-sized visual items can have symbolic meaning far beyond the immediate context of the film, and the acquisition of Rossellini and others was to use the camera to illuminate deeper issues through images. The camera work is the opposite of Hollywoods chanceful and artificial interiors, preferring the rather stark and ugly landscape of the war-torn count ryside, and the dirty streets where people have to cole a living any way they can. The films were popular at the time, despite their lack of a wee-wee plot. People learned to look at the films in a new way, as a window on life itself Even the Italian neorealist directors, who stress everyday reality in their films and deny the daring of invented stories, argue that their particular brand of everyday reality is not boring because of its complex echoes and implications (Boggs and Petrie, 2000, p. 37) Another feature of the neorealist directors work was that it had universal appeal, despite being very firmly tied to local scenery. Rossellinis lot of a bombed and derelict Berlin in Germany, Year Zero, for example, juxtaposes a blond child and the colossal ruins of the city, with tragic consequences. The evoke message of the film is the destruction and futility of war. Heaps of rubble obliterate the civilization that was there before, leaving the boy adrift and hopeless, with no pa st and no future. The second film in Rossellinis trilogy, Paisan, depicts the American soldiers determine with demoralized Italian rural people in different regions, distilling the experiences of the war years in to the faces and conversations of frank farm workers. The human cost of the war is depicted starkly, and there is newsreel footage interspersed with the fictional episodes. The director makes every campaign to present the material in a clear, unadorned way, so that