Realist Film Movements Neorealismo (2) Films of Vittorio De Sica

Table of Contents 1) Neorealismo as personal film 2) Films of Vittorio De Sica 3) Ladri di biciclette 4) Cesare Zavattini

Neorealismo as Personal Film Traditional films - studio bound; genre bound; star bound Personal films reflect personal concerns. Neorealists’ PERSONAL CONCERNS are …

Neorealismo as Personal Film Ordinary lives in the post-war era; Social issues - unemployment, immigration, poverty, social and moral decay, political corruption Lives of ordinary people in ordinary situation

Neorealismo as Personal Film Influence of French lyrical (poetic) realism Films in the 1930s by Julian Duvivier, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné and others They did in cinema what some realist painters and writers had already done.

Neorealismo as Personal Film Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Valpinçon Bather (1808) Academy Painting Jean-Louis David, Marat Assassinated (1793) History Painting Gustav Courbet, The Meeting, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet (1954) ‘Le Réalisme’

Neorealismo as Personal Film What is realism in literature? '… more extensive and socially inferior human groups to the position of subject matter [in literature].' (Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, p.491)

Neorealismo as Personal Film Subject matters – ordinary people who are in ordinary situation but fail to gain ordinary happiness. Stories of ordinary people in authentic settings No idealization, no flattery, not larger-than- life portraying

Films of Vittorio De Sica Vittorio de Sica ( ) A matinee idol turned into a film director. The collaboration with Cezare Zavattini lead to the three great neorealist films

Films of Vittorio De Sica Sciusciá (Shoeshine, 1946) - two shoeshine boys save money by delivering black-market goods to buy a horse. They are caught and sent to overcrowded boys prison. One boy betrays the other and after their release the latter kills the former by mistake.

Films of Vittorio De Sica Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) - a man in Rome found a job after two years’ waiting on the condition that he has his own bike. It is stolen on his first day. He searches all over Rome with his son. In desperation he himself turns to a bicycle thief.

Films of Vittorio De Sica Elements which made Ladri di biciclette a 'realist' film in its day ① the subject matter ② the narrative strays ③ the use of non-actors and location shooting ④ no facile solution to the problem illustrated ⑤ other techniques

Films of Vittorio De Sica Subject matter Ordinary life of ordinary little men Found a job - got a bike stolen - stole a bike Narrative strays In the middle of the chase, a boy has a pee Location shooting Exterior scenes are entirely shot in Rome

Films of Vittorio De Sica Lamberto Maggiorani was a factory worker found by De Sica. No solution to unemployment is presented - the ending is open-ended as our life is.

Films of Vittorio De Sica Umberto D (1952) - Umberto D is a retired civil servant living on meager pension. He is turned out of his apartment where he lived for more than twenty years, when he cannot pay his rent.

Ceare Zavattini Screenwriter, director, painter, writer and theorist Collaborated with Vittorio De Sica in Sciuscia, Ladri di biciclette and Umberto D Teacher at Centro Sperimentale di Cinema Critic at Bianco e nero PURIST

Cesare Zavattini 'The dream of Zavattini is just to make a ninety-minute film of the life of a man to whom nothing ever happens.' (Andre Bazin on Cesare Zavattini) The duration of actual time is equal to that of narrative time. ‘Little-man' principle’ - 'a hole in the wall of a family house in order to peep inside.'