Italian Neorealism, Part two Lecture 24

I TALIAN N EOREALISM : S TYLE *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

I TALIAN N EOREALISM : N ARRATIVE AND S TORYTELLING 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 movement 2.Manichean poles of good and evil 3. Plot linearity and tight causal links 4. Retains dramatic/melodramatic effects 5. Constructs a unified national myth and a sense of Italian solidarity 6. Optimistic ending 7. 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 movement 2.Stylistic severity – Dead time – dedramatization 3.Episodic plot structure 4.Dissolution of the sense of solidarity after the war 5.Pessimistic about the postwar period 6.City defined by alienation and separation 7.Commercial failure

I TALIAN N EOREALISM : N ARRATIVE AND S TORYTELLING 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

I TALIAN N EOREALISM : N ARRATIVE AND S TORYTELLING 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)