Cinema..Cinema..

March 3, 2010 at 4:55pm

Dear Folks have been studying cinema of different countries so gathered some material by
lectures and net and by some friends..Do look at it when time..
Neorealism
Neo Realism is a cultural movement that brings true lives of peoples in the stories unlike an
imaginary world and fantasies. In cinema neo realism is related to social context, political
movement, historical accuracy and a rigorous social change. It mostly involves real scenario i-e
off studio shooting with non professional actors usually the local people and its more leaning
towards documentary style of movie making and as its quite close to natural aspect of fliming an
environment with a subject line. Non actors give more powerful strength to the realism then the
professionals. This cinema usually flourished after the second world war seeking for the common
interest of poor people and working class and the trauma and economical breakdown that had
suffered the people at a great deal. The post war social problems greatly affected every walk of
life and neo realism portrayed it in the cinema as the need of the circumstances.
Italian neorealism is considered the powerful film movement that started after world war 2 and
lasted for a decade afterwards. The movies during this era describe the war inflicted desperation,
povery, the change of mentality of life of people. Italy after the fall of Mussolini fascist regime
introduced the world with realistic cinema which couldnt emerge under the censorship and
hardships of fascist period. These films took a highly critical analysis of social conditions and
effects of Resistance, post war problems, unemployment.Neorealist film and literature replaced
an official cinema and literature characterized by pompous rhetoric and a lack of interest in the
quotidian and the commonplace. The neo realism cinema and literature replaced the official
cinema and pompous and rhetoric style prevailing.
The style of neo realism emerged with critics of italian cinema that revolves around magazine
cinema. It includes directors like:
Michelangelo Antonioni.
Luchino Visconti.
Gianni Puccini.
Cesare Zavattini.
Giuseppe De Santis.
Pietro Ingrao.
Michelangelo Antonioni studied economics and commerce at Bologna University, while he
painted and wrote criticism for a local newspaper. In 1939 he went to Rome, studied directing at
the School of Cinema. He worked for the journal Cinema, where he was part of the group of
creative types who developed Italian Neo-realism.
During World War II, he worked with Roberto Rossellini on A PILOT RETURNS, assisted
Marcel Carn on LES VISITEURS DU SOIR in France and made the first of several neorealistic documentaries, GENTE DE PO, which dealt with the travails of poor fisherman on the
Po River.

Antonioni later noted, Documentaries had not focused on simple, poor people, because this
was absolutely forbidden under Fascism.
His first full-length feature film,
CRONACA DI UN AMORE (STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR, 1950), tells of a jealous,
wealthy, older husband who hires a detective to spy on his attractive young wife, and, in the
process, creates that affair (which had not previously existed)with tragic results.
LE AMICHE (THE GIRLFRIENDS, 1955) begins and ends with the suicide attempts of an
unhappy young woman and deals with the romantic escapades of her shallow friends. It featured
the long takes and slow pacing that came to characterize almost all of Antonionis work
IL GRIDO (THE OUTCRY, 1957) is a poignant story of a poor factory worker's journey away
from home, through various liaisons and back again. Starring American actor Steve Cochran, it
was very compelling and had a very distinctive look.
Luchino Visconti at the height of neorealism, in 1948, adapted Malavoglia, a novel by Giovanni
Verga, written at the height of the 19th century realist verismo movement (in many ways the
basis for neorealism, which is therefore sometimes referred to as neoverismo), bringing the story
to a modern setting, which resulted in remarkably little change in either the plot or the tone. The
resulting film, La terra trema (The Earth Trembles), starred only non-professional actors and was
filmed in the same village (Aci Trezza) as the novel was set in. Because the local dialect differed
so much from the Italian spoken in Rome and the other major cities, the film had to be subtitled
even in its domestic release. The celebrated 1952 film Umberto D., by De Sica, about an elderly,
impoverished retired civil servant struggling to make ends meet is often cited as a classic neorealist effort.
Cesare Zavattini was an Italian screenwriter and one of the first theorists and proponents of the
Neorealist movement in Italian cinema. Zavattini is example of people who have theoretical and
practical capabilities. He also studied Film theory. He was practising it simultaneously. He
expressed his manifesto of capturing the real street life of people. Nice democratic curve, every
detail of plot, social conditions were shown. In one of his films a side character girl is shown
with immense details of a small room she is doing her motning chores. The difficulties, the state
of life was brought as matter of subject in the films as akin to real existant. The key things neo
realist brought into cinema was worthy subject matter for cinema. Singnificant line of
development they achieved that today has origins in neo realist cinema.
His film
Shoeshine (Italian: Sciusci) from italian corrupt pronunciation) is a 1946 film and the first
major work directed by Vittorio De Sica. In it, two Shoe shine boys get into trouble with the
police after trying to find the money to buy a horse. Shoeshine is among the first of the Italian
neorealist films. In 1948, it received an Honorary Award at the Academy Awards for its high
quality. This award was the precursor of what would later become the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film.
Begining of neo realist films shows lar ge number of people gathered and its not obvious who is
the protagonist. So social metaphore is extensively used and directors showed with general
relevance to the story when it starts.

Neo Realism Betrayed:

Blooming ideas and trends have their own unexpected life. When novelty dies ideas and
preferences are changed. This happenes to large extent that neo realism was repelled as audience
wanted to see melodrama, historic or action films.
In early 1950s a strong politic reaction against it emerged from the right and as well left. Dirt50s
a strong politic reaction against it emerged from the right and as well left. Dirty side of Italy was
criticized by catholic church. The demand to show spiritualtiy driven movies was made. Films
were accused so a strong ideological conflict arise and polarization of cinema between left and
right happened. Rightists were in majority in public though but leftist has strong movement.
Bitter Rice 1949 was an Italian film made by Lux Film, written and directed by Giuseppe De
Santis and roduced by Dino De Laurentiis. Bitter Rice was a commercial success in Europe and
America. It was a product of the Italian neorealism style.The film was nominated for the 1950
Academy Award for Best Story. It was also entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.
In this movie rice workers are shown, people in group working and marching towards fields,
where in a scene a journalist is doing a commentary on the hardships these fellows bear in fields.
Suddenly in the midst a crime story emerges. A thief is shown who snatches and runs so negative
side of poor people is shown like street crimes which make its sensational, humorous of plight of
poors so a rosy picture of them and is calles Neo Realism Roses or Pink Neo Realism. The
Italian title is based on a pun: since the Italian word riso means both rice and laughter, Riso
amaro is first read as bitter laughter, and then as bitter rice, in reference to the story.
It has been said that after Umberto D. nothing more could be added to neorealism. Whether
because of this, or for other reasons, neorealism effectively ended with this film. Following
works turned toward lighter atmospheres, perhaps more coherent with the improving conditions
of the country, and this genre has been called pink neorealism.
Comedy replaced the neo realism situation as Italian police characters would play italian
stereotypes and with twists and turns created something new. Italian Comedy is generally
considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's I soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street)
and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'Italiana (Divorce Italian Style,
1961). For a long time this definition was used with a derogatory intention.
Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Alberto Sordi, Claudia Cardinale,
Monica Vitti and Nino Manfredi were among the stars of these movies, that described the years
of the economical reprise and investigated Italian dress, a sort of self-ethnological research.
Towards New Cinema
The transition of new realism to comedy was quite popular. In 1960s Roberto Rossellini Italian
film director revised his film making after war. After his Neorealist Trilogy, Rossellini produced
two films now classified as the 'Transitional films': L'Amore (1948) (with Anna Magnani) and
La macchina ammazzacattivi (1952), on the capability of cinema to portray reality and truth
(with recalls of Commedia del Arte).
In 1948, Rossellini received a letter from a famous foreign actress proposing a collaboration:
Dear Mr. Rossellini,
I saw your films Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish
actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very

understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only "ti amo", I am ready to come and make
a film with you.
With this letter began one of the best known love stories in film history, with Bergman and
Rossellini both at the peak of their careers. Bergman had made breakthrough in sweeden and
then went to US and launched her career there.
After second world war crisis Open City and Paisan changed her life. her invitation was
discussed in senate. Their first collaboration was Stromboli terra di Dio (1950) (in the island of
Stromboli, whose volcano quite conveniently erupted during filming).
Rossellini's films after his early Neo-Realist films particularly his films with Ingrid Bergman
were commercially unsuccessful, though Journey to Italy is well regarded in some quarters.
He was an acknowledged master for the critics of Cahiers du Cinema in general and Andr
Bazin, Franois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard in particular. Truffaut noted in his 1963 essay,
Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life (available in The Films In My Life) that Rossellini's
influence in France particularly among the directors who would become part of the nouvelle
vague was so great that he was in every sense, "the father of the French New Wave".
Existential Condition of Characters..This is the theme Rosellini and Michelangelo Antonion
developed in their films. Inability to adjust in the environments, miscommunications and
inability to love and behave. This psychological indifference of behavior in their movies became
a source of inspiration new french directors who started their careers in 1950s.Existential Cinema
People living togather and having no explanation of their relationship gave birth to this kind of
cinema.
French Neo Realism or New Wave:
Germans had vestiged interests in creating films after war. Quality cinema that could best
express French culture that comes near neo realism. French literature that already had cultural
prestige in quality films. They made historic films depicting contempory affairs.
The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of
French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism[1] and classical
Hollywood cinema.[1] Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave
filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their
spirit of youthful iconoclasm and is an example of European art cinema.[2] Many also engaged
in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments
with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm.
In 1954, Truffaut wrote an article called "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinma Franais" ("A
Certain Tendency of French Cinema"), in which he attacked the current state of French films,
lambasting certain screenwriters and producers. The article resulted in a storm of controversy.
Truffaut later devised the auteur theory, which stated that the director was the "author" of his
work; that great directors such as Renoir or Hitchcock have distinct styles and themes that
permeate all of their films. Although his theory was not widely accepted then, it gained some
support in the 1960s from American critic Andrew Sarris. In 1967, Truffaut published his booklength interview of Hitchcock, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: Simon and Schuster).
According to the young critic a true cinema is where the maker genuinely thinks about the film
like writing a book. In that era the post war horrific stories have encapsulated french society.

Partisan returning homes, not finding fit in the society, suiciding on railway tracks. Kids are
shown in the trauma as well that they are close to realities of death at tender ages unintentionally
and whatever happened in war became a part of social life and there was no escape. It was a
period of stagnation and there wasnt much creation and innovation in the cinema.
French 50s Masters:
Jacques Becker did phd in criminology. He was part of the Comit de libration du cinma
franais, during the German occupation of France in World War II, the Nazis held him in prison
for a year. His film La Toru 1960tells the true story of five prison inmates in La Sant Prison in
France in 1947, where the men dig, tunnel and saw to attempt an escape. Director Becker, who
died months after shooting of the film was completed, used mostly non-actors for the main roles
in the film including one man (Jean Keraudy) who was actually involved in the 1947 escape, and
who introduces the film.
Jacques Tati His films have little audible dialogue, but instead are built around elaborate, tightlychoreographed visual gags and carefully integrated
sound effects.
Jacques Tati's first major feature, Jour de fte (The Big Day), tells the story of an inept rural
village postman who interrupts his duties to inspect the traveling fair that has come to town.
Influenced by too much wine and a documentary on the rapidity of the American postal service,
he goes to hilarious lengths to speed his mail deliveries aboard his bicycle. Tati filmed it in 1947
in the village where he found refuge from Nazi recruiters during the German occupation.
Released in 1949, the film was intended to be the first French feature film shot in color; Tati
simultaneously shot the film in black-and-white as an insurance policy. The newly developed
Thomson color system proved impractical, as it could not deliver color prints; Jour de fte was
therefore released only in black-and-white. Unlike his later films, it has many scenes with
dialogue and offers a droll, affectionate view of life in rural France. The color version was
restored by his daughter, Sophia Tatischeff, and released in 1995. The film won a prize at the
Venice Film Festival.et
Robert Bresson
Recurring themes under this interpretation include salvation, redemption, defining and revealing
the human soul, and metaphysical transcendence of a limiting and materialistic world. An
example is his 1956 feature A Man Escaped, where a seemingly simple plot of a prisoner of
war's escape can be read as a metaphor for the mysterious process of salvation.

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Refrences:
wikipedia.org