Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism

Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism by Marcus, Millicent. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780691102085.

The movement known as neorealism lasted seven years, generated only twenty-one films, failed at the box office, and fell short of its didactic and aesthetic aspirations. Yet it exerted such a profound influence on Italian cinema that all the best postwar directors had to come to terms with it, whether in seeming imitation (the early Olmi), in commercial exploitation (the middle Comencini) or in ostensible rejection (the recent Tavianis). Despite the reactionary pressures of the marketplace and the highly personalized visions of Fellini, Antonioni. And Visconti, Italian cinema has maintained its moral commitment to use the medium in socially responsible ways--if not to change the world, as the first neorealists hoped, then at least to move filmgoers to face the pressing economic, political, and human problems in their midst. From Rossellinis Open City (1945) to the Taviani brothers Night of the Shooting Stars (1982). The author does close readings of seventeen films that tell the story of neorealisms evolving influence on Italian postwar cinematic expression. Other films discussed are De Sicas Bicycle Thief and Umberto D. De Santiss Bitter Rice, Comencinis Bread, Love, and Fantasy, Fellinis La strada, Viscontis Senso, Antonionis Red Desert, Olmis Il Posto, Germis Seduced and Abandoned, Pasolinis Teorema, Petris Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, Bertoluccis The Conformist, Rosis Christ Stopped at Eboli, and Wertmullers Love and Anarchy, Scolas We All Loved Each Other So Much provides the occasion for the authors own retrospective consideration of how Italian cinema has fulfilled, or disappointed, the promise of neorealism.