REALISM IN ITALIAN NEOREALISM

- September 26, 2021

What is Realism?

Realism in general is difficult to define.

According to Millicent Marcus, “realism is always defined in opposition to something else, be it romanticism in nineteenth-century literature, modernism in twentieth century art, nominalism in medieval philosophy, or idealism in eighteenth-century thought”.

Marcus also explains that all realisms “share certain assumptions about the objective world: that it exists, that it can be known, and that its existence is entirely separable from the processes by which we come to know it”.

Authors and filmmakers attempt to portray the reality of daily life, but there is always a sense of artifice, especially in film.

Realism has played an important part in literature, and works that are considered realist allow the audience greater insight into a certain view of reality. In the world of written texts, much literature belongs to experiences that have been lived by the authors themselves

Realism appeared in both literature and film under the term “neorealism” in post-war Italy. The term is often applied more to the world of film than literature, but it holds a place among Italian writers of the era.

During the fascist rule there had been much political censorship, with the majority of works displaying fascist rhetoric. After Italy’s liberation, Italians were able to investigate their country and themselves and come to terms with the harshness and barbarity of war and “seek political renewal for the Italy that was taking shape out of the ruins of war” (GattRutter 533).

One of the main issues facing writers in Italy at the time was the struggle between placing precedence over political beliefs or literary creativity. The authors who were considered neorealist urged a retelling of the Resistance and an individual’s responsibility to history.

In the world of film, people were seeking an alternative to the films of Fascist Italy, such as fascist propaganda or “white telephone” films. Screenwriters and film critics alike wanted to return to reality, wishing to express what life was like for Italians in the dopoguerra.

For them, realism in film was to be set against “expressionism, aestheticism, or more generally, against illusionism” (Marcus 4).The neorealists found their model in Giovanni Verga and the Sicily of verismo. Mary Wood writes that Verga’s verismo “depended on the evocation of particular geographies of place and atmosphere through the building up of detail”.

Films of the neorealist period focused on the poverty and desperation throughout Italy following World War II. The neorealist films highlighted the social issues facing Italians had not witnessed before. A response to the highly censured films of the Fascist period, neorealism took an apparently inglorious(disgraceful) approach to the daily lives of Italian citizens.

Neorealist filmmakers, in the words of Peter Bondanella, “were seeking a new literary and cinematographic language which would enable them to deal poetically with the political problems of their time”.

The stylistic characteristics of neorealism continue to have an influence on Italian filmmakers today, as can be seen in the recently released film Gomorra, directed by Matteo Garrone.

..........................................................

The traditional characteristics of neorealist films included, “realistic treatment, popular setting, social content, historical actuality, and political commitment” .

With the fall of Fascism in 1943, Italian film makers embraced a new freedom that encouraged this direct and authentic style of moviemaking.

Beginning with the films of Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977) and continuing in the work of Vittorio De Sica (1902–1974)

The early films of Visconti, neorealism sought a more democratic spirit, telling stories of the lives of ordinary people with little or no moralizing. The settings were the streets and buildings of real cities, many of which still bore the scars of the war. The performers, even those cast in major roles, were often nonprofessional actors. If the films had a style, it might loosely be termed documentary (or realistic): they avoided subjective camera work and editing as well as romantic effects of lighting; they allowed scenes to play out in real time, however slowly or methodically; and they drew dialogue from the street, even when the source of a script was a literary text. Indeed, literary texts that inspired Italian neorealist films were themselves written in a vernacular style stressing common speech patterns and regional dialects.

A neorealism film was characterized by the stories of the poor and working class citizens of Italy. The subjects of the films faced adversity and dire financial situations. However, out of the desperateness portrayed in the storylines of neorealist film arose a sense of hope for the future of Italy out of the ruins of the long war. The circumstances of the war are no longer present in Italy.

Golden age of Italian cinema extends roughly from 1943 with Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (Roma, Città Apperta) to 1952 with De Sica’s Umberto D.

The neorealist films produced during this period are among the greatest in world cinema and include
Rossellini’s Paisà (Paisan, 1946) and
Germania Anno 4 David Gari" Zero (Germany Year Zero, 1947),
the final two chapters in his War Trilogy; Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946) and
Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) by De Sica;
and an early formative film by Visconti, Ossessione (Obsession, 1943).

These directors based their films on screenplays and contributions by such talented writers as

Cesare Zavattini (1902– 1989),
Suso Cecchi d’Amico (1914–2010),
Giuseppe De Santis, (1917– 1997), and
the young Federico Fellini (1920– 1993).

They provided the human stories and the ear for everyday speech so important in neorealist cinema.

An intriguing political aspect of neorealism is its connection to Marxism and Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937). Although he wrote very little on cinema itself, his belief in the crossfertilization of politics and culture and in the importance of art as a catalyst for breaking down regional barriers and establishing national identity related directly to cinema. He viewed it as a populist art form capable of reaching a larger audience more easily and cheaply than theater could.

Ironically, neorealist films were attacked by both the Italian Right and Left. From the Right came diatribes against the vulgar stories emphasizing unsavory characters, unemployment, poverty, and crime. From the Left came disappointment in neorealism’s failure to create a focused and coherent manifesto for changing society.

With the arrival of Italy’s so-called economic miracle in the mid-1950s, the form and content of neorealist films lost much of their relevance and impact.

A new group of filmmakers went to work, including Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007), Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975), and Francesco Rosi (b. 1922).