Italian Neo-Realism

Our class watched the movie The Bicycle Thief as a quintessential Italian Neo-Realism film. Here is a summary of its basics.

Ideology/ Thematic Goals

The main ideology of this genre of film is the idea of "solidarity", as the importance of the whole community, rather than the importance of one person alone. The article shows this idea when it says that "[...]a focus on collectivity rather than the individual. Solidarity is important, along with an implicit criticism of the status quo." This type of cinema was against the ideas that had prevailed for so long under the rule of Mussolini, "the status quo". Also, it wanted to show a new view on the lives of real Italians, the everyday worker and his or her everyday, normal life, or " [..] an emphasis on real lives." These films were anti-fascist as much of Italy was after the fall of Mussolini, after World War II, or, as the article says, "Unquestionably, their greatest single influence was the anti-Fascism that marked World War II's immediate postwar period."

Historical Context

Again, Italian Neo-Realism emerged after World War II, making "[...] their greatest single influence [...] the anti-Fascism that marked World War II's immediate postwar period." Italy was in very poor condition after World War II; much of the country was in poverty, the government was in shambles and people were trying to rebuild their lives amongst all of this destruction. It makes sense that this movement broke from the idealistic, fanciful portrayal of life in Hollywood movies, for so much of the country was in despair, trying to rebuild. These people were probably disillusioned, and filmmakers wanted to capture this instead of normal escapist cinema.

Cinematic Techniques

-documentary-like style
-set up not elaborate
-not too complicated shots
-not many shot changes per scene (in comparison to now)
-used non-professional actors
-do not use sets; filmed on-location
-simple story


Key Contributors

DeSica: He was the director of The Bicycle Thief and made sure that the movie was shown as a piece of fiction, not as a documentary, but he did make sure to use non-professional actors. He focuses on the masses, not the individual.

Visconte:He made Obsession, and said that he could make a movie"in front of a wall" as long as he had something to say about humans in front of that wall. He liked to keep the movie "real", as in shot in real time and with unprofessional actors. Long takes, complex shots used.

Rossellini: Combined melodrama and actual footage into short bursts of intensity. It was not comforting. Also focused on the senselessness of war.

Important Films

The Bicycle Thief: This movie was important because it used non-professional actors in order to portray the real lives of people in Italy at that time. DeSica made sure to focus on the mass of people in this situation instead of the individual, showing the weakness of one and the power of a group of people behind one.

Obsession: This film used long complex takes to prove its point. affecting other films like this. It dwelled on the shots with bleak, natural light backgrounds.

Open City: This movie had a low budget, so Rossellini had to make a movie that combined the footage they shot as well as melodrama. This made the story episodic, with a jarring narrative.

Going Beyond the Still Image

It is interesting to see what just frames from a movie can tell us about the characters and the conflict of the film. Film is a combination of information from audio and video (moving pictures) used to create a feeling and to tell a story of some sort. In the short film "Wrong Place Wrong Time", a man is wrongly captured and then thrown into the ocean to keep the mistake a secret.

At the beginning, we see a guy in a tuxedo trapped in a box, and then we see a flash back to how he got into the box; two brutes ambushed him when he was coming from a high class event and put him in a box to bring to their master.

We can tell by the look on his face in normal conditions that he is a shrewd man of sorts, a person who is probably practical and calm. We can gather this from his dry humor in his lines also, making his acting match the character's personality.




When we reach the climax of the movie, it is easy to tell what the conflict is based on our prior knowledge of such situations with only the video, for the men are by a cliff and the two big guys are impending and would probably kill the man in the tuxedo if they did not get what they desired from the man on the computer. The following still demonstrates this idea:



Clearly, there is an issue, for the two taller men are the more powerful ones in the power relationship, and there is a dangerous and mysterious expanse behind them; the audience nor the protagonist know exactly where the characters are. Again, the tuxedo man is proven to be shrewd because he is trying to persuade his way out of danger, but he is loosing this battle.

Finally, in the resolution, the man is thrown into the water in the box and he looks at a photo of his while the water is gushing in. This part did not even need words to explain the depressing, hopelessness of the situation, with the man taking one last look at those he has left behind and will probably never be able to see again and at happier times in a photo probably of him and his friends, as shown:





This scene is blue with the water all around the man, depicting the hopeless mood well, and the picture is blue in this situation too, for the man is sad that he will never be able to have happy times like that and that he will probably die. The frame shows that the man has now resigned himself to his fate and wants to die remembering a happy memory. All of this can be shown through the pictures alone.

Overall, images can have just as much, or even more, of a message than words can in film, depending on the film. Images affect the power of a film significantly, for they are a main component; this can be the difference between and great, okay and horrible films.

Reverie

This film created very interesting effects with lighting, lighting up certain parts of the shot more than others and using interesting blur transitions.

An example of interesting blurring of the lights is at the beginning

From Jasmine's Film Blog

The shot starts off with both of the characters in an embrace in lighting focuses solely on them, making them stick out from the back ground of bridge lights. Then the focus fades out slowly, taking away that effect. The lighting was really nice and professional looking, and it really emphasized the couple and their intimacy from the beginning of the movie. It also set up their urban environment, making their relationship appear chic and appealing. The focus fade sort of shows how the man is now out of that dream world, back to the normal world.

From Jasmine's Film Blog

The lighting that is placed on the flowers is really rich and "sunny" in comparison to the background of pitch black. This is a very nice effect, because the stark contrast makes the viewer focus on the light part and understand how the man is yearning to come from the darkness into the "shiny" part of the night time with the woman in the "shiny" dress.

From Jasmine's Film Blog

The effects of the lighting on the cityscape are also amazing, especially in this picture, for the man has a very nice lighting on him that makes him stick out from the city at dusk, but the city is not totally in the dark either, for, though it is not in focus, it is still partially lighted and has a nice contrast to the man. Again, the focus on the man against the city adds a nice cosmopolitan, chic image to the film.

Edit Demos Critique

Shot Duration


Axis Match

1.Concept/Script

I think that both stories fit, for they emphasized the concepts pretty well. The cowboy scene, originating from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly film from 1966, is a classic example of long shot durations and short shot durations all in one. The axis match piece placed the two characters on opposite ends, with the tension building with each shot getting closer, and this of course showed axis match used to tell a story more intensely. I think that we did a good job portraying both concepts, but the Axis Match one is not as obvious as the shot duration one, for the shots that are on the same axis on the same shots are not usually directly after each other to show the idea as strong as possible because of the story involved, but there is still axis match in the way that shot is one the same axis for each actor despite the shots switching between the actors.

2. Camera Work

We shot the characters well most of the time, but the camera was probably not as steady as it should have been, sometimes changing the shot. Some of the challenges were trying to keep the axis correct because the camera kept moving each time we moved the tripod, so it left an unsteady shot. Also, it was hard to keep the same angle on the cowgirls in the shot duration piece, because they were at different heights and it was hard to visualize the same angle on their faces for both, so that neither looked bigger or smaller than the other. It ended up that Dazzy still looked a bit smaller than Nellie, making their power relationship unequal, but it worked out because Dazzy lost in the end of the fight anyways. The best shot was probably the pan in the shot duration piece, becasue it really showed how intense the scene between the two cowgirls was, but it could have been a bit shorter. It is very tense, a bit like a cowboy movie.

3. Edit

Some of the challenges I had in the edit were trying the keep the shots matching, because either way there was a lot of cutting between two characters in a conflict. I had to cut a lot of shots at the right time so that there would not be any jump cuts. In the axis match, I had to make sure that the characters and the camera were in the closest position to being the same as the last shot. Overall, the edit was not too hard, just a lot of cutting and putting the right shots in the right places, to create the correct power relationship between characters and to make sure the topic was being demonstrated clearly. In the shot duration, I just had to find matching shots, and switch between them at the right intervals to show either long or shot duration. In the axis match, I just had to cut with increasing closeness to each character as tension increased, then backing up at the resolution, but I had to cut some shots with bad lighting, but it still worked.