Italian Cinema Before Neorealism
“The most precious moment in film history.”
--Martin Scorsese
In early cinema, Italy was a global force. Films like Quo Vadis (1913) & Cabiria (1914) set the standard for the large scale, epic feature film the rest of the world imitated.
The Triple Alliance was a defensive pact between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed in 1882. However, when WWI ignited, Italy did not join the other two in the fighting.
In fact, in 1915 Italy entered the war on the side of the Allied Powers (France, Britain, Russia and eventually the United States).
But by the end of the war, the Italian economy fell on hard times, and Italian cinema was producing only a handful of features per year.
In 1922, the Fascists, led by Benito Mussolini, seize power in Italy.
Like Lenin, Mussolini realized cinema could play an important role in shaping public opinion. So, he set about reorganizing the Italian film industry based on the Soviet model with an eye toward putting it in service of the state.
Cinecitta Studios in Rome opens in 1937 and is the largest movie studio in Europe. Within a year the studio had released more than 80 films.
The cinema, subsidized by Mussolini, was a great success financially and very popular with audiences. The 15 years from the coming of sound to the end of his reign saw an industry that rivaled Hollywood in the sophistication of narratives, acting and directing.
Films of this period were forbidden from showing the reality of life in Italy. Instead, they presented a romanticized view of Italy, focusing on the lives of wealthy aristocrats in a display of what an idealized life in the fascist state could be.
They were predominantly romances and comedies that promoted traditional family values, nationalism, subservience to authority and upholding of the status quo.
Regarding Italian Cinema from 1922-1940
“It seems unbelievable that at a time of worldwide suffering there was such a proliferation of films as non-existent, as empty and as alien to the national identity as Italy’s “commercial” films of those years.”
Then came WWII, and this time the country fought on the side of Germany. And the war would change Italy.
Screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, considered the theoretical founder of neorealism, was calling for a new kind of film.
He wanted the industry to distance itself from the films of pre-war Italy and instead capture the contemporary social reality in Italy.
"Reality is hugely rich, that to be able to look directly at it is enough; and that the artist's task is not to make people indignant at metaphorical situations, but to make them reflect on what they are doing, on the real things, exactly as they are."
Neorealists, in film, wanted to produce a kind of realism not simply synonymous with believability of narrative, but to accurately represent real conditions to use cinema like a mirror, reflecting to audiences the realites of life in Italy, rather than making fictional films that seem believable during the screening.
The film recognized as the first Neorealist film is based on an American novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Author James M. Cain
The book, and the film, tells of a drifter who stops at a roadside café, has an affair with the owner’s young wife, then conspires with her to kill him for the insurance money.
Obsession is Luchino Visconti’s debut feature. Visconti was a member of the Italian aristocracy whose family did not approve of his becoming a filmmaker. He stole some of the family jewels,
selling them to finance this film.
In the fashion of neorealism, Ossessione 1943 shot on real locations and focused on the problems of ordinary people while examining contemporary social realities. However, unlike later neorealist films, Ossessione did not have a leftist political commitment nor provide a leftist solution to the problems explored in the film.
Dir. Tay Granett
In 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily and Mussolini was turned out of office. The new Italian government then declared war on Germany.
But in northern Italy, Mussolini was installed as the head of a puppet government run by Berlin, and partisan fighting erupted across Italy.
Eventually, in the Spring of 1945, with the war all but lost for the Axis Powers, Mussolini was caught trying to escape Italy and was executed in Milan.
Europe was in ruins as cities were reduced to rubble. 48 million were dead, another 21 million were refugees.
The revelation of atrocities in Nazi occupied territories was shattering. So, while liberation was joyful, there was not only economic devastation but the imprint of Nazi barbarism.
Especially for Italy who had been ally to Germany.
Filmmakers promised the shock of the new. Their goal was to look more real, behave more real, and to reveal the truth of class warfare, fascism, & the hardships of the poor in a way White Telephone films never would.
"One day we will create our most beautiful film following the slow and tired step of the worker who returns home.”
Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City was the winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes.
The film was an international success, and set the standard for later neorealist films by embracing a documentary style achieved with:
Rossellini’s War Trilogy
But soon neorealist filmmakers turned their focus from the war to social problems within Italy such as inflation and widespread unemployment.
Dir. Vittorio De Sica
The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1949 and is #4 on the top 100 World Films ever made.
With their open-ended, slice-of-life, episodic plot structure, neorealist films left their narratives unresolved (like in life) refusing to tie up all the loose ends in a happy and convenient conclusion.
And the films emphasized long takes, in which a moving camera would remain on a scene long after the action had concluded, unafraid to capture the "nothing moments of life."
Dir. Luchino Visconti
It tells of the exploitation of fishermen, specifically that of the eldest son of a very traditional village family.
Dir. Giuseppe De Santis
Some neorealist films charted the problems of rural life.
Bitter Rice depicts the exploitation of young women driven to low-wage farm work and herded into prisonlike dormitories.
Based on the story, Stazione Termini, by Cesare Zavattini, two films emerge.
Montgomery Clift with Director Vittorio De Sica
Producer David O. Selznick
US Release
Neorealism declined in the early 1950s. Levels of income were rising, and the positive effects of the Italian “economic miracle” began to show. As a consequence, most Italians favored the optimism shown in American movies, which began flooding back into Italy. The despair presented by the neorealist films was demoralizing to a nation anxious for change.
“Neorealism is dirty laundry that shouldn't be washed and hung to dry in the open.”
The government passed the Andreotti Law in 1949, which limited US films in Italy, and also provided funding for Italian films but only if the script was approved. Films with no political agenda were rewarded and a film could be denied an export license if it "slandered Italy.”
Still, the lasting impact of neorealism is undeniable as it not only completely revitalized the Italian film industry, and inspirped neorealist movements around the globe.