Neo-realism

(Click on an image for an enlargement)

The philosophical term "neo-realism" was appropriated in 1943 by theorist Umberto Barbaro to reiterate screenwriter Cesare Zavattini's suggestion that Italian cinema should repudiate the star system, studio artifice and plot contrivance associated with the escapist rhetorical spectacles of the Fascist era in order to focus on the poverty and pessimism of ordinary people. Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943) is usually credited with launching the vogue for pictures shot on location in natural light with mostly non-professional casts. However, neo-realism (which counted 19th-century verismo literature and French poetic realist cinema among its influences) had several precedents, including Raffaello Matarazzo's Treno popolare (1933) and, perhaps surprisingly, numerous LUCE documentaries.

Film-makers in developing industries around the world (and even Hollywood), were inspired by such key works as Roberto Rossellini's war trilogy - Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City) (1945), Paisà (1946) and Germania anno zero (Germany, Year Zero) (1947) - Visconti's La terra trema (1948) and Vittorio De Sica's Sciuscia (Shoeshine) (1946), Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) (1948) and Umberto D (1952). But local audiences were less enthralled, prompting the passage of the Andreotti Law (1949), which legislated against films presenting an unfavourable picture of Italian life, while also offering subsidies for directors who avowed the neo-realist style.

David Parkinson