ITALIAN NEOREALISM AND GLOBAL CINEMA

Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema
Edited by Laura E. Ruberto and Kristi M. Wilson
Contemporary Approaches to Film and Television Series

Contributors: David Anshen, Moinak Biswas, Natalia Sui-hung Chan, Tomas Crowder-Taraborrelli, Jaimey Fisher, Rachel Gabara, Millicent Marcus, Antonio Napolitano, Laura E. Ruberto, Thomas Stubblefield, Antonio Traverso, Lubica Ucník, Pasquale Verdicchio, and Kristi M. Wilson.

Despite its lack of organization and relatively short lifespan, the Italian neorealist movement deeply influenced directors and film traditions around the world. This collection examines the impact of Italian neorealism beyond the period of 1945–1952, the years conventionally connected to the movement, and beyond the postwar Italian film industry where the movement originated.

Providing a refreshing aesthetic and ideological contrast to mainstream Hollywood films, neorealist filmmakers demonstrated not only how an engaging narrative technique could be brought to bear upon social issues, but how cinema could shape and redefine national identity. The fourteen essays in Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema consider films from Italy, India, Brazil, Africa, the Czech Republic, postwar Germany, Hong Kong, the United States, and Great Britain. Each essay explores neorealism’s complex relationship to a different national film tradition, style, or historical period, illustrating the profound impact of neorealism and the ways that it continues to complicate the relationship between ideas of nation, national cinema, and national identity.

The Conformist: Giulia and Anna Dance

A beautiful scene in a wonderful film. This dance scene brings together a number of the motifs that are braided together to make the film and that also reflect the editing that makes the whole thing work. The two couples suggest Marcello's continued discomfort and impression that homosexuality hounds his existence. The professor and Marcello at the table are contrasted by Oliver and Hardy as an odd couple. And the dancers that will eventually envelop the foursome to make Marcello clearly uncomfortable is also an indication of his psychological sense of imprisonment and more directly and literally the entrapment he feels at wanting to be "normal" like everyone else but not fitting in...no matter what normal might happen to be at any one time.

Pink Floyd-Antonioni

Prompt...Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers uses many devices of Neorealist film-making to address issues beyond the purvue of Neorealism. While the latter sought to address issues pertaining to the film-makers’ “present”, Pontecorvo’s reach extends beyond to connect with his potential audience’s “historical frames of understanding”. Explain how these “frames” are represented within the film for an audience that does not necessarily identify directly with the events of the Algerian Liberation; and also explain how the film illustrates the concept of “history from below”.

Battle of Algiers trailer