realism

History:
∑ Realism is an artistic movement associated with the rise of capitalism and industrial revolution—opposed to myth and folktale as primary narrative form
∑ In painting we see increased use of perspective and scale; in literature, detailed accounts in stories concerned with social reality (Charles Dickens)
∑ Some consider rise in realistic representations to follow from discovery of photography, others claim the invention and popularity of photography followed from a growing interest in evidence gathering as a mode of knowledge
∑ 19th c also saw change in social conditions; rise in journalistic writing and photography was developed alongside the beginnings of social regulation and investigation and industrial warfare
∑ In discussing realism as an aesthetic category in film we usually follow two routes of influence: the use of realism codes and conventions in the production of fictional narratives concerned with social issues (Neo-Realism, Nouveau Vague); and the direct cinema/documentary cinema route


∑ Realism as an Aesthetic Category:
∑ Filmmaker has something to say about the real world
∑ Film characterized by a concern for social issues and/or historical events
∑ No single realism, different cultures and historical contexts produce different kinds of realism (e.g. Russian avant-garde, Italian and French New-Wave, Cinema Direct)

∑ Russian Avant-garde & Soviet Realism 1920s both revolutionary cinemas
∑ Italian Neo-Realism 1940s post-war social conditions
∑ New Wave 1950s form follows content
∑ Cinema Direct 1960s fly-on-the-wall
∑ New Auteurs/ Independent 1970s stylistic experimentation
∑ Dogme 95 1990s Danish anti-blockbuster


Italian Neo-Realism (Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Antonioni)
Italian neorealism seemed to have flowered spontaneously from the smoke and debris of the war, but in fact the movement had its roots in the prewar era.

In 1935, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, a national film school that was run by Luigi Chiarini, a left-wing intellectual was established. Among these students were such future filmmakers as Roberto Rossellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.

The term neorealism (i.e., new realism) was originally coined in 1943 by Umberto Barbero, an influential film critic and a professor at the Centro Sperimentale. He attacked the Italian cinema for its mindless triviality, its refusal to deal with pressing social concerns, especially poverty and injustice.

Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini (1906-1977) inaugurated the neorealist movement in 1945 with his stark wartime drama, Open City. The movie deals with the collaboration of Catholics and Communists in fighting the Nazi occupation of Rome shortly before the American army liberated the city.

Neorealism implied a style as well as an ideology. Rossellini emphasized the ethical dimension: "For me, Neorealism is above all a moral position from which to look at the world. It then became an aesthetic position, but at the beginning it was moral."

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~basement/reviews/romeopencity.html
Rome, Open City
Directed by Roberto Rossellini (Italy, 1945)
Featuring Anna Magnani

Cinema differs from the other major art forms in that on occasions a scarcity of the required materials can, in the right hands, produce major innovations which will be taken up by others and become the standards of the future. In post-First World War Germany, Robert Wiene created the style which came to be known as Expressionist film. His use of painted backdrops and low, shadowy lighting may seem to be his free choice, but in fact he was constantly frustrated by power cuts and poor equipment which greatly restricted his artistic freedom. A few years later in the U.S.S.R. a lack of film stock led to the montage technique being developed. Eisenstein and Pudovkin, then working at the Kuleshow workshop, had no film of their own to use, so had to experiment with other peoples' film. In a similar way, Rossellini (1906-77) was attempting to make films in the harshest of environments. The Italian film industry was in ruins due to the war and the occupations by the Germans and Americans. Rossellini and some friends were working on the scenario for the film before the war finished. They were constantly under threat of being conscripted into the fascist army at this time. And later when the Americans liberated Rome, Rossellini could only get a permit to film a documentary. If this was not enough to put a stop to his hopes of making the film, the only stock he could afford was second rate, more suitable for silent films. With this in mind it is little short of amazing that Rome, Open City won the Best Film award at Cannes in 1946.

Roberto Rossellini started his filmmaking career in 1936. Some critics looking back at his early output have labelled it fascist as the films concentrate on the individual outside of any social context. Yet, starting with Rome, Open City, his films took on a more socially aware tone. No one who lives through a war can fail to see individuals as being separate from society, and this was reflected best in his war trilogy; Rome, Open City (1945), Paisa (1946) and Germania, Anno Zero (Germany, Year Zero, 1947). They all focus on the devastating effects that the Second World War had on the psyche of modern man. In Germania, Anno Zero, Rossellini makes a deliberate attack on the church, and other social institutions, for failing to counter the corrupting influence of fascism.

Whilst Rome, Open City popularised the genre of neo-realism, it was not a classic text book example of the genre in the way that films by Visconti and De Sica are. Rossellini is not interested in objectivity. He deliberately uses emotive techniques to put forward his messages. His brother Renzo composed the music which does not merely describe the action but alters the mood of the viewer. And Rossellini's use of babies and young children cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to make to the viewer sympathetic to his ideas. But the film cannot be criticised for these inconsistencies with the style of neo-realism. Indeed, the film highlights the many conflicting realities, which are inherent in the fight against fascism.

http://www.valuemonkey.com/Entertainment-andLeisure/DVD/Foreign/s_85744.html

Roberto Rossellini's OPEN CITY (ROMA CITTA APERTA) is a landmark in the history of cinema a humanist masterpiece and one of the earliest incarnations of Italian neo-realism. Based on real events it tells the harrowing story of several Italian Resistance fighters battling fascism in Nazi-occupied Rome. When Gestapo agents raid an apartment where Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero) a prominent member of the underground is hiding they arrest the young man who gave him refuge. Manfredi manages to escape then enlists the help of a parish priest Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi) to make a clandestine delivery to other members of the movement. Eventually Manfredi is betrayed and he and the priest are quickly captured by the Germans, what follows is one of the most brutally disturbing war torture scenes ever recreated on screen. With OPEN CITY Rossellini has created a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of horrible adversity in a story that extols the heroism of defiant ordinary people who strive to hold onto their humanity in the cold chaotic world of WW II. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay Fellini collaborated with Rossellini in the writing of the script. OPEN CITY is all the more remarkable in that it was made immediately following the liberation of Rome had been developed while Rossellini himself was in hiding and was filmed in the locations where the true events that the story is based on occurred.