![]() In aesthetic terms virtually nothing in neorealist cinema was new, from de-dramatised narratives to scrupulous use of real locations to the casting of non-professionals.įederico Fellini, in a revealing interview from 1961, reinforces the importance of aesthetics, arguing that: If it can be said that neorealism’s political agenda and worldview were very much products of a specific time and place, the same certainly cannot be said of what are usually deemed to be its formal innovations. We know more about neorealism’s own legacy than we do about some of the films that helped shape it in the first place. Second, even after seven decades of debates on the subject, in-depth studies of the trend’s origins are surprisingly few. First, much of the writing on neorealism (not only that in English) has tended to work with a restricted filmography of a dozen or so titles, focusing almost exclusively on the canonical trio of Rossellini, De Sica and Visconti. Of recent studies of the trend, Christopher Wagstaff’s Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic Approach (2007) stands out, but there are two main areas that remain comparatively unexplored. Here was a new kind of cinema, one that returned to its roots, a people’s cinema that chronicled the struggle against Nazism but also highlighted the hardship and upheaval of the post-war period. The proponents of this politically committed reaction to the glossy, studio-bound, Hollywood-influenced productions approved by Mussolini’s regime were determined to take their cameras to the streets, to neglected communities and their surroundings, to show the ‘real Italy’ in all its diversity. ![]() ![]() Pasquale Iannone chairs a panel discussion with Alexander Jacoby, Henry K Miller, Ginette Vincendeau and Chris Wagstaff on 7 May. The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season The Roots of Neorealism runs at BFI Southbank 1 May-6 June 2013.
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