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Neorealism

Neo-realism is the inaugural film movement that originated in Italy. Not since 1913 had Italy been an important film power. The huge silent spectacles of 1912 and 1913 were replaced by the Griffith films that were not only big but active. Early Italian film swung between the two-poles of pro-Mussolini propaganda and escapist comedies. These trends within Italian film makers furthered the inclination for free cinematic exertion. Neo-realism was a film movement that rose in response to the anti-fascist trend and Nazi occupation of Germany. It was a post world-war II phenomenon and emerged as a retort to ‘white telephone' film. Similarly, it opposed the so called "white telephone pictures, dubbed such due to the inevitable white telephone in the fancily decorated apartments that served as sets for these films." It's hostility to the white telephone film arose, not only on an ocular level, but also from conflicting fundamental attitudes towards film. The white telephone films represent a lack in sophistication, failing to manifest the actuality of the Italian populace. Italian films under Mussolini were remarkably similar to those under Hitler. Mussolini's fascist dictatorship during the early 1940's created the necessary conditions conducive to an eventual renaissance in its cinema. The brutal repression of Mussolini conceived neo-realism. Neo-realism was a reply to the restriction of liberty after the fascist regime fell. Although Mussolini spent enormous amounts on the film industry in Italy, it lacked the free creative exertion, being driven by either dogma or nonsense. With the fall of the fascist regime erupted a new creative intensity in Italian film. The new freedom allowed the Italian film makers to combine their skill in making pictures with the subjects that interested them.

Cesare Zavattini was a prominent element in the neo-realist persuasion. He was a script writer for many of the neo-realist films. Zavattini defined the...