Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic Approach

by Christopher Wagstaff

Overview

The end of the Second World War saw the emergence of neorealist film in Italy. In Italian Neorealist Cinema, Christopher Wagstaff analyses three neorealist films that have had significant influence on filmmakers around the world. Wagstaff treats these films as assemblies of sounds and images rather than as representations of historical reality. If Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Paisà, and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette are still, half a century after they were made, among the most highly valued artefacts in the history of cinema, Wagstaff suggests that this could be due to the aesthetic and rhetorical qualities of their assembled narratives, performances, locations, lighting, sound, mise en scène, and montage.

This volume begins by situating neorealist cinema in its historical, industrial, commercial and cultural context, and makes available for the first time a large amount of data on post-war Italian cinema. Wagstaff offers a theoretical discussion of what it means to treat realist films as aesthetic artefacts before moving on to the core of the book, which consists of three studies of the films under discussion. Italian Neorealist Cinema not only offers readers in Film Studies and Italian Studies a radically new perspective on neorealist cinema and the Italian art cinema that followed it, but theorises and applies a method of close analysis of film texts for those interested in aesthetics and rhetoric, as well as cinema in general.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442692435
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	12/29/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	514
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Christopher Wagstaff is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Reading.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     3
Overview     7
The Italian Cinema Industry     7
The Cultural Context     20
Films: Production and Screenwriting     26
The Pro-filmic     30
The Institution of Neorealism     37
Realism     41
Aesthetics     41
Reference     48
Narrative     54
Genre     59
Idealism     65
Realism     71
Cesare Zavattini     78
Rhetoric     82
A Note on Comedy     92
Roma citta aperta     94
Photography     94
Lighting     100
Sound     105
Mise en scene     107
Performers     119
Costume     127
The Narrative: Story and Plot     136
Dramaturgy: Analysis of the Episode of the Shooting of Pina     163
Roma citta aperta and Neorealism     181
Paisa     185
The Rome Episode     192
The Sicily Episode     201
The Monastery Episode     216
The Naples Episode     240
The Florence Episode     253
The Po delta Episode     263
Concluding Remarks on Paisa     287
Ladri di biciclette     291
Locations     307
Performers and Costume     313
Narrative     321
Analysis of Sequences     325
Concluding Remarks     396
Concluding Remarks     402
Appendices     407
A standard introduction to neorealism     409
Historical background for neorealism     414
Statistics of the Italian film industry     417
Categories of cinema in Italy, 1953     419
Number of tickets sold at cinema box offices in provincial capitals and in the rest of the provinces, 1947-1955     420
Length (in days) of opening runs in cinemas in major Italian cities of neorealist films and Catene     421
Statistics of days of cinema showing, tickets sold, and box-office receipts in Italy, 1936-1960     422
Established film production companies in Italy, 1945-1953     423
Italian film production, 1945-1953     425
Directors of neorealist films, 1945-1953     426
Writers of neorealist films, 1945-1953     427
Directors of photography on neorealist films     429
Production arrangements and costs for five core neorealist films     430
Italian public's reception of different categories of Italian films produced 1945-1953, and subsequently released 1945-1956     431
Fifty-five 'neorealist' films     435
Filmographic details of Roma citta aperta, Paisa, and Ladri di biciclette     440
Average shot length, pre-neorealism and neorealism     444
Average shot length, neorealist films     445
Average shot length, neorealist films of De Sica, Rossellini, Visconti, Antonioni     446
Scale (closeness) of shot comparison, Roma citta aperta and other films (1)     447
Scale of shot comparison, Roma citta aperta and other films (2)     448
Scale of shot comparison, Roma citta aperta and other films (3)     449
Map of settings and locations for Paisa     450
Average shot length for different sections of Paisa     451
Scale of shot, Paisa - Po delta episode     452
Tammurriata nera     453
Map of locations for Ladri di biciclette     454
Notes     457
Bibliography     473
Index     493

What People are Saying About This

David Forgacs

Christopher Wagstaff has a major international reputation for his published work on Italian cinema, both in English and Italian. His latest, Italian Neorealist Cinema, is a highly original book based on rigorous scholarship, careful analyses, and extensive experience of teaching and writing on the subject. The author shows a deep knowledge of the films he discusses, the historical contexts in which they were made, and their critical reception, and offers many brilliant insights and observations about individual films as well as wider patterns in postwar Italian cinema. (David Forgacs, Professor of Italian, University College London)