Andre Bazin

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Andre Bazin Italian Neorealism
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Siefried Kracauer (1889-1966)

• CINEMATIC REALISM Philosophy
• Critic of modernity (Frankfurt School)
• Human condition characterized by alienation
• Mass culture/society manipulates individuals
• Materialistic values have replaced religion,
  metaphysical, romantic convictions, resulting in
  disenchantment
• People live distracted lives
• Film as a redemptive experience that can show
  man damaged condition of modernity and help him
  transcend materialism

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Siefried Kracauer (1889-1966)

• CINEMATIC REALISM
• Foreshadowed and predicted dehumanizing power of
  mass media
• Mass ornaments--film, military parades and
  sporting events
• Real world of the individual desubstantiated by
  spectacle and empty rituals
• Film must reengage individual with nature and
  the Kantian real world

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Views cinema as a redemptive art
• The role of cinema is to help man in his search
  for truth and understanding in an ambiguous and
  uncertain world
• Man can transcend alienation and modernity
• Film can be a religious experience
• Love and state of grace

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Bergsons concept of creative evolution
• Close experiential scrutiny reveals deep
  structures/meanings behind phenomena
• Under scrutiny of inquiry artistic
  analysisthese deep structures are brought into
  the light
• Cinema and photography are media that an artist
  can utilize to review the deeper meanings behind
  the phenomena of existence

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• We know that under the image revealed there is
  another which is truer to reality and under this
  image still another and yet again still another
  under this last one, right down to the true image
  of reality, absolute, mysterious, which no one
  will ever see.

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Film image embalms time wrenches phenomena
  from the flux of life
• Symbolic power of cinematic imagery combined with
  empirical density of cinematic realism
• The spirit behind the real object
• The long hard gaze
• Disliked over-expressive, over-ornamental, or
  overuse of montage

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Montage...chops the world up into little
  fragments, and disturbs the natural unity in
  people and things.

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• German expressionism did violence to the image
  by ways of sets and lighting.

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Liked films that focused on everyday
  psychological experience
• Italian neorealism (The Bicyle Thief)
• Disliked modernist, expressionistic
• Disliked films that imposed a political ideology
  on the viewer
• Long takes, of surrounding environment
• Impact of environment on people(French
  determinism)

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Francois Truffaut
• Erich von Stroheim
• Roberto Rossellini
• Vittorio De Sica
• Robert Bresson
• Jean Renoir
• Orson Welles
• William Wyler

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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)

• Depth of focus
• Respect for the continuity of dramatic space and
  the flow of time
• Composition in depthDramatic effects for which
  we had formerly relied on montage were created
  out of the movements of the actors within a fixed
  framework.
• Ambiguity of expression closer to reality viewer
  must choose

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Cinematic Realism Marxism (1930-present)

• Film as a reactionary medium
• Expose the shallowness of modern capitalistic
  society
• Real-life problems of the common man
• Poverty, crime, social injustice common themes
• Italian Neorealism
• British Social Realism

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• 1937-1945 Fascists controlled cinema(founded
  Cinecitta--largest studio in Europe)
• Propaganda films
• After WWII, Socialists and Communists in
  government tolerated Neorealisms left-wing
  ideology (former resistance movement)
• Economy in shambles
• Cost of studio production, film, lighting,
  etc.became prohibitive
• Reflected desire for social reform

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• Response to artificiality of cinema of the
  Fascist period
• Influenced by French poetic realism and American
  literary naturalism (e.g., Hemingway)
• Experiences of poor and socially marginalized
• Slice of life things and facts in time and
  place (versimo)
• Ambivalence of everyday experience
• Some took strong social political stance
• Marxist, with a hopeful, humanistic dimension

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CHARACTERISTICS
• On-location shooting
• Long takes
• Natural light
• Medium and long shots
• Non-professional actors
• Working class protagonists
• Environment as important as actors

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CESARE ZAVATTINI
• Three basics tenets of neorealism
• 1. Portray real or everyday people, using
  nonprofessional actors in real settings
• 2. Examine socially significant themes
• 3. Promote the organic development
  of situations--the real flow of life--in which
  complications are rarely resolved

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CESARE ZAVATTINI
• Some Ideas on the Cinema (1953)
• 1. Portray real or everyday people, using
  nonprofessional actors in real settings
• 2. Examine socially significant themes
• 3. Promote the organic development
  of situations--the real flow of life--in which
  complications are rarely resolved

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CESARE ZAVATTINI
• Identification with the common man in the
  crowd.
• Take dialogue and actors from the street.
• Reality in American films is unnaturally
  filtered.

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CESARE ZAVATTINI
• The world goes on getting worse because we are
  not truly aware of reality.
• The job of the director is to observe reality,
  and not extract fictions from it.
• The frequent habit of identifying oneself with
  fictional characters will become very dangerous.

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• CESARE ZAVATTINI
• The world goes on getting worse because we are
  not truly aware of reality.
• The job of the director is to observe reality,
  and not extract fictions from it.
• The frequent habit of identifying oneself with
  fictional characters will become very dangerous.

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• Criticized for negative depiction of Italy
• Lack of positive heroes
• Negative displays of human flesh
• Catholic Church forbidden for believers

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• Not the most popular cinema of the times in Italy
• People didnt want to be reminded of problems
• Hollywood and capitalist system of filmmaking
  an overpowering force
• BUT the movement did influence the French New
  Wave, Hollywood and TV

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Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)

• Roberto Rossellini
• Luchino Visconti
• Guisippe DeSantis
• Giovanni Verga
• Vittorio De Sica
• Federico Fellini
• Michelangelo Antonioni
• Bernardo Bertolucci
• Francesco Rosi