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Everything
is related to Naples Neo-Realism
Neo-Realism (NR) is the name given to
a genre of Italian literature and, particularly, film
that attempted to depict the real lives of ordinary
people caught up in the difficult and dramatic times in
post-war Italy. Typically, NR films were characterized
by loose plots and episodic structure, essentially just
“turning the camera loose” on real people. Filming was
almost always on location instead of on a set in a
studio; non-professional actors were often used; real
conversational speech was used as opposed to scripted
literary dialogue (this included the use of authentic
regional Italian dialects instead of standard Italian),
and there was little “artistic” camera work and
lighting, the films thus having an almost documentary
style about them. In novels and plays, the style of
writing is devoid of flair, with an emphasis on
straightforward description of persons and places as
well as on realistic dialogue, again including the use
of dialects. Depending on the author, NR literature
usually contains a certain amount of ideological or
political slant as it deals with such things as social
justice and equality. (The “Neo-“ in NR points back to the
original literature and art of Realism, a style current
in Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a
genre that dealt with social injustice, emphasizing
natural settings and everyday life. Realist painters
from that period included Gustave Courbier and
Honoré Daumier; Realist authors included Balzac,
Dostoevsky, and, in Italy, Giovanni Verga. In Naples,
Realist authors included Raffaele
Viviani, Ferdinando Russo,
and Francesco Mastriani.) Italian films viewed as NR include:
Of that list, Sciuscià
takes place in Naples (the title word is a dialect
neologism deriving from the English word “shoeshine”)
and Paisà
is an episode film, one of which segments takes place in
Naples. The entire genre had immediate effect elsewhere.
Even Fred Zinnemann’s The Men (1950)
(Marlon Brando’s film debut) is NR in that it is a
gritty slice-of-life where, if you didn’t know
otherwise, you’d swear you were watching real people and
not actors. The same can be said for some later Italian
films such as De Sica’s La Ciociara
(Two Women) from 1960 and the later works of Neapolitan
director Francesco Rossi, whose films La Sfida (1956) and
Salvatore Giuliano
(1961) deal with organized crime. Generally speaking, Italians have
always viewed film as an extension of literature; thus,
it is common in Italy to link film and “author” (i.e.,
the director); one speaks of “Rossellini’s Paisà,” for
example. Only film buffs know the names of the
non-actors in many of these films. (Exceptions, of
course, include Roma,
città aperta, a film that featured
professional actors such as Anna Magnani.) The use of
non-professional actors also has some amusing stories
connected with it. De Sica told of how he cast the title
role for Umberto D.,
a film about a pensioner trying to keep from being
evicted. De Sica saw a gentleman sitting on a park bench
who looked like he might fit the part. The gentleman
happened to be Carlo Battisti, a linguistics professor
at the university of Florence. When De Sica asked him if
would like to “be in a movie,” Battisti (who, indeed,
wound up with the role) dead-panned, “I don’t know how
to ride a horse.” The use of dialect also caused some
problems among the movie-goers, who had been used to
professional dubbing in standard Italian in all films,
foreign and domestic; that is, even Italian actors were
often redubbed with "better" voices! (See film dubbing.) Neapolitan films that might be called NR include Napoli Milionaria
(1950, dir. Eduardo de Filippo)
and L’Oro di Napoli (1954, Vittorio
De Sica). Although there are bizarre, surreal episodes
in these films, the emphasis is still on authenticity
and everyday life. The fact that they contain moments of
great humor (virtually absent in other examples of NR)
is irrelevant. Sometimes life is funny, like it or not. NR authors in Naples include Giuseppe Marotta, Domenico Rea, and Carlo Bernari (1909-1992), among whose many works is the five-part novel, Vesuvio e pane (Vesuvius and Bread) (1952), a work written in a straightforward style and absolutely devoid of false sentimentality or forced humor. There is none of what has been called “Eduardo-ism” (in reference to Eduardo de Filippo), perhaps an unfair criticism, but implying a style that renders even poverty artistically quaint. Vesuvio e pane is simply about what it’s really like to live in a city that is very difficult to live in. When I mentioned to
my mother-in-law that I thought many NR films were
great, she sighed and said, “I lived through two world
wars. Why do I want to go and relive all that in the
movies.” That sentiment was apparently wide-spread. NR
ran its course brilliantly and swiftly. |
As
early as 1933, the Italian writer, Leo Longanese, said
that in Italy you didn’t need film studios—just take the
camera out on the street and film real people doing real
things. This is precisely what happened in Italian
cinema after WW2.