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neo-realism 4 dummies?

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ALYC

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Mar 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM3/4/00
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Hi...
i must confess that the only neo-realist film I've ever watched was Bicycle
Thieves by De Sica...more than a year ago. I'm supposed to watch Open City
next week, so hopefully i'll get a better idea too.......

From what I learnt in the past.....cutting & pasting from notes

Ideologically, the characteristics of Italian neorealism are:

1. to emphasise the lifes of ordinary people ...eg.poverty
2. a compassionate point of view and a refusal to make quick moral
judgements
3. a preoccupation with Italy's Fascist past and its aftermath of wartime
devastation
4. stresses humanism
5. an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract ideas

Stylistically, Italian Neorealism .....

1. avoids neatly plotted stories in favor of loose, episodic structures
2. shoot on location wherever possible
3. uses nonprofessional actors in the majority of roles
4. reveal the everyday rather than the exceptional.
5. avoids artifice or drawing attention to film form in editing, camerawork,
and lighting in favor of a simple style-less style
6. shows things as they are, not as they seem, nor as the bourgeois world
would prefer they appear.

below is link to a neorealism site with definitions & stuff.....
http://www.nwlink.com/~dbmeek/neo-frame.html


K

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Mar 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM3/4/00
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Thanks for the definitions. I think I understand now =)

Going by those definitions, how about "The War Zone" ? (non Italian film as
neo realism)

K

wake up neo realism ! *hehee*

John H

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Mar 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM3/4/00
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The War Zone is a visually tylized family melodrama that isolates its
characters from their social context. Not even in the ballpark.

John Harkness

John H

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Mar 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM3/4/00
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On 04 Mar 2000 10:42:30 GMT, wkeu...@aol.comnooojunk (K) wrote:

>Thanks for the definitions. I think I understand now =)
>
>Going by those definitions, how about "The War Zone" ? (non Italian film as
>neo realism)
>
>K
>
>wake up neo realism ! *hehee*
>
>

Neorealism as much an historical moment as a style. There are no more
neorealist films. The moment is passed.

John Harkness

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