Investigation Blog Post 14

 Introduction: This week’s blog post is about: Neorealism and its origins in European Cinema. I was looking at film topics and I thought It would be fun to look back at film theory and neo-realism. Neorealism, also known as structural realism, is a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations. Neorealism and realism are also two different topics. Classical realism places emphasis on human and domestic factors and neorealism focuses on the structure of the international system that determines state behavior. Neorealism became famous in 1947 with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City, when it won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival as the first major film produced in Italy after the war. The film and art style isn’t seen much around anymore with the trend really ending in 1952.

Inspiration: For this, I decided to look at films produced with this style. Source: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-italian-neorealist-films

• The Bicycle Thief, the most popular film made during this time

• Ossessione (Obsession)

• La terra trema (The Earth Trembles)

• Germany, Year Zero 

• Francesco, giullare di Dio (Francis, Jester of God)

• Umberto D.

• La strada (The Road)

• Il tetto (The Roof)

• Il posto (the Place)

• Padre Padrone (Master Father)

• Gomorrah

A lot of these films are in European languages since this movie-style was most popular in this area of the world. These films, called Neorealism in Italy and sometimes cinéma vérité in France, the goal was to achieve documentary-like objectivity by using non-actors in leading roles and incorporating segments of actual documentary footage into the story. So really it’s not meant to be professional acting, but rather make it documentary-like. Typically these movies are set amongst the poor and the working class and filmed on location.

Brainstorming/Experimentation: I already kind of work on this style since my cousins aren’t exactly professional actors, but it’s also a whole other idea. This type of film is definitely inserting and is a very creative idea. I feel like I could do a film in this style with a few of my friends. You can just place it in the main things associated with this film style and create a film around this idea. You can almost make a documentary about just living with this style since it focuses on the working class. You can take shots of people working and then make a documentary. I don’t exactly know how easy that would be, but maybe I would try it. Since this style of film isn’t seen much anymore I’m not sure if people would enjoy it anymore.

Reflection: Looking at this film style was definitely a journey. It’s an interesting film style and not seen anymore in cinema, at least what I saw. This style of film was mainly popular in the 40s/50s and it allowed a lot of European filmmakers to be put into the spotlight for a film with this style. I do know of a movie that did kind of do this style but didn’t focus on the poor, but rather the mysterious death of a teenager called Lake Mungo. It’s a film that’s made to look like a documentary and a real one, but really it was just a film made to look this way. This style does has an influence still, and there are always new types of these films around the world. I liked looking at film theory again and these other types of films.