Italian Neorealism

イタリアン・ネオレアリズモ / 1943–1952 / Style / Cinematic Visual Styles

Cinema that left the studio to film non-professional actors in the street, taking postwar poverty and daily life as its subject and standing on the side of reality.

Italian Neorealism — Anna Magnani in Rome, Open City, 1945 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Anna Magnani in Rome, Open City, 1945 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Italian Neorealism — Bicycle Thieves, 1948 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Bicycle Thieves, 1948 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Italian Neorealism — デ・シーカ『靴みがき』1946 より — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — デ・シーカ『靴みがき』1946 より — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Location shooting
Non-professional actors
Available light
Postwar streets

Best used for

Showing everyday work and streets through the faces of the people there
Social-issue film that must shoot on location without prettifying its subjects

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Dictionary entry

Type: Keep titles plain and let the filmed thing speak instead
Composition: Place people small inside the street, keep the surrounding life in frame
Material: Shoot in available light, hold shadow detail in a grainy scale
Caution: Filming poverty as raw material for a look reduces the people to texture, which inverts the whole premise of standing on the side of reality.
Further study: Roberto Rossellini / Vittorio De Sica / Cesare Zavattini's theory of the everyday

Related entries

French New Wave (ヌーヴェル・ヴァーグ)Same Cinematic Visual Styles lineage.Compare Italian Neorealism and French New Wave
Snapshot Aesthetic (スナップショット美学)Shared effects: Intimacy / Rebellion.Compare Italian Neorealism and Snapshot Aesthetic

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