Published: November 5, 2009

After years of devastation resulting from fascist oppression and total war, Italian directors of the early 1940s began creating movies unlike anything made in Hollywood at the time. The style of film known as Italian neorealism was developed in reaction to the World War II experience specific to poor Italians who had lived under Nazi occupation.

While the originators of the Italian neorealist movement attempted to depart from idealized American studio pictures, they did more than generate realistic plots. Borrowing conceptually from 19th century French realist writers, these directors documented storylines from life and recreated the human condition of working-class Italians on film.

In celebration of this historic innovation in filmmaking, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will offer a series titled “Italian Neorealism and the Birth of Modern Cinema” from Oct. 30 to Nov. 25 at Walter Reade Theatre, located at 70 Lincoln Center Plaza off W. 63 St. The retrospective will include films by the founders as well as directors whose careers overlapped with and developed from the movement.

Critics and film aficionados often cite Roberto Rossellini, a featured director in the Film Society’s series, as one of the founding filmmakers of Italian neorealist cinema. His 1945 film “Open City” essentially “launched the movement,” said Nelson Kim, filmmaker, critic and professor of communication and media studies at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC). Most neorealist films, including “Open City,” are known for their documentary visual style, sequences filmed on-location and casting of non-professional actors in order to express more truthful scenery, action and emotion.

“Open City” follows the lives of Italian partisans and their attempts to rid themselves of Nazi rule. The union between Catholic and Marxist sensibilities is a prominent theme throughout, according to Rev. Michael Tueth, S.J., associate chair of the department of communication and media studies at FCLC. “The mode of production was very economical,” Tueth said. They had to seek out film stock in Rome in order to complete production. Like many Italian neorealist films, “Open City” focuses on powerless, marginalized individuals, highlighting the helplessness of the female characters, according to Tueth.

The Film Society will also present the work of director Vittorio De Sica. Similar to Rossellini’s “Open City,” De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” (1948) concentrates on poverty-stricken Italians in post-World War II Rome. The film’s climax shows the breaking point of the protagonist, played by an unknown actor, and, similar to other neorealist films, his struggle is largely unresolved.

De Sica’s “Umberto D.” (1952) is “more advanced and more modern” despite its lack of drama or plot in the contemporary sense, Kim said. While the film examines the life of a poor Italian pensioner, it may be easier to follow and more attractive for viewers raised on American cinema, Tueth said.

Director Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film “Obsession,” screened on opening night of the retrospective, could be considered the first Italian neorealist film, Kim said, or, in the least, an early precursor to neorealism.

One of the protégés of the neorealist movement is Pier Paolo Pasolini. His 1964 film “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” is a neorealist treatment of a biblical story, according to Joseph Perricone, professor of Italian at FCLC. The film’s spontaneity and use of non-professional actors are features characteristic of neorealism, said Perricone, who specializes in 17th to 20th century Italian literature and film. The Film Society will show Pasolini’s 1961 film “Accattone,” which chronicles the life of a pimp living in Rome.

The influence of Italian neorealism on cinema is widely recognized by film professionals. From 1960s and 1970s Latin American film, to 1980s Iranian film, to the modern American independent film movement, the “impact was immediate and [is] proving to be long-lasting,” Kim said.

American director Charles Burnett and his film “Killer of Sheep” (1977) is one example. Although Burnett had not been exposed to neorealist films before he made “Killer of Sheep,” according to Kim, the director was able to discover the same belief system as the neorealist movement on his own, focusing on the everyday life of working class people.

Neorealism’s influence exists in Italy today through “la commedia all’italiana,” or comedy Italian-style, which Perricone describes as “comedy with a serious social and political perspective.” The era of Italian neorealism was a “rich period… that could always inspire new directors,” Perricone said. For instance, Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” (2008) is a modern mafia film based on non-fiction and motivated by the canons of neorealism.

The field of documentary film is also a product of the aims of neorealism. Documentary filmmakers, like Michael Moore, “use film to put our nose right in the real world,” Tueth said, but outside of the documentary genre “we just don’t expect movies to mirror reality.”

While a popular audience did not exist in Italy when the neorealist movement began, according to Kim, its modern niche following is similar to that of art house cinema—independent, often foreign language film. Among a certain audience, there will “always be a hunger for real stories,” Kim said.

Hence, the Film Society’s series of Italian neorealist films running through most of November at Walter Reade Theater. Film Society programs, including the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films “play an important role in the cultural life of New York,” Kim said.

The Film Society appropriately offers a “global perspective” as cinema is a “global art form.” The fact that the 40-film series will feature lesser known neorealist directors and their protégés “provides a broader sense of the movement” for film experts and those new to the genre.

While Italian neorealist cinema reflected the war-torn environment in which it was developed, the current atmosphere of economic hardship and political uneasiness may pull modern moviegoers to these meaningful cinematic expressions of the saga that is everyday life. According to Perricone, the Italian neorealist movement is a “period of cinema that continues to haunt people.”