Neorealism
Neorealist Film presents a picture of reality in a way that allows people to believe what they are seeing on the screen is true, when in fact they are not seeing a true reality, or rather they are seeing a reality that could exist. In this paper I would like to discuss and criticize Neo-Realistic film. Discuss it to try and fill out my understanding of what this style of is and was. I would also like to present the argument that Neorealist film is not a film style that is no longer in use, or ended, but has rather been modernized into something new and different but still maintains some if not nearly all of the same characteristics of the original style which was presented until its “end” in the early 1950’s. Additionally, I would like to discuss some recent films which could be grouped into a style of film dubbed “Post Neorealist Film”. Films such as “Kids”, “Two Girls and a Guy”, “All Over Me”, “Fucking Åmal”, and “Together”, “Good Will Hunting”, “Rounders”. I believe even movies such as “The Majestic”, and “Insomniac” and many others have taken a certain amount influence from a Neorealist way of making films, and indeed are a type of Neorealist film for the current period of time that we live in. I would also like to criticize, in some ways, this style of film. The style is not completely without its weaknesses and it can be open to constructive criticism of its structure. I would like to argue that the style did not end. That potentially it was the beginning of what today is considered a common type of movie, so common in fact that it is no longer seen as Neorealist but as something different. A style of film that makes up the majority of the films that the audience sees in the cinema today. A style of film that began with this movement and school in the middle of the 20th century and still continues to manifest it self today in mainstream cinema. To begin, I would like to try and better understand what this style of film means now and what it meant during its peak. What defines a film as Neorealist, and why did the genre “die”? Neorealist film tries to present a view of reality through the viewing of a film. It tries to take things in everyday life, things that could happen to you and me (or not), put it on film and present those things to the audience in a way that makes them believe that they could really take place. However, there is a sense of the events being non real and that is what makes it Neorealist. In addition to that, it is not that we perceive them as not being real, but we perceive them as being real, the audience does not notice that the events in this film are somewhat unrealistic, because of the way that the film is made.