Italian Neo-Realism Film Analysis

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Neo-realism was a film movement and practice grounded in the political and socio-historical contexts of Italy under german occupation, during the Allied liberation, and all throughout the period of national reconstruction (Hart, Francisco and Barkat, 2009). The excerpt above states that the italian neo-realism film movement started with the interest of telling and portraying real life stories after the war in Italy. Concentrating on poverty, social devastation and the after effects of the war on Italy. Italian neo-realism sought to portray the ‘real’ life of italians, the word ‘real’ in cinema is a conflicting one. Cinema is obviously not real, but yet audiences believe it is because cinema looks real (Novell-Smith, 2012). These two ideas are…show more content…
He does not manage to find his bicycle, in the end, he resorts by stealing someone else’s bicycle. He gets caught and is ashamed that he sunk to the levels of a thief. The film ends with the main character and his son Bruno, walking away. Throughout the film, we see the social devastation and poverty stricken people of Italy during post World War two. For example, during the very start of the film we see that many people are struggling to find jobs, including Antonio Ricci the main character. Antonio is offered a job but needs a bicycle to be eligible for the job. His wife, sells their dowry bed sheets to buy a bicycle (dowry bed sheets are a priced possession of a poor family). We see a shot of the dowry bed sheets being added to a huge pile of other bed sheets that other families have pawned. The mise en scene of that shot is an important one. We see a panning shot of a man walking and stacking Antonio’s bedsheet. In the background of the shot, we see a huge pile of other family's bedsheets. The man then climbs up the bedsheet rack as the camera pans up and we see even more bedsheets stockpiled up the enormous rack. The scene implies that everyone is in poverty during that time and had to sell their dowry bedsheets at some point of their lives to make ends meet. Another great example of Italian neo-realism portraying the hardships of the italian people can be seen when Antonio and his son, Bruno enters a posh restaurant. Bruno sees a rich boy eating a sandwich and tries to mimic the rich boy’s movements when he gets his sandwich. We then see Antonio telling his kid that if they were to eat like the rich kid’s family, they need to be earning millions of dollars. Antonio then is overwhelmed with his misfortune, starts thinking of his lost earnings and how with his new job they could live a comfortable
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