For this assignment you will screen another realist film and consider its realism. All of your choices (listed below) are available to stream for free on Kanopy.
Once you have screened your movie, I want you to respond to it in the contexts of this unit. How does the film express itself “realistically” and by what standards of realism? Maybe the production choices reflect this realism, and/or the acting or subject matter. How does it compare to Italian neorealism? How does it make use of realism for its own purposes? What are the intentions of your film’s realism, do you think? How does its construction of realism reflect the culture and moment of its production? You needn’t answer all the above questions; they are meant to give you direction.
UMBERTO D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952, Italy) — another classic of Italian neorealism, by the director of Bicycle Thieves.
ROME: OPEN CITY: (Roberto Rossellini, 1945, Italy) — considered the first Italian neorealism film, it was shot with film scraps on a microbudget just as World War II was ending.
LIFE AND NOTHING MORE (Antonio Mndez Esparza, 2017, Spain/US) — this is by the same director who did Aqui y Alla, but is set in the US and focuses on a young Black man and his family.
POETRY (Chang-dong Lee, 2010, South Korea) — quiet, haunting take on aging, Alzheimer’s, and more.
WANDA (Barbara Loden, 1970, US) — this classic of 1970s cinema features a housewife in Pennsylvania’s ‘rust belt’ leaving her husband and children in search of something or nothing at all.
LA STRADA (Federico Fellini, 1954, Italy) — Fellini transcended realism throughout his career, but his roots are Italian neorealism, and we’re reminded of this in the film that first brought him international fame.
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966, Algeria/Italy) — classic documentary-style film that shows the Algerian revolution from both sides.
PATHER PANCHALI (Satyajit Ray, 1955, India/Bengal) — Satyajit Ray took inspiration from Bicycle Thieves in making his debut film about a boy and his family struggling in a Bengali village.
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