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- History of Cinema 2
- Postwar Europe and Neorealism
- Postwar Devastation in Europe
- After the War, European Film would thrive
- Government action to stimulate the industry
- Revival of modernist film
- Emergence of Italian Neorealism
- Hollywood Comes to Europe
- Marshall Plan aid to European Countries
- Motion Picture Export Association of America
- Hollywood films were antidotes to Communism and Fascism
- By 1953 , Hollywood films were half of films screened in Europe
- Protectionist measures
- Stimulate domestic production
- Protect domestic culture
- Encourage local film industry
- Important factor for developing new wave cinemas in the 1950s and 1960s
- Import Quotas
- France, 1948: 20 weeks of screening time devoted to French films
- Britain’s New Films Act, 1948: 45% of screening time to British feature films
- Italy’s Andreotti law, 1949: 80 days of per year for Italian films
- Levies
- Charges imposed on a film’s expected earnings
- Italy’s Andreotti law, 1949: interest free loan of $2.5 million lire
- Freeze American film’s earning in the country
- France, 1948: $10 million in earnings were frozen
- Taxes
- Governments used foreign-film tax revenue to fund domestic films
- Denmark: tax on movie tickets
- Government facilitated bank financing for filmmaking
- Britain: National Film Finance Corporation
- Direct government financing
- Prizes
- Subsidies
- Tax rebates
- Frozen-Fund Productions
- Revenue from US films were “frozen” in the country
- US companies invested in local productions
- US companies distributed European art films to American art cinemas
- US companies undertook “runaway productions”
- US companies established foreign subsidiaries
- Film Europe
- Revival of idea to unite filmmakers in the 1920s
- United to stave of competition from Hollywood films and US companies
- Postwar spirit of cooperation
- International Coproductions
- Cast and crew from two or more countries
- Qualified for subsidies from each nation
- Spread out financial risks
- Allowed for bigger budget films to compete with Hollywood
- Access to international markets
- Film Festivals
- Showcase national film culture through competition
- Showcase for films to attract international prizes
- Venice Film Festival
- Mussolini era: 1932–1940
- Postwar era: revived in 1946, interrupted
- Big Three
- Venice
- Cannes, founded 1946
- Berlin, founded 1951
- Return of Modernism
- New generation of film audiences
- Interest in less standard movies
- Revival of social and intellectual life
- Artists revived modernist traditions of the prewar years
- Soviet Montage
- Surrealism
- Expressionism
- Objective Realism
- Italian Neorealists filmed in the streets
- Episodic, “slice of life” narratives
- “Nothing Happens"
- Open-ended narratives
- Long takes
- Camera movement
- Subjective Realism
- Thompson and Bordwell: “Psychological forces that make the individual act in particular ways”
- Narrative flashbacks
- Internal character states: dreams, hallucinations, fantasies
- Authorial Comment
- Commentary about the world outside the film
- Social criticism
- Self-reflexivity about the film
- Italy
- Fascists came to power in 1922
- No effort to control media
- Did not nationalize film industries
- Propaganda centralized by L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa
- Documentaries
- Newsreels
- Government Support
- Guaranteed subsidies from box office receipts
- Theaters were required to program a certain number of Italian films
- Helped encourage production to 45 films per year by the end of the 1930s
- “General Direction of Cinema”
- Established by the government
- Believed entertainment was key
- Mussolini reviewed films but never banned them
- Government subsidized production but industry overall lost money
- Cinecitta
- Opened in Rome, 1937
- 12 Sound Stages
- Journal of Film Criticism
- Film School
- Directors
- Performers
- Technicians
- Prewar Films
- Propaganda films
- Elaborate studio films
- Romantic melodramas
- Comedies
- “White Telephone films” about the upper-class
- Wartime Realism
- Literature
- Film: Ossessione (1941)
- Guiseppe De Santis and Mario Alicata, 1941, “we will create our most beautiful film following the slow and tired step of the worker who returns home.”
- Italian Spring, 1945
- Fall of Mussolini
- Liberation of Italy
- Italian Neorealism
- On-location shooting
- Post-production dialogue recording
- Contemporary stories from a “Popular Front” perspective
- Contemporary social problems
- Films were popular outside of Italy
- Giulio Andreotti Law
- Enacted in 1949
- Slow the advance of American films
- Curb the embarrassing portrayal of Italy in Neorealist films
- Import and Screentime Quotas
- Loans for Production Firms
- Government review committee
- Apolitical films were better funded
- Export licenses denied to films “slanderous” to Italy
- Decline of Neorealism
- Neorealist Form and Style
- Exteriors shot on location
- Interiors shot in well-lit, studios
- Sound was postdubbed
- Mix of non-professional actors with professional film stars
- Classical Hollywood editing style
- Sweeping non-diegetic musical scores
- Neorealist Narratives
- Coincidences
- Elliptical storytelling
- Unresolved endings
- Episodic String of Events
- “Flatten” All Story Events
- Minimize climaxes
- Dwelling on “microactions"
- Mixture of Tones
- Influence of Neorealism
- “All roads lead to Rome: Open City”