Film noir & neo noir – conveying a sense of the past

Defining film noir, a genre of film stretching from the 1940s to the late 1950s, has been a difficult challenge for many critics, so much so that cinema historian Mark Bould regards it as an “elusive phenomenon…always just out of reach[1]”. It was brought to Hollywood by Europeans after WWII, with ideas, feelings and of course filming techniques different to those of Hollywood so far. Intertwined with the hard-boiled crime fiction stories and attitudes born in the US during the Depression already evident in 20s and 30s gangster films and within the setting of war time disillusionment in America, often film noir is about or refers to the war. If not literally war related, there is almost always a dominant sense of nostalgia, looking back to earlier, more innocent and simple pre-war times. Several techniques and devices have been used by film-makers to convey such senses of the past.

One of the major influences on film noir is German Expressionist cinematography. Its detailed, anti-naturalistic mise-en-scene and symbolism which create a dark, sinister mood was brought to America by emigrating German film-makers during the war when the Nazis gained power. The plots of Expressionist films also matched this dark and disillusioned visual style, often dealing with madness, insanity and paranoia. Noir is all about darkness and hopelessness; the protagonist looks back to a time in the past when times (or he himself) used to be more innocent, mirroring the American crisis. An example of sheer doom can be seen in They Live by Night (1948); Bowie longs for a simple life and wants to be good, goodness being what Bowie’s love interest represents, but their destiny is clear to the audience from the beginning and as expected, he is killed. A good example of visual Expressionist influence is in The Third Man (1949) which is arguably British noir[2], with its dramatic angles and shadows particularly evident in the chase sequence in the sewer at the end. The eerie house in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is also a fine example of expressionism, though this film is regarded as neo noir rather than classic film noir, if noir at all (Hitchcock is not prominently associated with noir). Not only is the feeling eerie, but the fact that we never get a clear view of within the house, and certain shots such as the bird’s eye shot of the ‘old lady’ rushing out of the room to kill the detective, and the same when Norman carries his mother down the staircase, are techniques used to achieve this uncanny feeling.

Robert Ebert states that “the very essence of noir is that there are no more heroes.[3]” The gangsters of noir look back to an earlier life when they used to be ‘good’, but ultimately their innocence is lost, just like the American post-war soldiers. Out of the Past (1947) begins with Jeff the protagonist in a small simple town, having already tried to escape his dark past. The truth catches up with him and he returns to the city to clear up the mess he made, but he comes back, still with hope of escaping; what follows is doom. Another example of nostalgic longing in noir is On Dangerous Ground (1952). Troubled cop Jim is sent to the snowy countryside to solve a murder case, and there he meets love. After the case is solved he returns to the city, but in order to be with Mary and achieve happiness he comes back to the countryside (the snow and the countryside represent simplicity and purity). Though there is no doom here, Mary, who is completely innocent, is blind. We feel sorry for her, and it might be that handicap stresses virtue and goodness (there is also a deaf boy in Out of the Past).

Another example of handicap playing a key role is in The Spiral Staircase (1945) by Robert Siodmak who is a German noir director of Polish origin. The old silent film at the beginning is a great reference to the past and establishes right away that Helen loves the past and is somehow stuck in it. It turns out that she is a mute and thus is unable to escape and live in the present. The Doctor then drives her home from the cinema in a horse and cart even though there were cars at this time of course. This use of prop locks her further in the past. The staircase itself is also of course a key to the past, since many things happened on it which caused the present impasse. The past is not necessarily purely lovely, but is also filled with dark secrets. This traumatises Helen and turns her into a mute.

Flashback is a key technique used in many noir films in order to go back to the past. Out of the Past, already mentioned, consists of flashbacks. Dead Reckoning (1947) is another film, told half in flashback by Captain Rip Murdock as he looks for his friend who has just returned from the war. Rip doesn’t understand anything as his friend was a good guy, but as he furthers his investigation he uncovers his friend’s secret-filled past. The Anti-Semite noir film, Crossfire (1947) is also composed of flashbacks to the war. There is plentiful use of shadows and harsh lighting demonstrating the effect of Expressionist influence, though Dmytryk himself stated that it was simply cheaper and “a lot faster to light the people and then throw a couple of big shadows on the wall.[4]” Recognised as one of the first Hollywood films to deal with racial bigotry, Crossfire doesn’t just mirror the social problem in America but highlights it and by turning it into a message, calls for, or attempts to call for change. Shot entirely at night, it is as though the soldiers are only able to survive in darkness; in the shabby apartment, the theatre, in nightclubs etc. These gloomy settings which emphasise loneliness are typical characteristics of film noir; they “construct a frightening alternative, a life of permanent impermanence, to the settled, middle-class existence that was ordinarily purveyed by a Hollywood formerly preoccupied, for sound business reasons, with picturing ‘sunlit pastures[5]’”, in other words portraying the true American mood dominated by “dread and terror.[6]”

The dialogue in Crossfire consists of soldiers’ slang, and this is an obvious link to their immediate past. Another example of language linking to the past is in The Enforcer (1951). Gangster terminology such as “a hit”, “a hitman” and “a contract” were not familiar terms back in the 50s to either the characters or the audience, so the protagonist, D.A Martin’s confusion as to what these terms mean highlights a sense of nostalgia, looking back to simpler, more innocent times before the war. There is also empathy created, not just in The Enforcer but in any film where simple and honest people are killed by gangsters, which also mirrors the pointlessness of the war which had killed so many million people and raised a sense of “the possibility of sudden, undeserved death[7]” among the people.

Some unique devices not mentioned yet used either to escape into or escape from the past are, for example, in The Dark Passage (1947) where a literal escape from the past has been attempted through plastic surgery. Vincent, the protagonist who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence undergoes illicit surgery as his face is too well known in order for him to get anywhere. Until after his surgery the entire film has been shot from Vincent’s eye view. The same method of filming has been used in Lady in the Lake (1947) throughout the entire film. Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) uses the dummy technique as a bizarre way into the past. Perhaps due to the increasing popularity of psychotherapy at the time, Freudian ideas and concepts recur in several of Hitchcock’s films, for example in Spellbound (1945). Psychoanalysis is used to open the locked doors within the patient, Peck’s mind and reveal truths and forgotten events from his past. Similarly to the case of Helen in The Spiral Staircase (1945), the past has both tangled up and (later) freed the mind. Usually in noir it is a detective who investigates and digs up the past.

Though it is more ‘new wave’ than film noir, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) certainly has strong aspects of noir. It is a clash between the past and the present, the power of the past and memory. The documentary style conjures up the past of the war and is haunting; the music and slow pace add to this. Resnais was influenced by Casablanca (1942) (we see a café by that name in the film) and Vertigo (1958), and Casablanca itself is dominated by memory, though not usually called film noir. Resnais uses all kinds of devices, such as sudden switches from one person now to another in the past, a hand to another in the past (of the German soldier Elle was in love with) and so on. One could say that film noir comes not just from German directors but also the French, for example Tourneur and Max Ophuls, who was German but also worked in France. It can be suggested that obsession with the past was a European thing which travelled with European directors (such as Siodmak) to America and in a way travelled back with some of them and also influenced other up and coming French and German directors (e.g. Wim Wenders – Wings of Desire (1987)). Vertigo, like Hiroshima Mon Amour, also has the feature of repetition (though its being film noir is debatable) and is preoccupied with the past; an action recalls a place and a painting recalls a time long ago, the protagonist, Scottie, has to go back to the place and repeat the action – this is ultimate noir.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) has been described as a neo-noir film, with traits such as slow speed, a haunting quality and a sense of mysteriousness perhaps connected with the past. As it is based on Schnitzler’s Dream Story it looks backs to 1900 Vienna, though it is set in modern-day New York. The past has been evoked firstly through music by composers such as Mozart and Liszt (also the Romanian Orthodox Liturgy), and secondly through costume; the masks worn in the ritual scene reminds us of 18^th century Venice, whose carnivals are famous and shown in paintings. The Good German (2006) is also a clear neo-noir film. It is in black and white, and the music is reminiscent of the 40s and 50s. The past is recreated by bits of old newsreels (like in Hiroshima Mon Amour), by the ruins of the city, the costumes and the cars, and by old newspapers. The unusual camera angles and profiles are similar to those of film noir and German Expressionism. Lost innocence is a major theme (the final scene is strongly reminiscent of Casablanca), and there is the debate of good and bad, already evident in the title, The Good German. This again links to Hiroshima Mon Amour, where Elle’s past lover was a German soldier and she falls in love with and confides in Lui, the Japanese man. Jason W. Ellis states that the “atomic bomb that levelled Hiroshima also blasted openings into a netherworld of consciousness where victory and defeat, enemy and self, threatened to merge[8]”, the ‘netherworld of consciousness’ in which the “distinction between traditional values disappeared is also an apt description of the moral atmosphere of film noir.”

To conclude, film noir and neo noir convey a strong sense of the past; usually doom which mirrors how things really were in America after the war along with a nostalgic longing for a simpler past and/or more innocent self. Expressionist techniques such as combinations of extremely high and long angle shots, vivid lighting, shadows, distorted perspectives and detailed set designs and complicated plots help achieve the “sense of limitless darkness[9].” Flashbacks are often used in noir films to connect to the past, and several other devices have been discussed such as dialogue, costume, music, soldiers as characters, empathy created by innocence being killed or handicapped, psychoanalysis, and so on. The protagonists, often “guilt-ridden loners[10]” can never escape from the “lawlessness and moral uncertainty of the dark city” or go back to who they used to be. Thus, they “can inhabit only a present that is always already in the past.” As in Raymond Chandler’s novels, what seemed to be idyllic times were not actually so because dark secrets were hidden which have now to be exposed. Almost all 50s noir films referring to the war, the genre became a space for the soldiers and all others disillusioned and haunted who couldn’t explain their feelings to their families (indeed, domesticity had broken down after the war due to women being increasingly employed in the war effort) to express themselves. While the gangster films of the 20s and 30s reflected the events going on in America, film noir “attacked and interpreted its sociological conditions.[11]”

  

Bibliography

Bould, Mark (2005). Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City. London and New York: Wallflower

Film Noir Reader 2, essay called British Film Noir, by Tony Williams

Ebert, Roger “Batman” http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920619/REVIEWS/206190301/1023

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-edward-dmytryk-1103882.html

The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral Man in the Dark City, Film Noir, the Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer

William S. Graebner, The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (New York: Twayne, 1991)

Jason W. Ellis, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusionment of Generation [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995]

Film Noir, Andrew Spicer Noir Style

Film Noir Reader, Paul Shrader, Notes on Film Noir

Filmography

Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz
Spellbound (1945) Alfred Hitchcock
The Spiral Staircase (1945) Robert Siodmak
Crossfire (1947) Edward Dmytryk
The Dark Passage (1947) Delmer Daves
Dead Reckoning (1947) John Cromwell
Lady in the Lake (1947) Robert Montgomery
Out of the Past (1947) Jacques Tourneur
The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed
The Enforcer (1951) James Fargo
On Dangerous Ground (1952) Nicholas Ray
Vertigo (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) Alain Resnais
Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Stanley Kubrick
The Good German (2006) Steven Soderbergh

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[1] Bould, Mark (2005). Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City. London and New York: Wallflower, p. 13

[2] Film Noir Reader 2, essay called British Film Noir, by Tony Williams, pages 242-3

[3] "Batman". Roger Ebert http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920619/REVIEWS/206190301/1023.

[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-edward-dmytryk-1103882.html

[5] The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral Man in the Dark City, Film Noir, the Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer, p. 189

[6] as above, p. 188

[7] William S. Graebner, The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (New York: Twayne, 1991), 19-20, 19.

[8] Jason W. Ellis, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusionment of Generation [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995], 6

[9] Film Noir, Andrew Spicer Noir Style p. 62

[10] The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, Moral Man in the Dark City, Film Noir, the Postwar Religios Revival, and The Accused R.Barton Palmer, p. 193

[11] Film Noir Reader, Paul Shrader, Notes on Film Noir, p. 63

Neorealist cinema

The cinema of Italian Neorealism breaks away from the pure ‘entertainment’ and ‘escapist’ films which were shown to the public under the control of the fascist regime until then in order to distract the people from what was going on towards the end of/after the war, and to keep things in strict order. The true picture was presented – Italy in a state of chaos, sadness and solitude – with traditional values no longer meaning anything, much to the shock of the nation. Neorealism turned to social issues and the pursuit of subjects and themes reflecting the life of ordinary Italian people.

‘Ossessione’ (1943) by Luchino Visconti was made at a time when Italy was still at war, and the fascist regime was losing popularity. Filmed away from Rome and immediate government control, it was the first realist film, presenting how “poverty, over-crowding, and sordid living-conditions affect the humanity[1]” of the people. Until then the principle of films in the 1930s and 40s had been entertainment in forms of musicals, comedies and melodramas etc, ‘white-telephone films’ with no propaganda contexts. They were films under the control of the fascist authoritarian regime used to distract and brain-wash the people. Therefore the film was a controversy, “it was like a bomb exploding in the cinema. Filmmakers “felt compelled to undertake a civic project of historical and socio-cultural revelation after years of fascist propaganda and deceptive distractions.[2]” People saw a film which they had not thought possible[3]”, with huge uproar and criticism from the fascists (Mussolini's son Vittorio received the film as a deliberate act of provocation, and stormed out of the cinema shouting “This is not Italy!”[4]) who, being obsessed with control and order, believed the film promoted an unstructured society. The ‘tramp’ was an American idea, one which the fascists would have objected to, as the country was supposed to be constantly improving, with nobody unemployed, no crime, - nothing ‘wrong’ going on. However what we see is far from the ‘perfect’ society, as young men are wandering the streets on a morning/afternoon of a weekday in the town square – why aren’t they working? The gossipy atmosphere and crowd gathering the moment Gino slaps Giovanna and dismissing as soon as it’s over shows that these people are bored and have nothing better to do. A picture of lust and greed of the working-class people has been presented, with Gino and Giovanna having sex within minutes of meeting, and going on to murder Giovanna’s husband Bregana for freedom, who is a fascist, evident from when he says to Gino, “we comrades (camarata – a fascist term)”, though this is not in the subtitled text. This symbol of ‘killing off the fascist’, who is obese and a joke-like character, along with the general atmosphere of rebellion in the film, infuriated the fascists. Visconti himself was a leftist, and he seems to introduce the left-wing character of the Spaniard (he is not in The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, which Ossessione was based on) to disguise his messages. He offers Gino a helping hand inside the train, and continuously tries to persuade him to live ‘freely’ like himself. Also, Anita is obviously a prostitute, which is something that would have not been talked about – a taboo issue considering the fascist censorship. Ossessione focused on revealing the details of human behaviour, and to contribute to the achieving the ‘real’ effect, non-professional actors have been used – this is used in many neorealist films. Visconti stated that “unless the cinema is nourished by a profoundly human idea, it is empty.[5]”  Also to make the film seem real in time, there is no hurrying up or concentrated seconds – what happens is present as it is. The neorealist films that followed Ossessione in the post-war years were answers to Vittorini’s question, “Shall we ever have a culture capable of protecting people against suffering instead of just comforting them?”

The broken down society of Italy can be seen clearly in Vittorio De Sica’s Sciuscia (1946) through the portrayal of the distorted lives of boys who lived on the streets shining shoes for a living after the liberation, and became corrupt by being drawn into the black market. There is a picture of displacement (especially of youth) as nothing seems to be functioning normally - the children are homeless and are involved in crime (a large amount of the film is set in a juvenile prison). Other boys have committed crimes from armed robbery and even shooting their father - realistically, boys on the streets were likely to become involved in crime. The institutions of authority are corrupt, although, the question of whether it is the institutions themselves or the people in it that are corrupt can be raised. For example inside the juvenile prison, the prison warden trades cigarettes for matches with one of the inmates, and by the swiftness of the action we are meant to assume that this is something that happens all the time. In the court room, Pasqual’s lawyer is appointed by the court, simply performing his duty with no interest or will. His character is completely ridiculous, taking forever to put his coat on, get up, and say not very much at all – to a comical extent. The message appears to be that if one has money, they are bound to get a better outcome. Justice is unfair and unbalanced. The figures of authority usually tend to be old men, suggesting a need for reform. There is no sign of education at all in the film; there is one brief scene where children recite mathematics, but it is memorable that one of the children says aloud the wrong answer. Giuseppe is obviously at an age where he should be in school, yet he is not. The woman who comes to visit the boy Napoli in his mother’s place appears to be a prostitute as she appears flirtatious and gives the guard the ‘eye’ – this is another element of corruption. There is, however, no fundamental ‘brutality’, as for example in the prison, when Pasquale is threatened to tell them what he knew thinking that Giuseppe was being whipped, in fact he wasn’t actually being whipped – the threatening more manipulative than violent or brutal. However the director of the prison (is he a fascist?) appears only to be interested in punishment and not welfare, as he ignores the childrens’ complaints about bed bugs and the inedible soup. The film, made in a time of hope that institutions will reform, was a response to the human needs at the time. De Sica aimed for the audience to sympathise with the two boys, and in order to make this easy, he picked the two actors out from big castings rather than using the two actual shoeshine boys he and Zavattani (who had collaborated on the screenplay) had met on the streets which inspired them to make the film, as they were not ‘good-looking’ enough. The film became a hallmark of neorealist social enquiry, becoming a ‘method’ of attempting to address a social problem. This was shocking and controversial as people had not been used to this method at all due to fascism. Sciuscia won a special Oscar in 1947 (the first foreign film to win an Oscar) the ‘Honorary Award’ with the description: “the high quality of this Italian-made motion picture, brought to eloquent life in a country scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity.[6]” There was capacity for new invention in these neorealist films. Critics of neorealist films have said that neorealist cinema does not have a solution, but that is not the case, neorealist cinema is “a complex and vast world, rich in scope and possibilities, rich in practical, social, economic and psychological motifs.[7]” It is necessary for neorealist cinema to study the miserable life situations at the time as well as the luxurious, as it was vividly real. The experience of the film does not stop at the ending credits, but “continues onto the audience walking out of the cinema, to think about it.[8]” There is no ‘hero’ in neorealist cinema; each member of the audience is the “true protagonist in life.” The result “would be a constant emphasis on the responsibility and dignity of every human being.” The aim of neorealism was “to strengthen everyone, and to give everyone the proper awareness of a human being.[9]” Similarly to other neorealist films such as  Ladri di biciclette (1948), also by De Sica, a single event or aim is given extreme detail, reflecting the way the Italian people at the time felt and lived.            

            Umberto D (1952) by Vittorio De Sica tells the story of a pensioner desperately trying to exist with the little money that he has, stressing the humiliations he suffers and his self-pity for the sympathy of the audience. A key theme of this film is that of the loneliness and disillusionment of post-war Italy. Firstly, Carlo Battisti, who plays Umberto, despite having never acted before, brings so much emotion into the character – his facial expressions themselves explain to us the weariness of his life. Umberto’s desperations to find Flike at the dog pound, “If anything’s happened to him, I’ll kill her(landlady!)” and excitement to hear that he is downstairs in the courtyard when Mary comes to visit him at the hospital as he repeatedly chants “in the courtyard, in the courtyard”, present to us his loneliness and how his dog is all that he has. The dog could possibly be representing the innocent of Umberto; while he himself is too proud and embarrassed to hold out his hat to beg for money, Flike has no problem holding the hat in his mouth and standing on his heels (though he is made to do it by Umberto). As Umberto’s room lies in pieces after his return from the dog pound, the furniture upside down and the wallpaper peeling off, Flike innocently sits on the bed in the centre of the frame, confused and having no knowledge of what is going on. At the end of the film when Umberto tries to drag Flike into his suicide attempt, Flike desperately refuses, whimpering and forcing his way out of his hands, representing Umberto’s actual will to live, with the force of society and money on his back telling him he must. Money is what he needs in order to stay in his room, and money is what he needs in order for Flike to be kept safe at the dog board house; after deciding not to keep him there after all (as money cannot buy love) the man says to him, “more money, less talk…you wasted my time.” He is not even able to give his dog to the little girl who is overjoyed at the thought, and will blatantly provide the dog with all the love and care in the world – because of the mother (adult)’s refusal to take responsibility and go through the practical and financial troubles of doing so. To emphasise this innocent of childhood, the final cut of the film is that of children running across the park laughing and playing, as Umberto and Flike, run off into the distance, lost with no answers left. As Umberto says to Maria, “I’m tired…(of) a little of everything”, there is not music in the background, but only the sound of their voices and the clock ticking in the background (could life for these people simply be minutes of pain passing by until death?) we feel his desperation. He is aware that he is a social outsider as he says to her – the only human being he can confide in and ‘talk’ to, “you need to leave too…” She responds that she will be kicked out and rejected when found out that she is pregnant, even by her family. The burden Umberto carries is represented by the shadow of himself that ‘follows’ him down the staircase as he leaves the house for his journey to his (attempted) suicide. Umberto D is full of small gestures needless of dialogue which emphasises the desperate loneliness of Umberto’s situation – for example, the previously mentioned scene where Umberto cannot bring himself to hold his hand out to beg for money, and, when a passer-by actually stops to give him some money, pretends he was merely testing for rain by flipping it over – is simply beautiful and also very sad. The brutal killing of the dogs and the dog pound, reminiscent of the gas chambers of the Holocaust, presents the lack of value for life. The lack of value of life has also been presented in the scene at the hospital where the sons of Umberto’s fellow patient, who is dying, comes to visit, and though being told of his closeness to death, immediately starts talking about financial issues as soon as the nurse walks away.

            The ‘realness’ key to the neorealist genre has also been present clearly here.  There are several scenes in the film which do not drive the narrative forward but are simply of the characters fulfilling daily tasks, which are given extreme description and are presented to us in ‘real’ time. For example, the scene where Maria is walking around the kitchen in the morning, boiling the water as a daily routine, is so memorable because of its ‘realness’. The grave, slow and haunting cello music in the background with clear diagetic sounds of the water drops give us a taste of the sense of ‘doom’ that the characters are faced with. The dullness of the daily routines and the slowness of passing time are presented. A tear rolls down her cheeks, bringing the emotion to a climax, and as she hurriedly wipes it away when the doorbell rings, it is suggested that this is what everybody – all the individuals of the disillusioned post-war Italy is secretly going through. The continuously appearing ants on the walls are another element of a ‘real-life’ nuisance, making the film so ‘real’.

Paisa (1946) by Roberto Rossellini, is a film made up of six autonomous episodes which followed the path of the war from the south to the north, illustrating the state of Italy between 1943 and 1945 during the process of the Liberation. It attempts to “reveal social truth in humanist stories of individual misery and social injustice[10]”, using location shooting and non-professional actors once again. The physical affects of the war have been presented as throughout the film there are numerous images of houses and monuments bombed and in ruins. The film is “a dramatic presentation of a grim reality, unveiled in the most candid and up-front manner[11].” The suffering of the people is what brings them all together, and it is suggested that this connection will erase all social and political differences, as can be seen in the continuous issue throughout all six episodes – that of the struggle to understand one another because of the issue of language barriers. Misunderstanding, however, tragically leads to the death of the American soldier Joe in the first episode set in Sicily, and the tragedy continues as Carmela hides his body without the knowledge that she will be raped by the German soldiers. Religious doubt has also been presented in the sequence of the monastery, in which religion itself seems to be an irony, and the Americans seem almost more innocent and sincere than the Italians. From the ruins and the corruption though, “came the hope of redemption, as if all this suffering would amend Italians from fascism and from the historical guilt associated with it[12]”, as they discovered that they shared and were fighting (and dying) for the same human values. Indeed, outside the films and inside the cinemas, the people would see their own stories being presented on the screen, and “their contribution to the reconstruction of the country from a moral, cultural as well as a material point of view.[13]”

To conclude, post-war Italy has been portrayed as corrupt, distorted and in ruins through neorealist cinema. Contrary to the ‘distracting’ comedies and melodrama films prior to the introduction of neorealism, a very true image has been presented, which was shocking and no doubt ‘grim’, but the realness of these films created a connection between each individual as they witnessed themselves on screen, and would have built unison throughout the nation. The everyday problems of the ordinary people have been presented with an element of beauty – often, spectacles were created from very ordinary situations (particularly with De Sica films) - the task of the neorealist artist was to bring the audience to “reflect upon what they are doing and upon what others are doing – to think about reality precisely as it is.[14]”

Bibliography

New Cinema in Europe, Roger Manvell

The Cinema of Italy (24 Frames), Giorgio Bertellini and Gian Piero Brunetta

http://www.movie-vault.com/reviews/ossessione/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038913/awards

Thesis on Neo-realism by Cesare Zavattini. Springtime in Italy

Filmography

Ossessione (1943) Luchino Visconti

Sciuscia (1946) Vittorio De Sica

Paisa (1946) Roberto Rossellini

Umberto D (1952) Vittorio De Sica

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[1] New Cinema in Europe, pg 18

[2] The Cinema of Italy. Pg 1

[3] as above

[4] http://www.movie-vault.com/reviews/ossessione/

[5] New Cinema in Europe, pg 18

[6] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038913/awards

[7] Thesis on Neo-realism by Cesare Zavattini. Springtime in Italy

[8] as above

[9] as above, page 67

[10] The Cinema of Italy, pg 4

[11] as above, chapter 3, pg 31

[12] The Cinema of Italy, chapter 3

[13] as above

[14] as above

The Reader (2008) dir. Stephen Daldry

*SPOILER ALERT*

So randomly I picked out the screenplay of ‘The Reader’ from my bookshelf and ended up reading it all within a couple of hours. I’d seen the film before of course and I’d really liked it, but I was so moved by the powerfulness of the screenplay alone. David Hare writes so beautifully, like he paints with words. He doesn’t go on and on describing things, but every word is meaningful and chosen carefully, giving so much sub-text. I re-watched the film because I was so moved, and I found it a more powerful experience then when I watched it for the first time several years ago. With film of course you aren’t given the pleasure of a first-person narrative where thoughts and feelings are written, but just as well as the screenplay, the visual codes and the expressions and the silences and the music give so much sub-text, it’s like it’s all about to burst into your face. Really great performances from all of the cast by the way. And what greatly written characters in the first place. Such beautifully written complexities, sensitivities and entrapments… I haven’t read the novel so I might be talking a lot of shite but bear with. I also have close to no knowledge of history and am quite naïve and stupid overall. I may also waffle on too much and then suddenly resort to silly conclusions such as “what is love, anyway?” but bear with that too. Despite all of my limitations I have absolutely no intention of offending anyone or being insensitive about the topics and themes of the story; if I do I’m very sorry.

Anthony Minghella, one of my favourite screenwriter/directors had originally bought the rights to this film apparently, I found out today. After 8 years he concluded that he wasn’t going to have enough time to get round to writing it after all and handed the job to David Hare. Unfortunately Minghella passed away during the making of this film.

So here are my very disorganised thoughts:

“Societies think they operate by something called morality. But they don’t. They operate by something called law. You’re not guilty of anything merely by working at Auschwitz.” And that is what Hanna Schmitz was doing. As were so many of the guards. Is this why it had taken so long for people to start looking back and judge what had taken place? “What would you have done?” Hannah asks the judge, to which he does not answer. “Should I never have signed up at Siemens?” Otherwise, how were people able to let it happen? Whatever film we watch or book we read involving the holocaust, this is the ultimate question we ask. But the film does not ask the audience to understand or forgive any of the characters. It might dare us to feel a hint of sympathy for Hanna, and this feeling of unease is, perhaps, one of the unique elements and beauties of this story. It asks us so many questions and leaves us to make our own interpretations. The only certainty we are shown is when Michael begins to tell his story to his daughter at the end of the film; “in telling is the release, importance and understanding” says the director. Michael had led a concealed life of secrecy, just like the protagonists of the stories he read aloud to Hanna: Odysseus, Hamlet, Faust… (I don’t exactly remember what these were altered to in the film, I have the screenplay here in front of me). “I knew you were distant”, his daughter says to him. “I’d always assumed it was my fault.” This distant character of his may be what led to the failure of his marriage. There is a line in the screenplay, in the will written by Hanna, which was excluded from the film but I thought was important. “And tell Michael I said hello. Tell him to get on with his life.” Michael was never able to forget or move on. Hanna knew this of course, and had always felt guilty about it. As well as all the ‘worse’ things she’d done. She kills herself as she does not have anything more to live for, no more tapes, no more Michael reading. It doesn’t matter what she feels or thinks. “The dead are still dead.” And she didn’t want to be a burden to Michael, remaining in his life forever. So almost light-heartedly she writes: “Tell him to get on with his life.” I can picture her saying that, “Get on with your life, kid.” And I wish they’d kept that in because I think it’s powerful. “Have you spent much time thinking about the past?” Michael asks Hanna, but also to himself. He constantly fights battles in his head, of wanting to forget, not being able to forget, wanting to try to understand, not wanting to forgive. This is my take anyway. “How do you live in the shadow of one of the greatest crimes in history?” How do you judge someone? How do you love in circumstances such as these? Is it really possible? What does one do when a certainty or truth they’d thought existed is not actually there at all?