Italian flicks

Reflecting the destruction and chaos following World War II, as well as the rise of Communism and Socialism, postwar Italian films became known for a movement called "neorealism." 

According to Wikipedia's rather awkwardly written summation, neorealist films

are generally filmed with nonprofessional actors--although, in a number of cases, well known actors were cast in leading roles, playing strongly against their normal character types in front of a background populated by local people rather than extras brought in for the film.

They are shot almost exclusively on location, mostly in run-down cities as well as rural areas due to its forming during the post-war era.

The topic involves the idea of what it is like to live among the poor and the lower working class. The focus is on a simple social order of survival in rural, everyday life.

I first became familiar with these films as an undergraduate attending "foreign film" series.  They contrasted strongly with contemporary American movies by their being filmed in black and white, by their emphasis on their characters' social and economic milieux, and by their general pessimism and lack of romanticism. 

Also, they had subtitles!

Although neorealism was dying out by the early 1950s, the films of the succeeding decade, by directors such as Antonioni and -- especially -- Fellini, still contained some of the elements of neorealism while becoming increasingly surrealistic and decreasingly concerned with social injustices.

For anyone of college age in the 1960s and even 1970s, some familiarity with post-war Italian cinema could be reasonably expected.

And now -- the Seattle Art Museum gives us a chance to revisit nine of the landmark films of that era.  Pat and I have tickets to the entire series, but unfortunately had to miss the showing last night of The Bicycle Thief (1948), probably the film of the neorealist genre most familiar to American audiences.  But on succeeding Thursdays, we will be viewing:

Umberto D
I Vitelloni
Le Amiche
Il Posto
The Organizer
8½
Juliet of the Spirits
Amarcord

I'm looking forward eagerly to revisiting each of these films.  My thoughts concerning  some of them may find their way into this blog in coming weeks.