The opening scene from ‘Umberto D’ by Director Vittorio DeSica and writer Cesare Zavattini. With Italian Neo- realism, history of film making embarked on a turning point that fused together the ‘realism’ with ‘fiction’. Partly due to necessity, partly due to the political zeitgeist, camera was taken out in the street, in front of real people and real surroundings. Marked earlier by Rossellini’s ‘Paisa’ and ‘Rome, Open city’, movie making revolutionized the media’s role and posited itself as an agent of social change. The style of ‘Neo-realism’ germinated the later development of film making, particularly ‘The New Wave’. After the success of ‘Bicycle thieves’ and ‘Shoeshine’ DeSica and Zavattini teamed up for ‘Umberto D’, which is a tale about an eponymous older gentleman’s struggle with poverty. This scene marks certain ‘Neo-realist’ approach of film making. Although Neo-Realism mostly took the camera closer to the real people, DeSica’s film is rich with Intriguing camera techniques that must have involved all the state of the art of film making at that time. Also note that unlike the contemporary developments in other part of the world, Neo-Realism movies ventured into certain styles, such as, taking a tangent to the main plot, or lingering the camera on objects that does not have direct relation to the main story line. For example, at the end of this sequence the camera while showing Umberto and his dog Filke on the street, also captures the construction workers who are taking a break for lunch.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:55:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015