Italian Neorealism - Impact

Impact

The period between 1943 and 1950 in the history of Italian cinema is dominated by the impact of neorealism, which is properly defined as a moment or a trend in Italian film, rather than an actual school or group of theoretically motivated and like-minded directors and scriptwriters. Its impact nevertheless has been enormous, not only on Italian film but also on French New Wave cinema, the Polish Film School and ultimately on films all over the world. It also influenced several Indian film directors including Bimal Roy, who made Do Bigha Zameen (1955), after watching Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief (1948).

Furthermore, as some critics have argued, the abandoning of the classical way of doing cinema and so the starting point of the Nouvelle Vague and the Modern Cinema can be found in the post world-war II Italian cinema and in the neorealism experiences. In particular,

this cinema seems to be constituted as a new subject of knowledge, which it-self builds and develops. It produces a new world in which the main elements have not so many narrative functions as they have their own aesthetic value, related with the eye that is watching them and not with the action they are coming from.