ITAL 152 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Rome, Open City, Paisan, Cinema Of The United States
27 Apr 2018
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ITAL152 Lecture #8 - Paisan
Movie Viewing - Paisan
Desire and Resistance in Italian Cinema
●The Film
○Each episode:
■Downside
●Skipped over some plot points
●Little to no character development
●Have to introduce each new character
■Upside
●Show more
○Compared to Rome Open City
■Similarities
●No happy ending(s)
●Monastery looked very similar
●Catholicism is prominent in both
○Spiritual concerns of this director
■Tried to combine leftist values with Catholic faith
●Houses looked the same
●Ended with almost all of the characters dying
○Odd because you don’t usually see that
○Able to see the corpses
●Abrupt transition between when people died and then moving
onto new people
●Death looks weird because in American cinema they usually come
back alive
○Not seen in foreign cinema as much
○Don’t want to show dead bodies because of comfort levels
of the audinence
○Has an effect on what worlds they inhabited
■Everyone was desensitized to the corpses lying
around due to the war
○Death is so natural, not like fate
●Almost all of the targets of the shooters were shot
●Filmmaker wants to give a concrete sense about what the war is
about
○Have a target audience in mind
●Escapism vs. Neorealism
○America was having escapist films at the time
■Escaping the war
■Exposed to things they don’t usually see
●War was not happening in the streets of America, it was in Italy
○Their lives were always at risk
■Differences
●Landmarks of Neorealism
○Rome Open City
○Paisan
●Two historical events trigger neorealism
○History
■1943 - 1945: The Italian Resistance
■Liberation by the Allies
○The Film
■1945: Work on the script
●Right after liberation from the war
■1946: Shot between January and June
○Provided material for the films
○Paisan = “Fellow Countrymen”
■Comradery
■Comes from “person of the same village”
●Neorealist Films
○Concern with what was happening at the time
○A political and ethical impulse
○Cinema and culture as areas of intervention
■Belief that cinema can intervene in society
■Cinema makes people aware and therefore triggers some sort of political
action
○Requires an act of humility
■Cannot just show some things, you must show all the problems and all
the bad things
■By doing so you can improve the society
●“We are in rags? Let’s show everyone our rags. We are defeated? Let’s look at our
disasters. Let’s pay all our debts with a ferocious love of honestly and the world will
participate, moved by this great connect with truth.”
○Often comment on the documentary quality of these films
●Neorealism and Reality
○Reconstituted Reportage
○Expression used to refer to the famous scene in ROC where Pina runs after the
car
Document Summary
Tried to combine leftist values with catholic faith. Ended with almost all of the characters dying. Odd because you don"t usually see that. Abrupt transition between when people died and then moving onto new people. Death looks weird because in american cinema they usually come back alive. Not seen in foreign cinema as much. Don"t want to show dead bodies because of comfort levels of the audinence. Has an effect on what worlds they inhabited. Everyone was desensitized to the corpses lying around due to the war. Death is so natural, not like fate. Almost all of the targets of the shooters were shot. Filmmaker wants to give a concrete sense about what the war is about. America was having escapist films at the time. Exposed to things they don"t usually see. War was not happening in the streets of america, it was in italy. Comes from person of the same village .
