Italian Neorealism

Part two of my essay for “Postwar, Global Cinema.”

Neorealism was developed in postwar Italy as a way of depicting the post WWII situation. The emphasis that neorealist film-makers wanted to make was on the reality of the situation. They wanted to show the everyday, exploring it in great depth. The films did not usually have a traditional narrative structure, they were more a chunk out of everyday life. They used documentary-style cinematography and editing, and the films were made with non-professional actors shot at real locations.

Third World Cinema

This was an essay I wrote for the first film studies class I took, “Postwar, Global Cinema.” It was taught by Kaveh Askari, and was one of my favorite classes. I worked very hard on this essay, and earned an A. I thought I might as well post this, as well as the other half on Neorealism.

“Third World” is a term used to group the world’s underdeveloped countries (about half of the world) together. This economical grouping is considered by many to be an inaccurate way of lumping many unique and different situations and cultures together. However, these countries do have a lot of similarities economically and ideologically. Many of these countries have, at one point, been a victim of colonialism. The relationship between the colonizer and the colonized has greatly affected the way that these cultures think, and the resources they have.  

The Valley of the Gwangi (1969)

*Spoilers* If you haven’t seen it, you may not want to read this.

This is an unplanned post, I didn’t think that I would write about it, but since my brother got “The Valley of the Gwangi” from Netflix, I haven’t really stopped thinking about it. I’ve been working on the German Expressionism article for a very long time now, but I might as well start somewhere else.

“The Valley of the Gwangi,” as you probably know, is a cowboy movie, with dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were made with stop-motion, by Ray Harryhausen (It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), One Million Years B.C. (1966), etc.), which was very impressive for it’s time. The film is pretty stereotypical, and pretty sexist. There are a lot of archetypal characters: the macho, pretty boy (Tuck); fumbling, inept, comedic relief scientist that gets them all in trouble; gypsies with warnings; a small brown child side-kick with a donkey (Lope); the love interest, a “strong, independent” woman, who always gets in trouble and needs saving (T.J.); and the bad guys who end up dying.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the blog. The name of it is currently a working title, I may change it, depends on how hoky I think it sounds in a week or two.

I don’t have anything to post yet, but feel free to read the manifesto, and subscribe to the RSS. It could be a couple weeks, but I will try to get something started soon. An Overview of German Expressionism is in the works.

See you soon!