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. The parallels to documentary and neorealism are huge. In some cases, such as in Open City, the actual story was also real, not fiction. Film-makers made use of long shots, to emphasize that one was a viewer, and slow cutting, to give the audience a sense of real time. As Andre Bazin said, “The longer the image is on the screen, the longer the person can contemplate it. They can pick out things in it about reality.” Neorealism did not use any movie tricks to get people to feel emotions, either, the films were entirely anti-spectacle. The idea was to evoke emotion through content, and reality than through music and dramatic cinematography.

Neorealism could not exist without the medium of film. The entire point of Neorealism is to show reality, and there is no better way to show something than through a visual medium such as film. One could attempt to get a sense of this reality through, say, photography, which would work. But, another important aspect of Neorealism is the sense of time. The shots are intentionally long, meant to make one see reality more than they would if they were actually there. The emphasis on time makes it more real.

This “quest for reality” really lends itself to political critique. This documentary-style film-making, makes it possible to explore political situations more in depth. The emphasis on everyday life makes it a great way to show political and social situations for what they are, making it a good way to comment on the political situation, without jazzing it up. Because of this, it became a very useful tool for 1960′s and 1970′s film-makers. For example, in The Battle of the Algiers, Pontecorvo chose to use people that were actually involved in the battle to play roles similar to the ones the had actually participated in. This made the emotions and reactions more realistic, because they remembered what happened. He also used the same buildings that had been blown up in the revolution, creating a greater sense of reality. The film almost seems as if it were a documentary with the images it portrays.

This need for reality is also apparent in other Third-World cinemas. Rocha’s “Aesthetic of Hunger,” there are connections to Neorealism. There is this need for the depiction of reality, but there are some differences to his approach. However, the underlying concept stays the same. In Rocha’s manifesto he states:

Wherever one finds filmmakers prepared to film the truth and oppose the hypocrisy and repression of intellectual censorship there is the living spirit of Cinema Novo; wherever filmmakers, of whatever age or background, place their cameras and their profession in the service of the great causes of our time there is the spirit of Cinema Novo.

Rocha states that the only way to depict the situation in Brazil, to get the colonizers attention, is through hunger. Hunger for food, for freedom. This hunger inevitably leads to violence. This violence is what makes the colonizer aware of what’s going on, “only when confronted with violence dose the colonizer understand, through horror, the strength of the culture he exploits.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bazin, Andre (Do not recall which article was cited.)

Rocha, Glauber. “The Aesthetic of Hunger.”

FILMOGRAPHY

The Battle of Algiers (1966) Gillo Pontecorvo

Rome, Open City (1945) Roberto Rossellini

“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.  

When a country is colonized, the colonizing country essentially tries to assimilate the people. They teach the colonized that they are filthy, worthless creatures, and the only way for them to become civilized, is for them to become as much like the colonizer as possible. They must learn the language, embrace social the social norms and ideologies of the colonizing culture. They are given a western education, taught in western languages, the history, stories, songs, etc., of a foreign culture as if it were their own. These people go to university in the colonizing country, and they come back more western than they are native. These are the educated elite, some of which follow the rules set forth by the colonizing country, the others reject the system and try to reconnect with the original culture.

Once “independence” is achieved, the colonizing country puts some of those educated, wealthy  officials into place in the government. The governments put into place are designed to maximize capital for the colonizing country. The officials have no real power of their own. They are kept complacent by their status provided to them, and the wealth they receive from the colonizing country (even after independence). These ruling elite are the only group capable of any real change, but since they hold no real power outside of the structure imposed, they won’t do anything for fear of losing their status. They help feed capitalism throughout the world, by providing capital to the western world, in exchange for “aid” in the form of modernity.

The other educated elite basically make up their own class. They are the people that don’t wish to follow the colonizers ways, the writers, philosophers, and film-makers. While they may try to regain their lives in the original country, it is impossible because of their new language, and their westernization. As Ousmone Sembene said, “All of us who are writers are also people who have to some extent lost their roots.” (Armes, pg. 24) Also, they are not accepted into the ruling elite, because of their desire for change. They have no real place, but desire to bring back the original culture to what it was before, to create a sort of nationalism, even if it is imagined. Because of their education, and the fact that many native languages have no written form, their written work is frequently produced in languages incapable of reaching their desired audience, the people of their home country. Cinema has greatly helped in this way, as it can be understood by many people.

Hollywood itself is very similar to a colonizing force. It’s mass distribution, and monopoly of the industry makes it very cheap to spread around the world, making it very difficult for smaller producers to get their work shown, even in their home country. A lot of Third-World cinema is used to reach the people of the country it is produced in, it is used to educate, and promote a sense of nationalism.

Many of these film-makers actually call themselves Third-World cinema producers, so as to have a connection with producers of similar ideas and context. The economic status of Third-World countries is very similar, and their films frequently deal with similar problems such as corrupt government officials, poverty, displacement of people, etc. However, just how Third-World is an inaccurate way to group many different countries, it is also a bad way of clumping a variety of films together.  Take the movies Xala and The Battle of the Algiers, for example. They may be dealing with some of the same issues, but they are talking about them in very different ways. Xala is a satirical movie made to comment on the corrupt government, social values, and lives of the Senegalese elite. On the other hand, The Battle of the Algiers does not try to show the situation in a comedic light, it depicts what happened in an almost documentary-esque style.

These Third-World films frequently try to promote some sort of nationalism. But this nationalism is based on an imagined boundary, created by colonizers and government. It doesn’t take into account that many people within these “nations” don’t have any connection to each other. (Take Nigeria, for example, with it’s three, very separate, groups of people.) The term is used frequently as another way of grouping films together. But as we have become aware that there is no real “Third-World,” the idea of transnationalism has also developed. There are no real boundaries between nations, there is a huge flow of ideas, technology and techniques from one to the other, that they cannot be easily grouped. Also, many countries (especially larger ones, America, Britain, etc.) frequently partner up, with say, a British director, an American crew, shooting in Australia.

As Ella Shohat said, there is no real nationalism anymore. The Third-World no longer really exists, it’s all a part of the large capitalist world. There is a lot of appropriation that goes on, especially with the popularity of Hollywood. With all of the minorities living in the more industrialized nations, there is actually more of a struggle between First-, Third-, and even Fourth-World groups within a country than between different countries. The ideology of Third-World is now in the past, it has moved beyond it to that of post-Third-World cinema. This sort of film emphasizes the displacement, exile, and separation of people due to colonialism. One artist, Mona Hatoum, uses many inventive techniques to portray these contemporary issues of sexuality, class, gender, repression, etc. Film has moved beyond that of satire, or documentary. Through technological advances, and the advancement of ideologies, independent film can be said to have become is more emotive, more personal, and sometimes more disturbing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armes, Roy. Third World Film Making and the West.

FILMOGRAPHY

Xala (1975) Ousmone Sembene

The Battle of the Algiers (1966) Gillo Pontecorvo

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.

SYNOPSIS

In the movie, the lovely cowgirl T.J. has a rodeo show, she jumps a horse into a pool… Her old beau Tuck returns, trying to get her to come settle down with him. She, however, doesn’t want any of that nonsense. He gets injured by a bull, and she gets all swoony and decides to take him back. She shows him her new star attraction, a miniature horse.

Tuck meets a scientist out in the desert while exploring with Lope. He brings the scientist to see the miniature horse, which turns out to be an Eohippus. The scientist gets excited, and wants to find out where it came from. They discover that it came from the forbidden valley, and attempt to find out how to get there by talking to gypsies. Of course the gypsies warn of curses, and the like, and don’t tell them. The scientist tricks the gypsies into stealing the Eohippus to return it to the valley.

The fight to the death!

The scientist follows the robbers, as does Tuck, Lope, and T.J. Along with some other manly men. The Eohippus escapes them through a crack in a cliff wall. They break it open, and follow it in.

In the valley they meet a Pteranodon (which attacks Lope, and is subsequently beat to death by Tuck’s fist), an Ornithomimus, Allosaurus, and a Styracosaurus. All of which fight each other, or attack the group. They hide in a cave, as they try to find the scientist who got lost at some point. The scientist comes back, and then the dinosaurs attack. Eventually they scare the Styracosaurus away with fire, and momentarily subdue the Allosaurus with lassos. He quickly escapes, and then chases them away, eating one of the members of the group on the way. As they escape through the cliff wall, the Allosaurus follows them through. Conveniently it caves in on him, knocking him out. Tuck lassos his mouth shut, and they put him in a large wooden contraption to take him back to civilization.

They name him Gwangi, and on the way back, the gypsy warns them that he is evil. They say he is just an animal, as evil as an alligator. They open up a special show. There is a stop-motion elephant. The old gypsy womans man-bitch sets the monster free, getting eaten in the process. Gwangi escapes, fights the elephant, and then goes after the large colleseum of people. Everyone screams and runs away, knocking over many flowers, fruit, and hay in the process.

They shoot guns at Gwangi, and then trap him in a church. Tuck, T.J. and Lope are in there with him. He tries to eat T.J. and Lope, and Tuck fends him off with sticks and fire. He eventually lights the cathedral on fire, and get’s the lady and his little buddy out of there. There is a large group watching as the cathedral is burnt down with the monster inside. For some reason the only one who cries is Lope…

OBSERVATIONS

• The movie is rather sexist, even though they seem to be trying to avoid that. T.J. is fairly independent, has her own act in a circus, is cowgirl (she even knows how to use that lasso thing), and she acts as if she doesn’t need anyone. But, even so, she consistantly needs saving, and she is treated as though she is silly and cutely stupid. At one point, while they are holed up in the cave, the men are out building a trap for the dinosaurs and T.J. leaves the cave to come help, Tuck then exclaims, “What are you doing out of the cave, do you wanna get yourself killed?” and runs to protect her as the dinosaurs conveniently attack. She does help a bit, when they all lasso Gwangi, she does her part, but that doesn’t prevent Tuck from saving her at the end.
• What I found particularly interesting in the movie was the fact that, whenever advice was given, it came from Lope. At one point, Tuck didn’t know how to get T.J. to come back to him, Lope told him what to do. He also gives advice at another important part of the film, but I don’t quite recall when. He also carries water when in the desert, however charges for it. He is the most upset, at the end, when the church is collapsing.
• The people who are seen as evil, end up, helping in some way. Or, people that make mistakes, make ammends. They usually come with consequences, though. For example, the man that lies to T.J. about who stole Eohippus ends up distracting the Gwangi long enough for the group to escape. However, he gets eaten.
• At the end, when they are fighting off Gwangi, they do it in a church. They fight evil in the house of good, with staves and such that they find in the church. When they eventually kill the big evil, they have to do it by destroying the good. They crush the evil monster by burning down a cathedral. The crowd watching crosses their hearts, and looks on in awe, but the only one that seems to understand what is really going on is Lope. Tuck and T.J. just give eachother a glance, and then continue to watch. No one looks particularly upset.
• The movie was made before they realized that dinosaurs didn’t walk upright with their tails dragging on the ground.
• No one listened to the gypsies. If I’ve learned anything, it’s always listen to the gypsies. Those curses suck.

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!