Italian Neorealist Cinema - (Traditions in World Cinema) by Torunn Haaland (Paperback)

About the Book

This book traces the roots of neorealist film and draws parallels to neorealist fiction, by surveying the major creative contributions to and critical receptions of this trend in Italian postwar cinema.

Book Synopsis

How has Italian neorealist cinema changed the boundaries of cinematic narration and representation?
In this new study, Torunn Haaland argues that neorealism was a cultural moment based on individual optiques. She accounts for the tradition's coherence in terms of its moral commitment to creating critical viewing experiences around underrepresented realities and marginalised people. By examining both acclaimed masterpieces and lesser known works, parallels are drawn to realist theories and to past and present cinematic traditions. The ways in which successive generations of directors have readopted, negotiated and broken with the themes and aesthetics of neorealist film are discussed and evaluated, along with neorealist tendencies in other arts, such as literature.
An engaging and informative read for students and scholars in Italian Studies, Italian Neorealist Cinema presents a new approach to a key cinematic tradition, and so is essential reading for everyone working in the field of Film Studies.

From the Back Cover

AUTHOR APPROVED Traditions in World Cinema General Editors: Linda Badley and R. Barton Palmer Founding Editor: Steven Jay Schneider This series introduces diverse and fascinating movements in world cinema. Each volume concentrates on a set of films from a different national, regional or, in some cases, cross-cultural cinema which constitute a particular tradition. Italian Neorealist Cinema Torunn Haaland 'In recent years, Italian cinema - and in particular its highest moment, neo-realism - has enjoyed a revival within international scholarship. This has contributed to emphasize Italian cinema's centrality and its fertile influence on all world cinema of the postwar period. Within this panorama, Torunn Haaland's book appears as one of the most brilliant and most capable of combining rigorous documentation with a reading of cinema history as part of a larger cultural, political and social history of Italy in the postwar period, adding to this the passion of an authentic researcher.' Gian Piero Brunetta, University of Padova How has Italian neorealist cinema changed the boundaries of cinematic narration and representation? In this new study, Torunn Haaland argues that neorealism was a cultural moment based on individual optiques. She accounts for the tradition's coherence in terms of its moral commitment to creating critical viewing experiences around under-represented realities and marginalised people. By examining both acclaimed masterpieces and lesser known works, parallels are drawn to realist theories and to past and present cinematic traditions. The ways in which successive generations of directors have re-adopted, negotiated and broken with the themes and aesthetics of neorealist film are discussed and evaluated, along with neorealist tendencies in other arts, such as literature. An engaging and informative read for students and scholars in Italian Studies, Italian Neorealist Cinema presents a new approach to a key cinematic tradition, and so is essential reading for everyone working in the field of Film Studies. Torunn Haaland is Assistant Professor of Italian at Gonzaga University. Cover image: Roma città aperta Rossellini, 1945 (c) Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia / Cineteca Nazionale Cover design: [insert logo file] www.euppublishing.com ISBN 978-0-7486-3612-9 [please add in the white area above the barcode] Barcode

Review Quotes

In recent years, Italian cinema--and in particular its highest moment, neo-realism--has enjoyed a revival within international scholarship. This has contributed to emphasize Italian cinema's centrality and its fertile influence on all world cinema of the postwar period. Within this panorama, Torunn Haaland's book appears as one of the most brilliant and most capable of combining rigorous documentation with a reading of cinema history as part of a larger cultural, political and social history of Italy in the postwar period, adding to this the passion of an authentic researcher.--Gian Piero Brunetta, University of Padoua

About the Author

Torunn Haaland is Assistant Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern Languages at Gonzaga University.