What are the aesthetic characteristics of Italian new realistic films?

Bazin in "What is a movie? In the book, he once endowed Italy with new realism and spoke highly of "real aesthetics". He first analyzed the emergence and formation of realism in Italian films from a historical perspective. Bazin said: During the liberation period and this period, the social, moral and economic forms of Italy played a decisive role in the film. Prior to this, despite Mussolini's fascist dictatorship, there were still some filmmakers who "worked hard in the direction of realism recognized by all countries in the world." Bazin said: "Many factors that formed the young Italian school existed before liberation: talent, technology and aesthetic tendency. Historical, social and economic conditions have greatly accelerated the accumulation of these factors, but also added some unique factors. "

The resistance movement and the liberation of Italy provided the initial theme for Italian neo-realistic film creation. Because, for Italians, liberation "does not mean restoring freedom not long ago, but means political revolution, allied occupation, economic and social unrest." In addition, the process of liberation is slow and has gone through endless years. It has profoundly influenced Italy's economy, social life and morality. "At the same time, it will inevitably affect literary and artistic creation. As we said before, the creation of Italian films is the fastest art among all arts. Therefore, the aesthetic value of new realism is first manifested in their subject matter and content. The film art of the Encyclopedia Britannica also made a concrete analysis of this point and put forward the neo-realistic film movement, which mainly showed the thinking of human beings on four basic issues of survival: 1, opposing the deadly political chaos of war and invading their country; 2. Fight hunger; 3. Oppose the difficulties caused by poverty and unemployment; 4. Oppose family disintegration and degradation. Because neo-realism is about the expression of this content and the thinking of various problems, it also determines the style and form of its films. This makes a sharp contrast between the new realism films and the Hollywood films that occupy the world screen: the new realism emphasizes poverty, not the charm of Hollywood films; Emphasize ugly and poor huts, not clean and fashionable apartments; Emphasize the performance of ordinary people, secular rude people, rather than ideal, perfect gentlemen and so on. Therefore, neo-realism emphasizes the unjust social structure and the basic relationship between people distorted by this society. Neo-realism endowed the film with profound practical significance, and at the same time, in the competition with Hollywood film market, it won the interest of people with aesthetic ability and moral cultivation and a wider audience with an art film.

Che Vatini once defined the principle of neo-realism creation as follows: show the true colors of things, not the superficial appearance; Replace fiction with facts; Depicting ordinary people instead of glib heroes, revealing daily events instead of exceptional events; Show the real social relationship between man and him instead of his romantic dream. Cervar Dini once criticized Hollywood movies as a "filtered reality" and a "fictional hypothetical situation". He said: "I am more interested in the drama I have seen with my own eyes in the life around me, rather than the fictional drama."

He believes that poetry should be found in life. These thoughts of Chai Valtini have had a far-reaching impact on the creation of neo-realistic films.

Bazin pointed out: "The outstanding feature of Italian films is their close attention to the present reality." He further said: "I mean, it seems to inject specific social realities such as poverty, black market, administration, prostitution and unemployment into the audience's consciousness, rather than detached political values. It is difficult for us to see which political party the director belongs to from Italian movies, nor can we see which faction the director intends to cater to. " Bazin believes that the works of neo-realism are the only works in the world movies that show "saving a revolutionary humanitarianism". Of course, this is related to the political situation in Italy and the style of the producers of Apennine Peninsula. Neo-realism film works are more prominent in facing the chaotic social reality with a realistic attitude. Bazin believes that this is a great contribution of Italian films, which once again reaffirms the "realism" in art, and it is not that there is no profound "aesthetics" at the beginning. Neo-realism inherits and develops the previous realistic film tradition, laying a solid theoretical foundation for a relatively complete realistic film aesthetic system.

The formal characteristics of Italian neo-realism;

First, record

Neo-realistic film artists pay attention to reality and are loyal to the reappearance of real events and characters in their films, which makes literary stories disappear in the narrative state of real life like news reports. The Bicycle Thief and Eleven o'clock in Rome are the most prominent examples in this regard. And "Rome Eleven" is more like a reporter's report because there are journalists involved in the narrative.

Italian filmmakers' cameras are also like "the humanity of newsreel cameras, which is inseparable from hands and eyes, almost equivalent to the human body, and always cooperates with the photographer's attention." Objectively, try not to erode the whole picture of the original material, and combine the appearance of the screen reality with the real reality in the eyes of the audience.

One. Bazin said that the documentary nature of new realistic films has extremely special aesthetic value.

Second, live ammunition.

This is part of the new realism "documentary". This shooting method closely combines the real social environment with the fate of the characters in the video. The slogan of the new realistic filmmaker is: move the camera to the street and shoot in real space. In this process, the camera follows the movements of people in real space, which is a breakthrough in the concept of space. It naturally makes the traditional concept of scene scheduling disappear and makes a more cinematic real space form appear. At the same time, real-life shooting also avoids the dramatic use of light, which belongs to the stage concept. Italian new realistic photographers fl and FL use more natural light.

Third, use a long lens

In the representative works of neo-realism, the use of long shots, as a means of expressing real space, plays a unique role in highlighting the form and style of movies. This visual processing that is not divided into blocks seems to make every shot a complete section. This not only reflects the objectivity of the creator's loyalty to nature, but also makes the film gain realistic and true transparency, and finally disappears the subjectivity of the self. Bazin once suggested. The characteristics of film, as far as its temporary pure state is concerned, only lie in the strict adherence to spatial unity in photography. In this sense, the application of neo-realism to long shots conforms to Bazin's definition and the characteristics of film's spatial concept.

Fourthly, about the use of non-professional actors.

In many representative works of neo-realism, the performances of non-professional actors are indeed used. However, Bazin pointed out in his in-depth analysis that the use of non-professional actors is not the contribution of neo-realism. As early as "Battleship potemkin", extras replaced the big stars. At the same time, Bazin also said: "From the perspective of film history, the practice of not using professional actors can not explain the characteristics of social realism films, nor can it explain the characteristics of contemporary Italian schools;" Denying the star principle and using professional actors and extras equally are their characteristics. What is important here is to avoid the fixation of a professional actor's role type: the relationship between him and the role should not give the audience a preconceived concept. "Neo-realism mixes professional actors and non-professional actors, which makes the actors interact and penetrate each other. This result "is bound to gain the wonderful authenticity of Italian films".

Verb (abbreviation of verb) structural form

Lawson once said that "because the basic concept of neo-realism is simple, the structure of the best neo-realism films is also simple and moving". Neo-realistic filmmakers pursue unpretentious structural forms. They don't use flashback, flashback and other puzzling structural forms, but choose the simplest, most vivid and intuitive structural form, and the result is also the clearest, most natural and most substantial structural form. This is also determined by the recording style of the film, as Chavartini advocated: the new realistic film should produce structure from the material itself.

Sixth, the use of local dialects.

This can't be heard in the movie we translated. However, it is a part of Neo-realism's pursuit of records and realism, influenced by Eduardo de Filippo's dialect drama and Virga. At the same time, it is also an extremely prominent means for ethnic films to pursue sound effects. When dealing with this dialect, neo-realism producers pay great attention to discretion. They not only retain the characteristics of local dialects, but also make people understand them as much as possible.

Based on the photographic nature of movies, Bazin emphasized that movies cannot be divorced from reality. He said:

"The integrity of the film lies in its true art", and the truth that Bazin refers to is a kind of visible hook space truth. On the theory and concept of Montage School from the concept of "spatial reality".

Bazin thinks this is an anti-film concept. So, he pushed the long lens. At the same time, starting from this concept, he spoke highly of Italian neo-realistic films. He thinks: Neo-realism gives a holistic description of reality by understanding the entirety of things, which "never leads to the retrogression of aesthetics. On the contrary, it promotes the progress of means of expression, the development of film language and the scope of film style". Especially from the points we have summarized above, we can see that Italian neo-realism is indeed more transparent and convincing than other kinds of realism. At the same time, it also has a far-reaching impact on the development of world movies.