Italian Neorealism And Modern Hollywood Cinema

For as long as there has been big art movements, such as theatre in Ancient Greece or painting and scrulpture in Reniesance Italy, some art has all ways had something to say about politics. And these things have all ways had a heavy emphasis on the cultures around the such as in Greece and Italy where art such as the Sistine Chapel comes from and emphasis’s the importance of religeon in that particular culture. The 20th and 21st centuries are no different, just one of the most important art forms of today is the film industry. Film has become such a huge part of our culture that whether a film movement intended it or not, films have a lot of political power in the way that they are presented. In this essay I will attempt to show how two …show more content…
Italian Neorealism because it rose on the backbones of a way and attempted to capture realism of everyday life as an “actual reflection of the world in it’s essence” (Alfio Leotta); and current Hollywood Cinema as an antithesis of this as it is made as pseudorealism or is “aimed at fooling the eye” (André Bazin). Whereas Italian Neorealism seeks to tell true stories, Current Hollwood Cinema aims to have you belive the story, or overeggaderates the story being told. These two film forms therefore compare well as the are both aiming to present a true image of the world and therefor this essay will attempt to reveal the political power of film. When mensioning Italian Neorealism I am referring to the film period from around 1943-1953 where the goal of the films being produced in Italy “was a cinema without apperant, where facts dictated form.” And where the film makers “wanted to encourage social change by showing the difficulties of the working class.” (Alfio Leotta) When referring to Current Hollywood Cinema I am referring to around about the 90’s onward, where the rise in technology was making film easier to access and to produce, espcially the rise of digital cinema and techniques that came with it such as the blockbuster special effects etc. Along with the globalised market that these films exist in in terms of distribution and …show more content…
When representing real events this movement can fall flat, such as with the reasent film by Clint Eastwood, American Sniper, which depicts an “American War Hero’s” story as a sniper, but has also been glorified and in an article in the Rolling Stone magizine, the Reporter Matt Taibbi complains about “the self-righteous way Hollywood movie makers routinely turn serious subjects into baby food.”(Matt Taibbi) Which is true, Current Hollywood Cinema is very often guilty of this and will frequently snap the label “based on real events” just to entise audiences such as with the Paranomal Activity series. The films are entirely fictional, but because they are ever so slightly related to a true event, they use it as a marketing scheme. It is this loose treatment of serious subject, and also the serious treatment of rediculous subjects that can be seen as political though. In terms of American Sniper it has been reviewed as glorifying way hero’s, and the social backlash on my facebook feed when it came out was huge. It made people think about the truth even if it wasn’t doing a very good job at representing it, or was bending the truth to suit a patriotic vision of America which isn’t true, all of which is very political. On the other hand you have Paranormal Activity which captures your imagination and is trying to convince you that these things are real, because they

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Italian Neorealism And Modern Hollywood Cinema

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