NEOREALIST CINEMA. The brilliance of reality in post-war Italy
The National Cinema Museum is presenting the NEOREALIST CINEMA. The brilliance of reality in post-war Italy exhibition (4 June - 29 November 2015) at the Mole Antonelliana, under Alberto Barbera curatorship’s, with Grazia Paganelli and Fabio Pezzetti Tonion’s collaboration.
Seventy years on from the stunning appearance of Rome open city by Roberto Rossellini, Neorealism continues to be the most well-known, beloved and influential period in Italian film history.
The exhibition will offer an original review of that seminal experience, through film-frames and film footage, documents, posters, promotional material, original texts and screenplays, interview snippets, production notes, letters and statements, retracing its most significant stages: from the influence of certain introductory experiences in the Thirties and the early Forties (the Renoir by Toni, films by De Robertis), to the pivotal figures in Neorealism (Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Lattuada, De Santis, Lizzani), to its main collaborators (scriptwriters such as Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Sergio Amidei and Cesare Zavattini), up to the neorealist heritage traceable in several films by contemporary cinema authors worldwide.
The exhibition will accompany its visitors on a journey, beginning from the inception of this aesthetic “revolution”, that is well beyond the specific period pertaining to it. Because Neorealism conditioned cinematic viewpoints deeply, taking research into reality to a purity never attained previously. Although Neorealism was not a structured movement, it was certainly a school in the purest sense of this term, imposing a precise moral view over reality, whilst playing it out into a rich range of nuances. The exhibition highlights this very plurality, which is why each filmmaker is an expression of his own personal poetics.
The showcase circuit winds throughout the Temple Hall, the heart of the National Cinema Museum, and it presents a variety of items that are unique in this genre: over 180 exhibits among photographs and documents, 15 posters, 23 screens reproposing footage from 55 films, alternating with documents, interviews and photos, flanked by 8 exclusive interviews.
The area below the large screens is occupied by an installation dedicated to the definition of Neorealism. Contributions by filmmakers and intellectuals (from Rossellini to Pasolini, from Moravia to Godard) will run on three screens, recounting their concept of neorealist cinema. On the sides are two areas reserved for what we might call ‘pre-Neorealism’, harking back to the tradition of French realism and to a certain Italian cinema in the Thirties far from the so called “white telephones” season.
The exhibition then proceeds onto the Helicoid Ramp, with three sections dedicated to the main filmmakers within Neorealism - Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti - with photos, documents, posters, film footage clips. Finally, a fourth section is dedicated to Carlo Lizzani, Giuseppe De Santis and Alberto Lattuada. At the end of this itinerary on authors, is a monitor showing a selection of vintage Cine-news dedicated to the films and the filmmakers in this exhibition.
At the top of the ramp, six further sections tread other “paths” that are essential for understanding this revolution, which involved cinema on all its levels, starting from experiences regarding documentaries - with Michelangelo Antonioni, who began to film Gente del Po in 1939 – up to the valuable work of scriptwriters who contributed to outlining the screenwriting canons in those years: Cesare Zavattini, Sergio Amidei and Suso Cecchi D’Amico. The third section is a tribute to Francesco Rosi, Pietro Germi, Citto Maselli and Renato Castellani, all directors between the Fifties and Sixties who widely welcomed Neorealism lessons, adapting them to the fast changes within society.
Heritage is the theme of the fourth section, with a collation of films that drew inspiration from Neorealism in their manner of observing reality, from the Sixties to our days. In the fifth section, 8 filmmakers talk in as many exclusive interviews about their relationship with Neorealism: Bertrand Tavernier, Davide Ferrario, Edgar Reitz, Abderrhamane Sissako, Marco Bellocchio, Robert Guédiguian, Martin Scorsese and Bernardo Bertolucci.
The last section is dedicated to archive material, which is fundamental, because cinema memory has been safeguarded and handed down thanks to it. Photocopies with documents, letters, contracts, reviews, pages from screenplays, subjects and much more, may be consulted in a sort of small final library, in order to delve even further into everything seen in the course of the exhibition.
In order to favour access to the exhibition, members of the public will find available Easy Access Information (Informazioni ad Accesso Facilitato), with support accessible from a dedicated, custom-planned hub which includes: a video to introduce and accompany them to the exhibition, with audio comment and a LIS (Italian Signs Language) interpreter, which may be activated on a smartphone by means of an optical TAG and a touch TAG (NFC); a map of the display floor on a panel plus visual and touch cards; an introductory text in Braille and the exhibition map with a printout in relief on paper; a high-readability text and adequate fonts for dyslexic persons; a synthesis of the panels at the exhibition with a translation in several languages.
The project falls within the scope of The Museum for Everyone, the Museum for You initiative, addressing easy access to the works on display according to visitors’ varying needs, in order to make the Museum increasingly welcoming and visitors’ experiences even more pleasant.
Completing the exhibition, is the NEOREALIST CINEMA. The brilliance of reality in post-war Italy catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale, which includes an introduction by Alberto Barbera and texts by Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini and Giuseppe De Santis, besides a broad filmography and a complete chronology of Neorealism, in addition to the exhibition photographs and documents.
During the month of November 2015, the Cinema Massimo will host a showcase dedicated to neorealist cinema, offering the most important films from that period, paired with subsequent works coming from the most disparate cinematographies, which have drawn inspiration, in different ways, from Neorealism.
Many educational activities are foreseen for the 2015/2016 school year in connection with the exhibition, featuring in-depth meetings with teachers, as well as suggestions for the students, with guided itineraries, laboratory-talks at the museum, dedicated retrospectives at the Cinema Massimo, laboratories at the Library/Mediatheque, lectures at school.
Furthermore, a group of students from the “Isaac Newton” classical and scientific Lyceum in Chivasso has taken part in an educational in-depth project regarding the most significant stages of the exhibition organisation: from its concept, to drawing up its planning, to its execution, by means of lectures and meetings with its scientific and layout curators, watching films and research practice and hunting for sources at the “Mario Gromo” Library/Mediatheque. Finally, the youngsters will be involved in thinking up a learning itinerary addressed to their peers from other schools who will visit the exhibition.