Some Ideas on the Cinema (Cesare Zavattini)

Jun-Dai — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:24:00 -0700

Cesare Zavattini, ‘Some Ideas on the Cinema,’ Sight and Sound 23:3 (October-December 1953), pp. 64-9. Edited from a recorded interview published in La revista del cinema italiano 2 (December 1952). Translated by Pier Luigi Lanza

online version at gOnZomatic - online version at Google Books

I’ve been meaning to look into some of the writings by the neorealists for some time now. As with the new wave, the Italian neorealist movement began as criticism and only coalesced as film later (starting with Ossessione, which got a limited release in 1943, and coming into full swing with Roma, città aperta in 1946). The first piece I’ve encountered, however, is this article by Zavattini at the tail end of what is generally considered to be the neorealist period (from Ossessione to Umberto D) before it broke apart and transformed into other things (the new wave, the very individual careers of Antonioni, Fellini, Visconti, Pasolini, et al).

Reading this article helped me pull together various ideas I’ve had about film, as well as various impressions I’ve had about others’ ideas about film. I hope to revisit this post and try to put down some of those ideas. It really is amazing how optimistic Zavattini is in 1953, though I guess it’s too early to see the demise of neorealism and late enough to see some of the impact that neorealism had begun to have around the world.

狂った!: Some Ideas on the Cinema (Cesare Zavattini)

Some Ideas on the Cinema (Cesare Zavattini)