Italian Neorealism

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 22 November 2009 05:33

Written by L E Shannon

The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Life Lessons: Italian Neorealism and the Birth of Modern Cinema -- the biggest collection of Italian Neorealist films ever screened in the United States. Running from October 30 through November 25, 2009, the series spans the range from early films by Italy’s household-name directors--Antonioni, De Sica, Fellini, Pasolini, Rossellini and Visconti--to those less popularly well-known, including Alberto Lattuada, Carlo Lizzani, Ermanno Olmi and Luigi Zampa.

To be viewed at the Walter Reade Theater, the series kicks off with Roberto Rossellini’s Open City, the film that has come to be regarded as the movie that launched the movement. Also to be seen in the series are Rossellini’s Paisán and his rarely seen Voyage to Italy.

Two virtual mini-retros are included for Vittorio De Sica and Giuseppe De Santis. De Sica’s films are Bicycle Thieves, Miracle in Milan, Umberto D, and Shoeshine, the first foreign language film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

De Santis’ screenings are Bitter Rice, Rome 11:00, The Tragic Pursuit, and Days of Glory, the 1945 documentary film with sequences by Mario Serandrei, Marcello Pagliero and Luchino Visconti.

Also included is Visconti’s Ossessione, his unauthorized adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which was not seen in the U.S. until the 1976 New York Film Festival.

Two earlier works by directors who are as famous for inspiring several generations of filmmakers worldwide as they are for their own landmark films are I vitelloni, by Federico Fellini, and Il grido, by Michelangelo Antonioni.

This is a series that is not to be missed by any serious film aficionado.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com.

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