The new realistic style of the post World War II era that came to be known as Italian Neo-Realist focused on the lives and struggles of ordinary people trying to get by in a war ravaged, poverty-stricken country. In subject matter and style, the Neo-Realists created a body of work between 1945 and 1949 that had a profound effect on world cinema. The first of these films, Roberto RosselliniÆs groundbreaking ôOpen Cityö (Roma, citta aperta) was shot in 1945, and like the films that followed, it dealt with contemporary social issues from a humanist perspective; the filmmakers were not out to offer solutions to social problems, but to depict them by showing the effect on individual lives. The problems faced by the characters in Neo-Realism Italian films ôhad some degree of immediacy and broad concernö (Ellis 211). Italian art cinema dealt with social problems, but its emphasis was on the effects on individual lives, not explaining causes or coming up with solutions. The context, howe

Ellis, Jack C. A History of Film. Fourth Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995.

Allen, Robert and Douglas Gomery. Film History: Theory and Practice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

ôCasablanca.ö Dir. Michael Curtiz. Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Perf. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Raines. Warner Bros., 1942.

Identifying the character with the actor could not happen in the films of Italian Neo-Realism. Cesare Zavattini, who co-wrote ôThe Bicycle Thiefö with De Sica, is noted as the theoretical founder of Neo-Realism. As early as 1942 he called for a new kind of Italian film that would abolish contrived plots, take to the streets for its material, and do away with professional actors. According to Zavattini, since plot was inauthentic because it imposed an artificial structure on everyday life, professional actors or stars compounded the falsehood since ôto want one person to play another implies the calculated plotö (Cook 441). The unemployed family man in ôThe Bicycle Thiefö and his son are the lead characters and both are non-actors who were coached by De Sica. Using real people (the father was a factory worker) did not detract from the power of the film or its international success and honors, including the 1949 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Italian art cinema from Neo-Realism to Bertolucci stands apart from classic Hollywood films in its critical method of filmmaking and the thematic concerns of its auteurs. Its roots are in modernism, each film carries an implicit ideology, and these films deal with more adult subjects. In Italian Art Cinema the creative process is more important than the business process that guided classical Hollywood films (and todayÆs blockbuster movies). The movies of HollywoodÆs classical pe