1. The Night of the Shooting Stars definitely has aspects of neorealism. It tells a fairly realistic story of a group of Tuscan Italians making their way to find American soldiers. The story has its neorealism events. It has tragic moments, like people gathering in a church when that church gets bombed with them inside. And it has its moments that catch you off guard. Like the group of boys peeping at the woman in the middle of the night, and other strange sexual encounters that we don’t expect and can even make us uncomfortable.
The film also rejects neorealism and puts in more dramatic, cinematic qualities. Like while the group is waiting for the bombing to begin, we can hear a few individual thoughts and memories about their homes. And when the bombing takes place, there are close up shots of their ears to show that they can hear it, and to put a more dramatic effect on the scenario.
2. Night of the Shooting Stars seemed more like a drama instead of a documentary. Rome Open City, being more neorealist, looked more like a documentary. It even had real archival footage of soldiers marching through the city. Night of the Shooting Stars had more dramatic elements in the way things were presented, like close up shots of the ears to hear sounds and hearing individual thoughts. And it had a more happy ending.
3. The view of the child may mean innocence, but I didn’t see much of it. She didn’t look that innocent when she was smashing the remaining eggs that she already sat on. The only thing that might come from a child’s point of view is how we don’t see much history or back story to the characters. I found some parts confusing to see people act a certain way towards other characters. There could have been some romantic pasts between some, but we don’t know it. All we see are people acting sexually to each other for no reason, like eating a piece of watermelon after a woman was bathing herself in it.
I think the film rejects neorealism in the same way that a child rejects his mother as a teenager. A bad metaphor, I know, but doesn't it seem like the film tries to find a gritty center that is true in the hearts of the people facing this terrible time rather than just simply show the realness of it by making it feel like there's just a camera by the tree and the people are having their somewhat shallow conversations that don't spell out how they're feeling at this moment. So to me the film feels more like neorealism than some classic neorealist works (cough, ROME OPEN CITY, cough).
ReplyDeleteNight of The Shooting Stars was a drama that both had neorealistic and non-neorealistic qualities. Like you said, it is the story of a group of people on the run from war and an oppression, which is why it can be considered realism. On the other hand, fantasmal moments such as hearing peoples thoughts, zooming image on their ears, the young girls imagining of the Black Shirt being speared to death, are all qualities that are unknown to realistic films.
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