Bicycle Thieves (Italian Neo-Realism)

Italian Neo-Realism is a film movement happened in post-WW2. Its appearance caused by the new generation of young filmmakers want to create a new style of Italian films.

During the pre-war, films have to help the government in propaganda purpose. Because during that time, the technology unable to let the government pass their message to the mass audiences hence they use films as the tools.

In Mussolini ruling era, films are not allowed to show the reality of the current society's situation to promote the beauty of Italy. At the same time, Italian Film School and Hollywood have established, the young filmmakers want to break against the fascism and produce a moral and an aesthetic cinema.

By 1943, without the controlling by fascism, the filmmakers think that they should eliminate the old cinema and start to focus the reality of the society to confront the audiences who also involve in the same situation.

Italian Neo-Realism has some similarity with Hollywood production such as they follow the three-act structure, hero journey format and features famous stars.

The young filmmakers have set up some principle to conduct the style and content of this film movement.

The films must tally with the ordinary people's life and focus on contemporary social realism which means the particular issue that not happened over one to two day(s). The films should concern about the social's problems such as unemployment and poverty that so common in the post-war period in Italy. Use non-professional actors to bring the realism on dialogue, body language to make them become more natural. The production stage should proceed out of the studio which means preferred location shooting. Shooting in outdoor able to shoot under the natural light and using observation to produce documentary's style of shooting.

Neo-Realism became a unique film movement as the sound equipment was rare at that time so they need to arrange the mise-en-scene by shooting on actual locales. Plus, they required for realism hence they often need to shoot on streets or in buildings and this caused the Italian camera operators expert at cinematography to avoid three-point lighting. The filmmakers start to work in a smaller team to move the camera freely.
The narrative form of the Neo-Realism film has a huge differ from the earliest films. In the old films, the endings usually are not a happy ending but in Neo-Realism, the endings often are unknown although the contents of the films are related to poverty and unemployed issues. The narrative style is matched with our reality life as our future is an unknown.

'Bicycle Thieves' is about Antonio Ricci gets a job offering which is posting advertisement poster in the city area but it requires a bicycle. His wife, Maria sells all of the bed sheets to the pawn shop to redeem Antonio's bicycle. Unfortunately, Antonio's bicycle steal by a young man. Antonio unable to chase the young man and go to report to the police. On the next day, Antonio brings his son, Bruno, along and find the bicycle with his friends. They meet a lot of trouble in their journey but still unable to find the bicycle. In the last part of the film, Antonio asks Bruno meet him at Monte Sacro by taking the public transport. Antonio steals other's bicycle but knocked down by the crowd. Bruno missed the public transport and he runs towards to his father. The owner of the bicycle let Antonio go because of Bruno. Antonio and Bruno walk towards the crowd as the ending of the film.

'Bicycle Thieves' has all of the features which matched with Italian Neo-Realism film movement. Firstly, the mise-en-scene of the film was adapted from the actual post-war location which in the beginning of the film where Maria carrying the water from a well.

It has shown the poverty in the post-war period, men are desperate to find a job while the women carry the water from a well which located far away from their home to take care of their family. Everyone are urgent need the money as there are always having a long line at the pawn shop to use their stuff to exchange money. Next, we can see that some of the innocent people will believe in seer to determine their future. I think that the filmmakers are trying to mock the people who willing to spend their money on the seer but not to use the money wisely.

On top of that, the using of the non-professional actor makes the film more realistic as Antonio perfectly brings out the feel of a working man struggles in the hardships in his life and try to make his family have a better life. Because of the nonactors do not how to act, hence the dialogue, accent, body language are familiar with the audiences.

Last but not least, the ending of the film is unknown as Antonio and his son walk towards the crowd does not reflect anything in their future. It may causes the audiences to think about it. Will they manage find the bicycle? Or Antonio's friends found the bicycle? Or Antonio wll lose his job?

The Maltese Falcon (Film Noir)

Film Noir is a film movement born in the 1940s and it is similar to American thriller film. At first, people do not call as 'film noir' but crime film. Because of the lifting ban on France movie, the new-looking films start coming in. People treat these new phenomena as a film movement but not as a genre because it can be referred as thriller or gangster movie but also can look as Western movie and melodrama at the same time.

Film Noir starts to notice the visual and the character's design is very different from the past. Noir means black or dark so all of the movies are in black and white. Film Noir has the cinematography similar with German Expressionism (1920s) such as low key lighting, high contrasts, deep shadow and diagonal camera angles. There are certain characteristics can be found in Film Noir, for example, chiaroscuro which means light-dark as a principle of contrasting lighting. The special location and setting of the Film Noir have made it very special as well as low-key lighting, high-contrast visual and the psychology issue happen in the protagonist. The setting in Film Noir often is city-bound with rain-washed street and interiors and always shots by the diagonal camera angles which referred to German Expressionism. The setting of the Film Noir always wants to give the audiences have a sense of danger and mystery. The reason is to create unbalance and not normal atmosphere as the there has a crime happened.

Shadow become a feature which makes Film Noir become famous.

Shadow reflects blurred moral values to create good and bad figure at the same time.

The film's characters are different in the past character's design. In previous, the characters in films are purely good or purely bad. But in Film Noir, the protagonist is not a hero but not completed badly. Just like the reality world, there are not a good guy in this world.

The femme fatale appears in Film Noir as it is about the power relation and sexual identity. The female status in society become more important because the women start to join the work field and start to make money during the war period as the men need to join the army force to defence their country. When the men return from the war, they started being suspicious and questioning about their masculine identity.

Film Noir portraits femme fatale as the central role with active, intelligent powerful to achieve their goal with courage and wisdom. These women able to do something which men usually do such as holding a gun or cigarette. What a man can do, a woman also has the capable to do it. In Film Noir, the murder case is not so important but she will become the male's investigation target. However, in the end of the film, women usually get her punish as the film is struggling of the voices controlling the narrative diegesis.

Because of the war, the status of male and female has a huge evolution. Film Noir can be viewed as the male start to concern about the women power and their economy growing in 1940. The 1950s Film Noir start to concern about the value of family life to make the men gain back their status as well as the national identity. 

Maltese Falcon is about two private detectives, Sam Spade and Miles Archer take over a case reported by Miss Wonderly who claims she wants to find his sister who involves with a man called Floyd Thursby. At the night, Spade receives a call informed that Archer has been killed. In the next morning, Spade goes to find Ms. Wonderly, now calling as Brigid O'Shaughnessy and tells Spade Thursby killed Archer but do not know who killed Thursby. During Spade investigating the murder case, he meets Cairo and talking about 'a black figure of bird'. A big boss, Gutman offers Spade $10,000 for the falcon. In the end, Spade calls the police force to arrest Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer. Although Spade has fallen in love with O'Shaughnessy but he still let the police takes her away since Spade knew that she is the one who killed Archer.

Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir as it is black and white, and the story plot begins with the investigation and murder cases. Most of the scenes are in high-contrast lighting and occur a lot of shadows.

The camera angle that shoots on characters' faces usually through the low angle to create their faces become bigger and make the audiences have a sense of threat.

My favourite part in the film is on the characters especially Spade. He is smart to solve any cases but in the same time, he loves money and woman. He has the capability to become the hero but he does not want to be the hero. Spade is the main character with flaws as in the reality world do not have a good people. O'Shaughnessy is a smart girl who knows how to use her beauty and sexuality to complete her goal, makes Spade falls in love with her and make him confuse in the investigation. But in the end, Film Noir's setting has punished her. In the last scene, the steel bars of the lift portrait she is going to jail.

Filmmakers love Film Noir because of the cool visual and the psychology of the character is more realistic. Although Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir, but I not in love with the film because the dialog is very hard for me to understand and the speed of their talking is fast. Since it is black and white film, I confused with the time frame in the film because I can't identify the daylight or night time.

In the Mood for Love

Film movements have influenced the stage of the film industry today. The two most important elements in film movements are films that are produced within particular period and nation and that share significant traits of style and form. Next, the filmmakers who operate within a common production structure and who share certain assumptions about filmmaking. (Bordwell & Thompson, 2009)

World War I has destroyed the French film industry and caused American films began to enter the French film's market in 1915. The local film industry tried to reborn in the market by referred the style and genre of Hollywood films, however, this move has deferred the perception of young French directors with their predecessor. Their predecessor treats filmmaking as commercial tools, unlike younger generation, create the cinema to be an art which able to compare with poetry, painting, and music.

French Impressionism happened in 1919 until 1928. The younger directors love to explore the psychological emotion because they think that cinema was an art of emotion. They have a huge interest in the inner action of the actors rather than physical behavior. On top of that, the directors love to play the concept of manipulating plot time and subjectivity hence flashbacks are very common. Impressionism focuses on the personal emotion to give the film narrative.

To display a unique style of the films, the filmmakers developed different types of cinematography and editing such as masks and superimposition to trace the actors' thoughts and feelings. For example, point-of-view cutting to show a character looking at something, then change the shot to that thing from an angle and distance which are in the same position of the character. This method is using to show what the character looking at. Besides, the filmmakers will use visual to show the characters' situation such as when the character is getting drunk or dizzy, the camera will shake to show dizzy or the filmmakers will use the distorted and vertiginous camera movement. Additionally, Impressionists also developed the rhythmic editing which means the pace of editing will increase as the mood of that particular scene was excited to create the climax. The filmmakers think that they can do more on the camera hence they tried to develop the frame mobility such as strapped their camera on the cars.

In the Mood for Love, 花樣年華 is a 2000 Hong Kong romantic film produced, written and directed by Wong Kar Wai. The story happened in Hong Kong in 1962 when Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan move into the same place and become a neighbor. Their spouse often leaves them alone because of career purpose. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan found out they are in the same lonely situation and their spouse has an affair with each other. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan often dating together to imagine and rehearsal their spouse how to betrayal them. They even always hang out together to write a martial-art series of novel. They actually fall in love with each other and Mr. Chow asks Mrs. Chan to follow him to go to Singapore because he got a new job offer over there however Mrs. Chan is too late to join Mr. Chow. Three years later, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow go back to the old place where they used to live there but they do not meet each other. The film ends at Mr. Chow whispering his little secret into a hole in a ruined wall.

This film is attractive because the formula was unfamiliar for us. The ending actually makes me felt sad because Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan did not being together although they fall in love with each other. The elements of French Impressionism can be found in this film especially the term of exploring psychology causes. There is a plot in the film where Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan buying and having their dinner at the same noodle stall. The BGM and the scene are similar and repeat for a few times. The director is trying to show they are do everything alone, having their meals alone. The expressionless of the characters shows they are used to the loneliness. When Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan found out their spouse having an affair, they imagine the scene of betrayal and rehearsal on it for few times. This shows the director apply the manipulating plot time effects in the film. The characters repeat the rehearsal but in a different dialog.

After Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan getting know each other better, they aware that they have some chemical between them. But they are struggling because they do not want to be like their spouse. They have a conversation about what if they haven't married. Both of them agree that they will be happier if they do not have married. Mr. Chow backs to his office and having a lot of smoke after the end of the conversation. The smoke, dark lighting and Mr. Chow expression show he is thinking and struggling. The smoke represents cloudy, his mind actually is crowded. Besides, time lapse effect can be found in the film. The time lapse effect makes the world is moving but not the character. This created the characters depress emotion.

Additionally, fast cut editing appears on after Mrs. Chan picks up the phone call from Mr. Chow and she is invited to the hotel to meet with him. Mrs. Chan arrived the hotel but she is struggling meet or not to meet with Mr. Chow. The confuse and excitement from Mrs. Chan match with fast pace editing elements to create the climax of her mood and the film. During the tutorial, we had a discussion about the director used freeze frame in certain footages such as Mr. Chow decided to go to Singapore but the frame is freezing at the moment he wants to leave and without Mrs. Chan's appearance. Mr. Joe said that it was a technique from director Wong Kar-wai as he wants to leave a memory on that particular scene. In my opinion, the freezing scene represents maybe Mr. Chow wants to wait for another moment to wait for Mrs. Chan. In this whole film, we can't see their spouses' faces and this makes the audiences very curious. But, does it important? Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan also can't see their betrayal so it is not necessary to show them to the audiences.

Frech impressionism ended in 1929. But it brings a huge influence on today's film industry. The concept, psychological narrative, cinematography and editing are not going to disappear. By the way, Maggie Cheung in the film is so beautiful!!!