Luchino Visconti: The forefather of Italian neorealism
As the politics of fascism gripped much of Europe throughout the middle of the 20th century, the European film industry was dominated by an air of censorship that glorified the kind of societies that were lived in at the time. This studio-led wave of cinema crafted a false reality of European life, putting forth the notion that fascist dictatorships could provide a state of positive being for its subjects.
Naturally, as is often the case with any artistic medium, the directors and screenwriters at the time pushed back against this simulacra and began to create works that detailed the harsh realities of the 1950s. In few places was an artistic movement as prominent and essential to the cinematic medium itself as in Italy, where the Italian neorealism movement sprang forth despite an ongoing fear of sanction and censorship.
At the end of World War II, Italian neorealist filmmakers revolutionised the industry with their starkly honest portrayals of the hardships faced under the reign of Benito Mussolini. The movement was characterised by its unflinching authenticity and prerequisite to shoot on location using non-professional actors, thereby negating the falsehoods of the country’s previous glossy, studio-led movies.
While the likes of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica would arguably become the best-known Italian neorealist directors, the vital contribution that Luchino Visconti made to the artistic movement is equally undeniable. Visconti is rightfully known as one of the critical forbears of Italian neorealism, though he would depart the style of the movement by creating grand historical epics and dramas later in his career.
Born into an aristocratic Italian family in Milan in 1906, Visconti’s affluent childhood would inform his eternal passion for the arts. However, it would not dissuade him from understanding the plight of the common person later in his life. An exposure to art and the theatre at the Palazzo Visconti di Modrone showed the young Visconti the importance of the narrative arts, and before long, he sought out a career in theatre and cinema, working with Jean Renoir on 1936’s Partie de Campagne and 1941’s Tosca.
During World War II, Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party, having come to express his hatred for the fascist regime of Mussolini. This kind of engagement with radical politics would play dividends in Visconti’s artistic life, and by the time his directorial debut, Ossessione, arrived in 1943, the director would have a tense showdown with the son of Mussolini, Vittorio, who was hosting the festival at which the film premiered.
Widely considered one of the first works of Italian neorealism, Ossessione is based on James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice and tells of a drifter character called Gino who falls in love with the wife of a roadside innkeeper. There’s a genuine gritty quality to Visconti’s debut, where the bleak nature of post-war Italy is captured in all its brutal glory, with Visconti earnestly exploring the themes of morality and desire.
Though Visconti had a positive working relationship with Vittorio Mussolini, after Ossessione premiered, the dictator’s son stormed out of the screening, declaring aloud, “This is not Italy!” The film was subsequently banned by the Italian fascist regime until 1945, though the seeds of what would come next in the form of the Italian neorealism movement had already been sown.
Visconti laid out the neorealist blueprint with Ossessione for the likes of Rossellini and De Sica to continue in his thematic and artistic vein with Rome, Open City, Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves, respectively. Visconti himself would then return to his neorealist beginnings in 1948 with La terra trema, a loose adaptation of the 1881 Giovanni Verga novel I Malavoglia. Taking place in the poverty-stricken Sicilian village of Aci Trezza, Visconti wove a tale of a group of poor fishermen faced with the hardships of trying to improve their economic and social standing in a world of decay and exploitation. La terra trema again saw Visconti use non-professional actors and is widely considered one of the essential works of the Italian neorealism movement.
In the proceeding years, Visconti continued to establish himself as one of the key proponents of Italian neorealism with 1951’s Bellissima, which served as a damning indictment of the studio-centric film industry. With 1954’s Senso, though, a historical melodrama that focused on an affair between an Italian countess and an Austrian Lieutenant during the Third Italian War of Independence, the director began to show glimmers of the following artistic phase of his career whilst still retaining his passion for realistic storytelling.
As the 1950s rolled on, the neorealism movement in Italy came to a natural end. However, its impact on wider European cinema was eternally assured, influencing a new kind of authentic visual narrative storytelling in France, Poland, and other countries further afield. Before long, Visconti moved into the luxurious historical dramas that would define the rest of his career, including 1963’s The Leopard, 1969’s The Damned and 1971’s Death in Venice, proving his endless versatility and prowess as a cinematic master.
In terms of neorealism, though, Visconti’s contribution cannot be denied, and he is rightfully considered one of the movement’s most influential figures. Despite his admittedly fortunate familial upbringing, Visconti found within himself a personal hatred for injustice and the oppression of the common person. Through his deep understanding of narrative art, Visconti helped to shape the Italian neorealism movement, providing its blueprint of using non-professional actors and shooting on location while detailing the minutiae of life under poverty with remarkable and unflinching authenticity.
Simply, without Visconti, there is no Italian neorealism. The Milanese director and screenwriter remains one of the most essential individuals in the history of European cinema, known and loved for his fearless artistic quality amid the terrors of the fascist regime of Italy in the 1940s. By diving into the cruelty and harsh realities of the class system in Europe during the mid-century era, Visconti established himself as a true icon of the cinematic medium, a man who stood up for his personal beliefs and desire for justice by expressing them through his masterly art.
Chasing the Real: Italian Neorealism is at BFI Southbank from May 1st – June 30th, with selected films also available to watch on BFI Player.
Rome, Open City is re-released by the BFI in selected cinemas from May 17th.