The movement known as the Italian Neorealism is widely considered to be the birth of modern cinema. In a time in which the world was in the midst of the cruelest war witnessed by humanity, and Italy found itself under the rule of fascist leaser Benito Mussolini, a group of young filmmakers came to the forefront and defied conventions and the established norm. The first neorealist film to achieve international recognition was Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” (1945), bringing praise and prominence to the movement. However, it is believed by film scholars that the very first movie produced under the philosophy and conditions of Neorealism was Luchino Visconti’s “Ossessione” (1943). Whether this film fits the mould of the first modernist movement in film history is actually up for debate, and that’s exactly what we are about to discuss.

“Ossessione” is based on James M. Cain’s novel “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, a work that has been adapted to film plenty of times, but never quite like this. Filmed entirely on location against the backdrop of an impoverished Italy, the movie follows Gino Costa (Massimo Girotti), a homeless drifter who arrives at a restaurant somewhere in the rural areas of the country. There he meets Giovanna (Clara Amai), the wife of the restaurant’s owner, and soon falls in love with her. The two of them start an affair, and as it quickly progresses, they start plotting to get rid of the husband so they can freely live their love.

First, lets define Neorealism: a film movement that began in the late years of World War II and the fascist regime in Italy, it focused mainly on the poor and working class and how they tried to find ends meet in a society ravaged by war. The films were usually shot on location and used non-professional actors, and handled themes such as social injustice, oppression and poverty. While the works of Rossellini are often regarded as “cinema of liberation” (“Rome, Open City”, “Paisá”, “Germania, Anno Zero”), thematizing the conflict between the national-socialist forces and the oppressed common people, later works by other directors such as Vittorio de Sica (“Bicycle Thieves”) and Federico Fellini (“Nights of Cabiria”) are regarded as a “cinema of humanism”, in which the focus was social rather than political. Under which category does Visconti’s “Ossessione” fall? We might be inclined to place it in the second group (and probably rightfully so), but the government’s reaction does provide an insight into the political tension around this production: “Ossessione” was banned in all of Italy, and not only that, but Mussollini’s regime ordered that every copy of the film should be destroyed. Only one negative survived, saved by Visconti himself, and every subsequent copy was made from it. So there was clearly something with this movie that didn’t sit well with the fascists. Was it the focus on the working class, the sympathies towards the proletariats, what might have been considered an act of rebellion?

There is no denying that the film carries lots of the philosophies and aesthetic principles that would characterize the neorealist movement, but it also shares some similarities with another film current that showed up in France around ten years before: poetic realism, the original film noirs. In the 1930s french filmmakers like Jean Vigo, René Clair and Jean Renoir (with whom Visconti had worked as an assistant) were tackling many of the themes that neorealism would come to be known for, such as the struggles of the working class and social injustices. But there are a couple of differences: it is called “poetic” realism because of its heavy use of symbolism, what was almost completely absent in its italian counterpart, and the narrative focus for the french remained the criminal aspects of the social inequality. That’s why I refer to it as the original Film Noirs, the french were moving within the genre long before the americans. And while not every poetical realistic film would classify as noir under today’s understanding of the term, there is a case to be made about how “Ossessione” shares more “generic” similarities with that movement than with the neorealist movies that would later be made.

The answer to this is rather simple, alas that doesn’t mean its not worth discussing. Visconti worked as an assistant for Renoir, one of the fathers of poetic realism, and learned from him a lot about filmmaking, and even changed his world view – Visconti was from a rich family and sympathized with the fascist government, but after working in Renoir’s “Toni” (1935) he returned to Italy as a self-proclaimed marxist. It is also important to mention that it was Renoir himself who gave Visconti a copy of Cain’s novel. Obviously working with the frenchman changed the italian’s sensibilities, both socially and politically, and when he set out to make his first feature film he was ready to apply everything he had learned. The use of non-professional actors and the filming on location was already popular among the french who subscribed to the aforementioned movement, but Visconti’s movie helped establish those conventions for Neorealism. It was born out of necessity, but it helped define a movement. So what’s the simple answer I talked about?: given Visconti’s background with the french poetical realists make him one of the pioneers of the techniques later employed by the neorealists, even if genre-wise he stays somewhat closer to the french. “Ossessione” stands both as a precursor for Neorealism and an evolution of the Poetic Realism, perhaps even working as a bridge between two cultures and their respective inputs to cinema at the time.

The context of the film speaks for itself: not only was it produced under a strict, totalitarian regime that tried to vanish the movie from existence (it is truly a miracle that it exists today), and not only was it a product of a society at war, but it also stands as a testament to two of the most important movements in film history. Visconti surely does an excellent job at bringing the sensibilities of France’s greatest aueteurs at the time to a country that most desperately needed it, starting a phenomenon that would change cinema history forever.

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