On the Road with Italian Neorealism

One of the core ideas of neorealism is that, despite all that happens, life continues after the reel runs out. Very rarely does a neorealist film have a definitive ending. Rossellini's Roma, Città Aperta ends with the death of Don Pietro, yet the final shot shows the children walking on. Both De Sica's Umberto D and Ladri di Biciclette end with the protagonists walking off into the crowds after moments of personal crisis and the beginnings of moral reconciliation. This idea of a journey, particularly an indefinite one, dominates both Rossellini's neorealist masterpiece Paisà and Fellini's divergence from neorealism, La Strada. While both are at the core travelogues, Paisà and La Strada feature very distinct and very different faces, similar themes carried out in two separate manners, and the unique directorial eyes of their respective directors.

If there is a main character in Paisà, it is Italy itself. This is displayed quite literally with the recurring image of the Italian map, tracing the Allied troops as they move further up the peninsula with each episode. Moreover, it can also be considered a commentary on the personification of countries during war-time. The Allies initially see Italy, rather than the Italians, as the object of liberation. The Italian people are no more than setting to them, and, particularly in the first episode, setting that is not to be trusted. Set in Sicily, the first episode features interior shots that are crowded with natives, most of whom-in a typically neorealist way-are non-professional actors; all thoroughly Italian. Very few are addressed personally and when they are, it is with the goal to go further inland. This trend continues through Naples where the characters are "...photographed so as to appear as part of the landscape. They are almost never shown without their surroundings, as if imprisoned by the film's frame itself" (Liehm 69). The young boys of Naples are as much a part of the town's landscape as the shelled-out walls and shanty-towns. However, in the Sicilian episode, Rossellini plants the foundation of what will eventually become the connection of person-to-person, in essence the formation of paisà, of friends. While this bond is truncated between Joe from Jersey and Carmela, it is allowed to grow between the Neapolitan boy and the American soldier. In the final episode, the Po valley most notably plays a central character, opening and closing the episode with similar shots of a partisan's body floating among the vast, murky water. Allowing the audience to understand the Partisans just as their American comrades do, "Rossellini's highly mobile camera is employed brilliantly to portray the circumscribed world of the Partisans from a completely subjective viewpoint: landscape plays a dominant role here, as the camera embodies the Partisan perspective, never peering above the thin row of reeds in the marshy river basin that provides the only cover available to these harried men" (Bondanella 49). Throughout Paisà, faces gradually emerge that become as memorable as Italy itself. While Fred, the American GI, does not recognize Francesca six months after the liberation of Rome, the final image of Maria Michi's expectant face, alternated with shots of the GIs driving away past the Coliseum, is an image that stays with the audience.

Such a face also remains with the audience in Fellini's La Strada. As Gelsomina, Giulietta Masina's enigmatic smile and oft-described "Chaplinesque" movements become one of the central images of the film; an embodiment of innocence and youth. She serves as a complement to Anthony Quinn's hardened and gruff Zampanò. While the street is a central, not to mention title, component to La Strada, it is not, like Paisà's Italy, a central character. Together, Zampanò and Gelsomina embody la strada; Gelsomina as the ambling street, constantly in motion and constantly in anticipation of where the street leads, Zampanò as the never-ending street, wanting only to travel the street to fulfil his basic, animalistic needs. The emotional journeys of the characters begin to also have a physical effect on them. Gelsomina "...moves from childish innocence toward womanhood and an acceptance of her vocation as Zampanò's companion" (Bondanella 131). However, whereas Rossellini ends most of his character development in Paisà after leading them up to a turning point, Fellini then leads Gelsomina to physical and emotional deterioration after the death of Il Matto, culminating in Gelsomina's own death. Because of this, Zampanò is also able to "travel a similar road from brutish insensitivity toward a limited sort of self-knowledge," as seen in the final moments of the film where he is able to openly weep over Gelsomina's death (Bondanella 132). Zampanò has not completed his journey, rather, much like Nurse Harriet in the Florence episode of Paisà, is led to a turning point.

While a physical journey that documents the liberation of Italy, Paisà also details as a central theme the emotional journey as Americans and Italians come to understand one another. The Americans are met in Sicily with some welcome, but for the most part an overwhelming sense of distrust. Even when one American soldier attempts to bridge familiarity with the Sicilians by saying that he is Gelanese, one man counters by saying that he does not know anyone by the soldier's last name in Gela. The Americans, too, are very distrustful of the Italians, still referring to them as "Eye-ties." "Individual friendship might be possible," observes Pierre Sorlin, "were it not that war does not admit a moment's in attention" (Sorlin 101). This is demonstratively the case when, in an attempt to forge a friendship with Carmela, Joe from Jersey lights a match to show her a picture of his sister and attracts the bullet of a sniper. With the Allies progression to the north comes a forging of trust. While friendship may still seem unlikely in the Neapolitan episode, the "subjective shots...from Joe's perspective tell the story of his empathy for his fellow sufferers more eloquently than any elaborate commentary; Joe has taken the first step, that of understanding, toward becoming Pasquale's paisà" (Bondanella 46). Paisà culminates in the final episode with the dissolution of barriers of trust and culture by the sense of morality when Dale is shot while protesting the deaths of the Italian partisans with whom he was fighting. Peter Bondanella summarizes the journey of Paisà, noting that "in the beginning Joe from Jersey died on Sicilian soil almost by accident, unable to understand the people for whom he was sacrificing his life; at the conclusion of the film, Dale sacrifices his own life for his Italian comrades and becomes one of them, a Paisà" (Bondanella 50). Dale then is the achievement of understanding between Italians and Americans, the culmination of all other characters who seek the same understanding in previous episodes, the true paisà of the film. "A different language is a different vision of life," Fellini once remarked, and throughout the journey of Paisà, as the Allies and Italians move from speaking two different languages to learning one another's language, they move towards sharing the same vision.

At the suggestion of Fellini, who also heavily wrote the script, the most direct of the misunderstanding between Italians and Americans is seen in the monastery scene between the Italian monks and the American chaplains-Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Albeit there is no sense of understanding on the part of the monks, who fast for the salvation of the Protestant and the Jew, the Catholic chaplain understands this to be an act of genuine faith, demonstrating that understanding, while not wholly, may be partially possible. Yet while Paisà is an emotional journey of understanding others, La Strada's central theme is the emotional journey of coming to understand oneself. Gelsomina is the main focus of this theme during the span of the film, most clearly seen in her encounters with Il Matto as she questions her place in life and her use to Zampanò. Through Il Matto's Christ-like retelling of the parable of the pebble and later after her decision to go with the circus or stay with Zampanò-an opportunity for escape from his brutish, beast-like ways-Gelsomina comes to understand herself as integral to Zampanò's life. She then commits herself fully to her purpose, and it is only when Zampanò inadvertently kills Il Matto, when her world is shattered, that she once again questions her self-worth. Gelsomina's crisis of self-understanding is what ultimately kills her, but from her death, Zampanò is able to begin to understand himself-a final act on Gelsomina's part to take care of him. The physical journey of the film, from one sea to the other, leads Zampanò to realize that the road holds no answers forhim beyond the promise of basic, animalistic needs. Whereas Rossellini explores the effort-and ultimate success-to communicate between human beings, "Fellini is concerned with the failure of communication between human beings and the resultant spiritual poverty in life" (Bondanella 131).

Roberto Rossellini, having made one of the first neorealist films, exemplifies the genre in Paisà. The son of a successful movie-house owner, Rossellini rebelled against the popular cinema he grew up on, seeking to create a stripped-down, de-glamorized cinema that shows at its root real life. Despite the literal filming of ordinary people in un-ordinary situations, the "world of facts filmed dispassionately by Rossellini reveals itself to be ambiguous and as puzzling as the world of fiction" (Bondanella 49). At face value, the five stories of Paisà are five conventional war-time stories. However, through Rossellini's directorial eye, they are presented with an emotional impact that leads to a greater emotional involvement on the audiences' part than a "Hollywood-ized" version of each story. Rossellini does not attempt to cover up the bleakness of post-War Italy, showing the Uffizi gallery gutted and abandoned and the seaside Naples shelled and barren. Through his "dispassionate" portrayal of these five stories, he elicits the audience's passion and empathy. His disjointed shots during the night raid in the Sicilian episode capture for the audience the same feelings of confusion and disorientation that are felt by the characters themselves. He also calls on the audience for sympathy for Francesca, the classic "whore-with-a-heart-of-gold," as she waits, hunched in a doorstop during a rainstorm, for the GI that will never come. Finally, in the last moment of the film, he leaves the audience emotionally stranded as the Partisan's body floats in the water and the voice over concludes that "This happened in the winter of 1944. At the beginning of spring, the war was over." Much like Joe in the Neapolitan episode, Rossellini leads the audience to an emotional turning point and offers little to no conclusion.

If Rossellini represents the neorealist movement and the divergence from traditional cinema, Federico Fellini represents the transition from the neorealist into the surrealist. Whereas the trademark shots of Rossellini include crowds of non-professional actors, stark space, and truthful, albeit extraordinary circumstances, Fellini's shots isolate the individual instead of the event, often employing symbolism to achieve an overall effect. La Strada especially features a great deal of religious symbolism, ranging from the Gelsomina's encounters with the prophet-like Il Matto-who is first seen suspended in the sky-to his ultimate death, not unlike the death of Christ, to the religious festival she encounters after whimsically following an inexplicable three-piece band. While he was also at an advantage with higher quality film-stock than Rossellini was in post-War Italy, it is clear that Fellini shoots with more passion for his characters than his events; a direct contrast to Rossellini's filming style. Furthermore, while Rossellini's characters are no more than who they are seen on film, Fellini intends the three main characters of La Strada to "...have hardly and verisimilitude and....reflect certain unusual traits or to embody definite symbolic meanings," clearly associating Gelsomina with the element of water, Zampanò with the element of earth, and Il Matto with the element of air (Bondanella 131). Imagery for Fellini is the focus of La Strada where events are the focus of Rossellini's Paisà.

What definitively links La Strada and Paisà is the road. The idea in both films of travelling and, in the same vein, waiting, dominates the lives of the characters. These ideas are taken to different lengths, however, through the execution of their themes and the characters that embody them. It is under Rossellini's and Fellini's cameras, however, that the themes diverge, the waitings and journeys of Paisà left in desperation in lieu of La Strada's end in revelation.

Works Cited

Bondanella, Peter. Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001.

Liehm, Mira. Passion and Defiance: Italian Film from 1942 to the Present. University of California Press, 1984.

Sorlin, Pierre. Italian National Cinema, 1896-1996. Routledge/Taylor and Francis Books, Ltd., 1996.