In week 3 of Italian 152, I watched Rome Open City. To be honest at first, I was not excited. I just don’t find a lot of interest in movies that take place around wars. My father told me I would like it so I trusted his opinion. I quickly found myself enthralled in the story of Don Pietro, Manfredi and Pina. There were so many moments with Don Pietro that I loved. The scene of him rearranging the statues in a more modest display was genius. Rome Open City added small moments of humor and intrigue that I loved. The ending of the movie was chaotic but captivating at the same time. Anna Magnani’s acting was the best part of the movie for me. I thought her movements and words were so natural.
However, I liked the movie Paisan better. I liked how I was able to see six different stories, so I did not really have time to feel disinterested. I somehow really connected with the story of Joe the soldier and Pasquale. I liked their relationship a lot. And, I felt that this story had the most unique shots, which is probably why we were asked to analyze it later on canvas. The camera movements acted as drunk as Joe was. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Joe got up on stage and started fighting the puppets. I thought this was such a unique idea from Roberto Rossellini. Something about the last shots of Pasquale and Joe’s faces affected me heavily. I’ve noticed that little boys are often used in Italian cinema to aid themes of sadness and I still can’t figure out why. Maybe it has to do with the loss of innocence idea that many young Italian boys had to deal with during this time. Every movie we have seen so far features a small boy having to live through something traumatic, and I know Bruno in Bicycle Thieves will have to do the same. Pasquale lives as an orphan but doesn’t really show a lot of sadness about this fact. We see this in American cinema too. The story of a boy’s coming of age or loss of innocence is always adored by audiences. Why is that so? Why are audiences all over the world so drawn to seeing boys in movies face difficult challenges (and hopefully overcoming them)? The ending of this second story is told without words, but the emotions from the actors and cinematic choices by the director invoked a lot of emotion from me as a viewer. A pair of shoes will not save Pasquale or bring back his family, but the act of giving them to him was all Joe could do.
Schoonover brought up many interesting points in his reading too. I really had to examine my role as a viewer of these films. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? Every choice these directors make in their movies is done with incredible amounts of reason and I should not take any shot or scene for granted. It was very eye opening to see myself as a viewer from a different perspective. I do not think about enough how all films are intended for people to watch and experience some kind of emotions, feelings, etc. Schoonover went into depth about how neorealism films can be hard for American audiences to understand. In a way, this made me feel better about maybe not fully connecting with weeks 3 and 4 film choices.
Boyhood is an American movie depicting the life of a child named Mason over the span of twelve years. I felt reminded of this movie when talking about Pasquale from Paisan. These two films have virtually nothing to do with each other, except they both show a young boy dealing with serious life issues. Again, this is an example of the cinematic world’s fascination with young boys coming of age.