nm0067: you should er [0.9] welcome back [0.2] happy new year [0.5] my name's 
namex for those of you who i don't know which is most people [0.6] er and i'm 
teaching this course this term [0.3] and there are three handouts [0.6] the 
first says at the top Aspects of European Cinema spring term nineteen-ninety-
nine [0.6] er Italian Cinema blah blah blah [6.8] so where are the the handouts 
are still goi-, er is the first handout [0.6] got to the end yet [1.0] [laugh] 
[0.3] 
ss: [0.2] 
nm0067: great [0.2] thanks [7.0] thanks [5.2] and then the second handout [2.7] 
says at the top course outline [0.7] er week one introduction to course neo-
realism [0.3] has that reached the [0.2] end [4.8] and the third [0.2] er out-, 
the third handout which is just one sheet of paper [0.3] says on one side neo-
realism [0.3] and on the other side it says [0.3] Paisà [5.6] thanks [15.6] 
afraid your little er [0.3] bobble has come off [laugh] [4.7] okay [1.2] now 
what i'm going to do in this session [0.5] this music which is sort of playing 
gently in the background [0.4] is all from er neo-realists' films it's a 
selection of [0.4] various [0.4] soundtracks from neo-realist films [0.6] er 
what i'm going to do in this session [0.5] is first of all to er do what i 
think of as sort of housekeeping [0.3] to sort of organizational matters [0.6] 
er then secondly i'm going to give you a sort of [0.5] very general [0.2] 
introduction to neo-realism a kind of taster really [0.3] of the first part of 
the course [0.4] and then i'm actually going to introduce at a bit greater 
length both this afternoon's films [0.3] and also the next two films after that 
[0.4] er because as you're only seeing each of them once at least [0.3] er er f-
, at a formal screening [0.3] it's quite important that er you're actually 
primed to look for things and so on and have a sense of [0.4] where they're 
coming from [0.4] you're rather being thrown straight in the deep end with not 
having a screening [0.4] before term obviously [0.6] so if we c-, if you could 
turn first then just on the sort of housekeeping front [0.4] to the er the 
first handout Aspects of European Cinema it's that's what it says at the top [0.
7] just one or two points to make i'm not going to sort of read 
through all of this [0.3] but just one or two points to make [0.2] about this 
[0.3] the first one is please read it [0.3] all the information is there and if 
the information isn't there [0.4] obviously please let me know what i have left 
out [0.3] er but that is the basic sort of organizational things please do 
actually take the trouble to read it [0.4] can i just draw your attention to 
two changes from last term [0.5] one is the timetable [0.3] which er er most of 
you seem to have re-, er remembered this change in the timetable [0.2] but also 
i think i'm right in saying the screening [0.4] is either earlier than i 
thought it was or earlier than it was last year on Friday [0.3] was it twelve 
o'clock o-, [0.2] on Friday always [0.4] 
sf0068: mm 
nm0067: it was just me that thought it was two o'clock okay [0.3] so there's 
there's only the only changes really are f-, today [0.4] m-, er the s-, the 
lecture and screening [0.7] the other change to take note of is the [0.3] 
deadline for the long essay [0.5] [cough] and that is actually a week later [0.
4] than it says in the course [0.3] handbook it's actually the first Monday of 
the 
vacation [0.4] and the reason for doing that is just quite simply that those 
that if that that if you wish to write about [0.3] Fellini in general [0.3] er 
obviously you can't really have the deadline [0.2] when you're s-, when we're 
still [0.3] lecturing and watching er Fellini movies [0.3] so it's really to 
allow you the f-, maximum flexibility in what you choose to write about [0.2] 
so the essay is actually a week [0.3] later you can hand it in earlier if you 
wanted obviously [0.4] but er the that the deadline is the first Monday of the 
vacation [0.8] er [0.4] otherwise e-, thing's i think are fairly 
straightforward i'm always [0.3] perfectly happy to talk to people about other 
essay titles than the ones that are actually listed here [0.3] if they if you 
if there are things you really want to pursue [0.3] that i haven't actually 
signalled in the essays [0.3] just come and see me and we can talk about the 
viability of it and so on but [0.3] i'm always very happy for people to [0.2] 
pursue their own ideas [0.2] one other small thing i mean i've i've just put a 
little thing in 
brackets at the bottom of the first page [0.3] er about the about [0.2] 
conventions about [0.2] how you write titles in Italian [0.3] now i don't want 
you to be too sort of er [0.8] traumatized [0.4] by the prob-, the fact of 
using Italian language i mean [0.4] think there might be at least one person 
here who won't [0.2] certainly won't be traumatized [0.3] but er most er most 
obviously most people here don't know Italian at all [0.3] and i don't want you 
to get into a terrible state about it [0.4] but nonetheless you should [0.4] as 
scholars [0.2] write the titles of films and of any books or texts that you 
refer to [0.3] er in Italian a-, or-, and [0.3] get the [0.2] not only get it 
correct in terms of spelling which is just a question of looking [0.3] but also 
get it correct in terms of the [0.2] convention [0.2] for represent-, for 
making titles in Italian and that is er [0.3] explained on this sheet [0.6] now 
one of the things about what we're actually going to call the films [0.3] and 
you'll notice that er [0.4] er [0.2] i've s-, i sometimes slip between if you 
if you turn to the projection rota 
for instance [0.5] er i sort of slip between [0.3] giving the er Italian title 
then putting the translation in brackets [0.3] or else just giving the Italian 
title [0.2] and that's simply because of er kind of what has become 
conventionalized in other words [0.4] no one calls la s-, no one in England 
calls [0.4] La Strada the road which is what it means it it's never called that 
[0.2] in film study i don't know why but it isn't [0.3] on the other hand [0.3] 
few er er few er er British people feel [0.2] brave enough to say Ladri di 
Biciclette [0.5] like that even even as bad as bad as that [0.3] they'd rather 
say Bicycle Thieves so it's become a kind of convention [0.2] so in terms of 
our speaking [0.2] you don't need to get your head er [0.2] head your mouth 
around [0.3] biciclette [0.3] er you can say Bicycle Thieves but in the essays 
you should write it [0.2] er correctly in Italian [0.7] er i think that's all i 
want to say about this sort of level of housekeeping except just to draw your 
[0.2] attention to the structure of the course [1.4] the course er is er in 
basically in [0.3] three parts 
the last part of which actually [0.2] relates to the first two parts [0.7] the 
first two parts deal with first of all neo-realism which is the first four 
weeks [0.3] er and then er popular genre cinema [0.2] in the middle er three 
weeks although it's only two 'cause one of them's a reading week [0.7] and 
there we're looking at a contrast of practices within Italian cinema [0.2] in 
this period [0.3] that's to say we're looking at what is most famous in Italian 
cinema in the period [0.3] namely neo-realism this is the most famous thing 
that anyone knows [0.3] about Italian cinema [0.3] a great period of of cinema 
Italian neo-realism so we're starting with that [0.4] kind of canonical moment 
[0.6] and that was a moment which was particularly concerned with [0.4] er make 
with sort of trying to capture the spirit of the Italian people [0.2] trying to 
show [0.3] the ordinary lives of ordinary Italian people [0.2] so it was very 
much concerned with the idea of [0.3] the popular classes with the popular in 
the sense of [0.2] the life of the people [0.5] however [0.5] the people [0.3] 
actually went to see [0.2] epics and comedies and melodramas [0.3] er and 
that's what we're looking at in the second part of the [0.3] course 
particularly epics and comedies [0.3] we're looking at the kinds of [0.3] 
popular cinema the big box office hits [0.3] er that were er that appeared at 
the time [0.3] and some people have actually s-, been struck by this contrast 
of a [0.3] of a pe-, of of a kind of filmmaking that is in a way [0.3] about 
the people [0.2] neo-realism and a kind of filmmaking [0.5] that is [0.2] for 
the people [0.3] which is actually a comedy an epic and melodrama [0.3] now as 
we [0.4] as the course develops you'll [0.2] re-, realize that it's [0.2] that 
neat distinction is not quite that [0.5] simple that a lot of neo-realist films 
were in fact [0.3] very popular at the box office and were very melodramatic 
and could be comedies [0.3] and similarly of course not every [0.2] epic or 
comedy actually [0.3] did very well at the box office so [0.2] the distinction 
becomes more complicated when you look at it [0.3] but that's the basic 
distinction [0.3] i'm working with in the first two 
parts of the course [0.6] in the final part of the course [0.3] we're looking 
at the work of Federico Fellini [0.4] and what's interesting about Fellini [0.
4] [cough] is that [1.2] on the one hand he came out of neo-realism he was [0.
2] one of the scriptwriters even in Paisà which we're seeing this afternoon [0.
4] so he was very involved with neo-realism [0.6] he-, [0.2] but at the same 
time he also made extremely [0.4] popular films particularly comedies in the 
early part of his career [0.3] La Dolce Vita was one of the biggest box office 
hits in the history of Italian cinema [0.8] er but his later films and even 
when you look at them the earlier films are actually very ambiguous in what 
they really think [0.2] about both neo-realism [0.3] and [0.3] popular genre 
cinema [0.3] so Fellini quite apart from being a wonderful filmmaker [0.4] is 
particularly interesting to look at [0.3] in the context of having looked at [0.
3] neo-realism and popular genre cinema [0.4] so that's why the three [0.3] 
that's the relationship between [0.2] the three parts of the course [0.3] er 
and i'll keep 
signalling that as we go through the course [1.1] okay well i'm to turn from 
that to er [1.1] er saying something [0.2] a little bit more about the course 
outline [0.8] er [0.2] now if you turn to the er er the sort of fattest bit 
really the course outline [0.4] er i just wanted to make one or two again in a 
way organizational points about this [0.7] the first is to say that [0.3] about 
the readings [0.2] now on the one hand this is not everything there is that 
could be read [0.2] here b-, on all these topics [0.3] er [0.2] and it's not 
nor is it everything i expect you to read [0.6] basically what i've put down 
here [0.3] in the readings are very good starting points [0.4] and starting 
points particularly related [0.3] to the work i-, i-, i-, in each week so a-, 
as as we go through in each week [0.4] so you should really see these er [0.5] 
recommendations as recommended starting points [0.3] rather than kind of this 
is the reading [0.2] for this week and when you've read that you've read 
everything [0.3] so on the one hand i'm not saying you've got to read that one 
[0.3] 
you've actually got to des-, you've actually got to glance through things and 
think well actually this looks like [0.4] the sort of thing that [0.3] really 
[0.2] talks about it in a way that i find useful [0.2] so you've got to learn 
to [0.2] discriminate between [0.3] different texts different accounts and so 
on [0.2] part of what becoming [0.4] er you know a good student is is knowing 
how to [0.2] distinguish between [0.3] er different kinds of texts you may come 
across critical texts you may come across [0.3] so i deliberately don't say oh 
this is the one [0.2] i recommend this above all [0.4] so on the one hand i'm 
not saying [0.2] you must read this [0.4] i'm saying these are good starting 
points for reading [0.2] and i expect you to explore and obviously [0.2] essays 
which show that people have really explored [0.2] explored the library [0.2] 
explored the C-D-ROMs in the library and followed up on [0.3] things they've 
found through that [0.4] that shows in an essay [0.3] and that's obviously 
something for which you get [0.3] you get credit as well [0.9] so [0.2] the 
readings as i say are not sort 
of are not [0.3] things that [0.3] er you have to read [0.3] they're good 
starting points [0.2] and the point is for you to develop your own [0.2] 
scholarship really in relation to [0.3] the topic week by week [0.7] and some 
things i don't really put at all for instance i don't bother to list all the 
books [0.2] about Rossellini [0.2] er that there are in the library and not 
even all the books about Fellini [0.4] er the i did for instance for this week 
[0.3] mention the Brunette book on Rossellini because i think it's particularly 
good [0.4] er so in that particular case i suppose i am actually recommending 
it [0.2] as a particularly good starting point [0.2] but there are other books 
on Rossellini in the library [0.2] and you may look at them and think they're 
better [0.6] er so i certainly d-, things like genres directors [0.2] and i 
don't certainly don't give you general reading on the notion of genre or 
authorship or something i s-, assume [0.3] you know all of that and don't need 
[0.3] more theoretical input from me [0.4] so er again the reading [0.2] is not 
this is not meant to 
be you should not see this as a complete reading list [0.2] on the contrary 
it's an ind-, indication of where to start [0.3] and if there are particular 
areas that you take up an interest in and [0.3] can't [0.2] don't quite know 
how to find your way around the library obviously come and see me [0.3] and we 
can talk about that [0.7] er [1.1] again i don't [0.5] w-, e-, und-, under the 
films you'll see each week it's er there's there's reading which relates to the 
topic of the week [0.3] and there's reading that's very specifically relates [0.
2] to the film of the week [0.3] and again i don't sort of say oh well you 
might have a look at [0.4] Peter Bondanella's general history of er what's it 
called [0.7] Italian Cinema from Neo-realism to the Present oh yeah i d-, i 
don't bother to list that [0.2] for you to go and look and see what he says 
about Paisà i [0.2] i assume that you'll realize [0.4] that any general 
history [0.2] or any general book on a director or a er an area or whatever [0.
4] may well be worth looking at [0.3] in terms of the film of the week [0.3] 
it's much more i try to er draw your 
attention [0.2] to things that you might [0.4] not come across otherwise like 
the [0.3] chapter in Film Hieroglyphs you're unlikely just to [0.3] casually 
come across that [1.2] okay [0.3] so what i've been doing so far is just 
organizational matters trying to explain the structure of the course [0.2] 
something about er how the how we work and so on [1.1] now i want to turn from 
that then [0.3] to actually talking about [0.3] the er [0.3] er [0.2] subject 
[0.3] for [0.2] er this s-, part of the course [0.3] which is [0.2] namely neo-
realism [0.7] now let me first [0.3] er [0.5] if you can just first get this [0.
2] lit up [0.6] to be going on with 
nm0067: okay now i'm just going to begin by giving you a [0.4] a flavour [0.2] 
of [0.2] er [0.8] neo-realism from just b-, by having partly the background 
music from the films [0.3] and then just looking at one or two examples of [0.
2] posters or [0.3] slides or stills from the films [0.7] er [0.3] basically 
neo-realism is a period of Italian [0.5] cinema production [0.3] usually dated 
from the mid-forties to the early fifties [0.3] although again as we will be 
discussing next term [0.3] [cough] quite a [cough] lot [0.4] of [0.2] er debate 
is [0.2] really about 
when and when it starts and particularly when it finishes [0.4] er and i come 
back to that in a moment [0.4] many people see this film Ossessione obsession 
[0.3] which is actually the [1.1] second film version [0.4] of The Postman 
Always Rings Twice [0.4] there are actually four versions the first was French 
then this one then the [0.3] two Hollywood ones were later [0.4] er but this is 
son-, nonetheless seen [0.3] as as something that [0.3] was perhaps the first 
[0.3] er Italian neo-realist film actually made in about nineteen-forty-one and 
almost instantly banned [0.3] by Mussolini who [0.3] thought it gave a 
degrading picture of er [0.3] life in Italy [0.4] but nonetheless and i'll show 
you an extract from that next week [0.2] so there's an argument about whe-, 
whether it starts but it's usually [0.4] er associated particularly with Rome 
Open City [0.2] and Paisan which we're looking at [0.3] but i suppose the film 
that most people have heard of [0.3] is Bicycle Thieves er i guess it's the 
most famous [0.3] Italian neo-realist film [0.3] this is just the poster from 
it of course 
what's quite interesting about it [0.3] is the graphic style [0.3] the fact 
that it's actually done in this [0.3] sort of for a film poster rather 
impressionistic style [0.3] rather [0.2] not actually of course quite 
sophisticated but nonetheless [0.2] quite simple looking as a style [0.3] there 
was none of the kind of grandeur [0.2] and special effects that even by [0.2] 
the forties had become standard [0.2] in posters [0.2] so even in the [0.2] 
even the fact that you've just got rather ordinary people [0.2] and it's drawn 
in this particular or painted [0.3] in this rather daubed on style even that [0.
3] is an indication of a different kind of cinema [0.3] from the from the [0.3] 
popular grandiose entertainment cinema [0.3] that had been [0.3] popular both 
in Hollywood [0.3] but also in Italian in Italy [0.2] in er the period before 
neo-realism [0.3] so the but this as i say is the is the poster for [0.3] the 
most famous ex-, [0.3] er Italian neo-realist film [0.7] but there are an awful 
lot of Italian neo-realist films that actually most people outside of Italy [0.
2] have never heard of and that 
actually don't exist in subtitled prints [0.3] and can't really be shown [0.4] 
this for instance er is a film called [0.4] Molti Sogni per le Strade many 
cares along the road [0.3] which is actually a comedy and an awful lot of 
Italian neo-realist films when you start to look [0.3] are in fact comedies [0.
3] er and er this actually stars Anna Magnani who is one of the biggest [0.3] 
stars of [0.3] er Italian neo-realism she is the kind of the unforgettable star 
of Rome Open City [0.4] but she's she was actually a very well known star in 
the period generally [0.2] as indeed was Massimo Girotti [0.3] who plays the 
hero in Ossessione [0.3] so often in fact movie stars despite what you may have 
read [0.3] movie stars did appear [0.3] in Italian neo-realist films and again 
it's something we'll [0.3] come back to talking about [0.8] this is another [0.
4] er just a sort of popular drama film [0.2] that was nonetheless a neo-
realist film it's means [0.2] spring is here [0.4] er so it's just another 
example [0.2] but i'm just trying to suggest that [0.3] there's a whole [0.5] 
what we tend to talk about 
maybe six films as neo-realist cinema [0.3] but there's a huge output of cinema 
a lot of it very popular [0.3] er comic [0.2] melodramatic whatever [0.3] 
behind the kind of [0.4] what has become recognized as the canon [0.3] of 
Italian neo-realist cinema [1.0] er particularly important moment [0.3] was the 
casting of Silva Mangano who Silvana Mangano who became a [0.3] a very big star 
later [0.3] this is her ro-, her [0.2] you know very famous still [0.3] from er 
Bitter Rice which we'll be seeing in three weeks' time whatever it is [0.5] and 
er of course the er [0.9] i don't really need to point out to you the most 
obvious [0.4] er feature [0.3] of this picture but i mean the whole 
exploitation of sexuality [0.3] within er neo-realism is also very important [0.
2] and particularly the whole [0.2] celebration [0.3] of er sort of beauty she 
she she like many of the stars [0.3] of the late forties is an ex-beauty queen 
[0.3] and that whole exploitation of the beauty queen the Miss Italia [0.4] was 
very important and again is actually part of [0.3] the neo-realist phenomenon 
it shouldn't just be thought of as 
something [0.2] imposed on neo-realism or [0.4] er something that neo-realism 
did just to get people into the [0.2] cinema though no doubt it helped [1.2] er 
and this is the poster for a film we're not going to see mir-, Miracle in Milan 
and what's interesting about Miracle in Milan which is a-, in on video in the 
library [0.5] er is that it's a film [0.9] which is actually involves fantasy 
[0.4] so it's one of the clearest examples of a film that [0.2] stylistically 
is absolutely clearly [0.2] a neo-realist film [0.3] and yet nonetheless 
involves the [0.3] angel on the top of Milan cathedral coming to life and [0.2] 
helping poor people to solve out their problems [0.2] in other words something 
[0.2] completely [0.2] er fantastical at the same time [0.3] so it's often seen 
as a [0.2] a very interesting turning point [0.3] and again we'll be talking 
about this whole question of [0.6] when and why did neo-realism [0.3] decline 
[0.2] er later in the course [0.8] and finally as a preview this is in fact 
from [0.3] La Strada [0.3] which is er one of the er films that we'll be seeing 
[0.3] one of the f-, it's the 
first Fellini film we'll see on the course [0.3] and it's a film we're seeing 
in a few weeks' time [0.4] er and i'll leave that up there for the rest of the 
[0.3] session [1.0] and but i'll put the lights back on [0.2] if i can find 
them [3.1] [cough] [0.5] okay so that's just to give you a very just a sort of 
general [0.3] flavour as a sort of like a p-, a preview a preview of 
forthcoming attractions [0.7] now what i want to say then is something a bit 
more then about [0.5] really just to give you a very simple sketch of what is 
usually said about neo-realism in order to sort of get get you and get us into 
[0.3] er being able to discuss it [0.5] as i say it's normally thought to have 
er [0.3] existed from about nineteen-forty-four to about nineteen-fifty-five [0.
4] there's a whole lot of dates of [0.2] er and discussion about [0.4] [cough] 
whether it is just something confined to that period [0.3] whether you can see 
it [0.2] going back even into the silent period [0.3] whether in fact you can 
still feel its influence now [0.3] i don't know if any of w-, any of you have 
seen [0.4] The Child Thief Il Lardro di Bambini [0.4] 
er which was actually [0.2] er had some success has been on television [0.3] 
made about four or five years ago [0.3] very clearly still within [0.3] the neo-
realist tradition even though it's only about five years old [0.3] so you can 
make a whole argument about [0.3] is it a particular period [0.3] is it 
something that runs through all Italian cinema [0.4] or what [0.2] but we're 
going to take [0.3] start from [0.3] the conventional [0.2] w-, [0.2] wisdom [0.
3] which is that it's essentially a a quality of [0.3] a certain kind of output 
[0.2] in Italian cinema [0.3] between nineteen-forty-four and nineteen-fifty-
five we'll start with that [0.3] and sort of complicate it a bit [0.3] as we go 
along in the next three or four weeks [1.5] [cough] now what i've done here [0.
4] is just tried to convey to you [0.3] some of the [0.5] qualities of er of 
neo-realist cinema that are regularly referred to that is including this sort 
of er [0.2] incredibly [0.3] passionate dramatic music and this is i think 
actually Paisà [0.6] er [0.2] but i mean that's that that that is that is a 
very neo-realist sound [0.3] er in a way that some of the other things you've 
heard [0.2] er are much less obviously so [0.2] i'll come back to that question 
in a moment [0.5] so what i want to do is just describe to you some of the 
things that most people would agree [0.2] are true about [0.2] neo-realist 
films [0.3] er and as i say once again we'll be complicating this im-, picture 
[0.2] as the term goes on but for the moment [0.3] let's just take this and 
it's u-, it's ex-, ten-, it's [0.2] assumed to be [0.2] a kind of filmmaking 
characterized by [0.2] the following [0.3] first of all locate-, location 
shooting [0.5] now we of course are so used to location shooting [0.3] that we 
might think it's almost not worth mentioning [0.3] but you have to remember 
that in Hollywood in this period but also certainly [0.3] in Italian cinema [0.
2] throughout the thirties and forties in fact well into the sixties [0.4] the 
norm was to shoot in the studio [0.3] the studio you shot in the studio because 
you could control everything in the studio [0.3] you could [0.2] the get the 
sound [0.2] synchronization right [0.2] you could get the lighting perfect [0.
2] you could take 
and retake [0.2] if you hadn't got problems that it might rain or [0.3] kids 
suddenly run across the back or a dog [0.2] whatever [0.4] so [0.3] the the 
norm [0.3] in filmmaking [0.3] up until [0.4] er really the seventies [0.2] was 
to shoot in the studio [0.4] so in the forties [0.3] to actually shoot on 
location [0.3] er was extremely impactful and in fact [0.3] neo-realism had an 
incre-, extraordinary impact on world cinema generally [0.3] and often the 
impact is [0.3] the idea that you might go into the streets to make a film [0.
5] of course documentarists had done it [0.3] but feature filmmakers very very 
rarely had ever done that [0.2] actually made a story film [1.1] conventional 
feature length [0.4] in the streets or in the c-, in the countryside [0.3] so 
the location shooting was a kind of extraordinarily [0.2] important [0.2] er 
impact and act [0.3] er [0.8] which was important [0.4] because it was unusual 
and because in many ways it felt like [0.4] a rejection [0.3] of fascist cinema 
it felt like a rejection [0.3] of the cinema that had gone before [0.3] so it's 
not just that it was [0.2] an innovation [0.3] but that in some ways it 
actually felt [0.2] because it was so different [0.3] from what had gone before 
within Italy [0.3] it felt like a conscious rejection of it [0.3] now of course 
many cynics come along and say [0.5] well actually the studios were actually [0.
3] er being used for er [0.3] prisoners of war or people who had boos-, [0.2] 
been bombed out of their you couldn't use the actually you couldn't use the 
studios [0.4] er they had to shoot on if they wanted to make a film at all [0.
3] they had to do it on location which is in fact true [0.3] but the 
significance in a way is what they did with that fact [0.3] the fact that they 
actually saw [0.3] as it were it's the kind of you know necessity is the mother 
of invention [0.2] because in a way [0.2] they had to shoot on the streets [0.
2] they had to shoot on location [0.3] they actually then [0.4] made that the 
foundation of an aesthetic [0.2] and saw [0.3] what was significant about it [0.
2] in terms of [0.3] the kinds of conventional filmmaking [0.2] that people 
were wa-, had been watching up until that time [1.4] because it's on shot on 
location [0.3] the 
light that is used tends to be of the available light so there's no actual 
assisted light and you have to remember again [0.3] this is before [0.2] highly 
sensitive film stocks [0.2] that could adjust themselves [0.3] to the l-, [0.2] 
to even quite low levels of light [0.3] and indeed to high levels of light [0.
3] this is ve-, very crude film stock and actually [0.3] Rome Open City is made 
up of very different kinds of film stock [0.4] er so that it sort of gives to 
it a very raw [0.2] rough quality [0.5] so but nonetheless they used the light 
that was available in the scene [0.2] or occasionally some maybe one or two at 
most [0.3] extra lights now if you actually see [0.2] shooting on location now 
[0.3] there's a n-, whole battery of lighting effects and [0.4] boun-, er 
things to bounce light and so on [0.2] so that even on location now [0.3] 
there's a kind of smoothing out of appearances [0.3] er if you s-, if think of 
a film like i don't know Sense and Sensibility or something like that [0.3] all 
the location work [0.2] yes it's on location [0.3] but it's all been [0.3] er 
lit and smoothed out in the process [0.2] whereas 
the point about a lot of neo-realist films is often you can't see them very 
well [0.3] there's a sudden [0.2] jump in the quality of the image [0.3] you 
know there's there's a kind of roughness and rawness now again [0.3] y-, one 
view is that it's just crappy filmmaking [0.3] but another view is ah no it's 
really alive it's really raw it's really kind of [0.3] get in there and 
catching the reality [0.3] so again it's an idea of turning that [0.3] 
disadvantage in a way [0.3] to an aesthetic purpose [1.3] the third er [0.2] 
thing is the use of non-professional actors [0.3] that a lot of the [0.2] main 
characters [0.2] in these films were played by people who were not in fact 
actors [0.3] that's true of [0.4] nearly all of the characters in er [0.3] 
Paisan [0.2] it's true of the hero of [0.2] er Bicycle Thieves [0.6] er there 
was i s-, mentioned earlier and i come back to it it's not true of everybody in 
these films [0.2] nonetheless it's er was very very common to use non-
professional actors [0.3] again on the idea that somehow non-professional 
actors [0.2] would get you past the kind of glamour 
system [0.2] would get you past all the [0.5] er [0.3] you know all the kind of 
tricks and er theatricality and actorliness [0.3] of actors [0.3] of course 
there's a certain paradox [0.2] about non-professi using non-professional 
actors [0.3] on the one hand they bring a kind of guarantee [0.2] that they are 
as it were real people not actors [0.3] okay we'll [0.3] leave aside the fact 
that actors are after all real people [0.3] nonetheless [0.2] it brings along 
that sort of notion and there's a feeling of [0.3] this is a guarantee [0.3] of 
er [0.2] you know we're really getting the real people now [0.3] on the other 
hand of course most [0.3] non-professional actors act dreadfully [0.3] so in 
fact they're terribly stiff [0.3] and in fact they look more like they're 
acting [0.3] than does someone like Anna Magnani or Giulietta Masina who is er 
[0.4] the star of La Strada [0.2] so there's of course the paradox [0.3] that 
that we [0.2] because we have learned certain ways of acting [0.3] as a kind of 
[0.2] the normal way to represent how human beings are [0.3] when we don't see 
that [0.2] we're 
often conscious of the kind of awkwardness [0.3] of the of the non-professional 
actors the stiffness the woodenness [0.3] of the non-professional actors [0.3] 
now that's of course an interesting paradox and again [0.2] does one say well 
actually it just isn't very good or does one say [0.3] yes but there's a kind 
of authenticity in the woodenness [0.4] and i think there is a view that even 
that authe-, even that woodenness [0.6] is nonetheless [0.3] worth a price 
worth paying [0.2] for having a sense of you've got real people [1.5] er a 
fourth quality is the organization of the narrative in a much more [0.2] 
elliptical episodic way than we would be used to certainly from [0.3] classical 
Hollywood cinema [0.3] a feeling that you know [0.3] there is a story but it's 
not all that driving [0.3] an awful lot of what happens hasn't got much to do 
with the story [0.3] a lot of the time the camera [0.2] just sort of er looks 
at something and it's not really terribly relevant to the story it's just there 
[0.4] so that sense that it can be a bit more rambling it 
can be a series of episodes it doesn't have to be [0.4] driving towards a goal 
according to the model of [0.3] classical cinema [0.2] is er said to be 
characteristic of [0.3] er neo-realist films [1.2] there tends to be [0.3] a 
lack of close-ups it's not that there are no close-ups in Italian neo-realist 
cinema [0.3] but there tend to be much less of them [0.3] er the camera stays 
back [0.3] [cough] [0.2] and the the importance of this really [0.4] is that er 
[0.3] it [0.9] it emphasizes people as social performers [0.3] rather than as 
individual [0.3] er psychologies [0.2] so the close-up [0.2] tends to take you 
in on [0.3] the interior thoughts of someone into the detail [0.2] into the [0.
2] the individualization often of course celebrated in the case of stars [0.4] 
whereas if you stayed back [0.4] there was a sense at any rate the idea was [0.
3] that this always meant the people were seen in their context in their social 
context [0.4] and er they were often seen interacting with other people they 
weren't just [0.3] isolated individuals [0.3] so it was a much more [0.2] 
social [0.3] concern with character [0.2] er achieved partly through [0.3] 
the use of medium and long shots or the [0.3] er [0.2] the the privileging of 
them [1.2] and finally very often say finally for this first little group [0.3] 
which is quite formal [0.4] er [cough] the charact-, the camera will often [0.
7] hang in a scene will just kind of l-, just let the thing r-, [0.3] roll on 
quite after any [0.3] er [0.3] plot business has been dealt with or even before 
any plot business is dealt with [0.3] i'll show you a bit from a moment from [0.
3] Umberto D which is a very famous sequence which is completely [0.3] irre-, 
it's quite long yet it's irrelevant [0.3] to the the film in a certain way [0.
3] and yet in it's often seen as the quintessential [0.3] neo-realist moment of 
just [0.4] staying and watching and just looking at ordinary life taking the 
idea that [0.5] Zavattini who was one of the main theorists of neo-realists 
said [0.8] everyday life is interesting [0.2] that was kind of one of the 
credos of ne-, Italian neo-realism [0.2] that as it were ordinary life everyday 
life [0.3] was interesting [1.3] now all the things i've listed there are 
formal qualities [0.2] and 
they also relate to ideas of realism which i'll expand upon much more [0.3] 
next week [0.5] but it is worth signalling that nonetheless [0.4] er [1.1] id-, 
[0.2] er neo-realism did in fact use stars [0.3] er stars that who were v-, who 
were very well established [0.4] for instance in Rome Open City the two main 
stars of that are [0.2] Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi [0.4] and they were 
actually famous as movie stars but as comic stars [0.3] and indeed as comic 
stars in theatre revues [0.3] and one of the reasons they agreed to do Rome 
Open City is that it was rather good publicity [0.3] for their revues that they 
were just putting on [0.3] in Rome [0.3] so you have to have the idea that you 
know you are dealing here with actually [0.2] really major stars [0.4] although 
it's interesting which stars [0.2] did [0.2] in fact end up [0.3] making er er 
neo-realist films and which didn't [0.3] there were some who were felt to be [0.
3] too artificial [0.3] too beautiful often [0.3] er whereas the er stars who 
became [0.2] big in neo-realism were often seemed to have more [0.3] of the 
common touch [0.2] and often were associated with 
popular theatre [0.3] and popular theatre traditions not of the kind of er [0.
3] smart West End farce type but much more like music hall really [0.3] so [0.
6] although they were professionals they were professionals [0.3] and although 
they were film stars [0.3] they nonetheless tended to come [0.3] from the music 
hall vaudeville [0.2] side of things [0.2] more than from the [0.2] high 
theatre [0.3] or er mainstream er fascist er [0.2] er cinema [1.2] but the 
other thing that's really striking [0.5] [cough] and difficult perhaps for us 
to understand [0.3] about something called neo-realism [0.3] is that they are 
in fact very melodramatic [0.4] and er we'll talk about that in [0.2] two or 
three weeks' time but the [0.5] the thing the first thing to s-, just one thing 
to signal to you now is that of course melodrama means [0.7] er drama with 
music [0.4] and melodrama [0.3] is often used interchangeably [0.3] in Italy 
with the term opera [0.4] well of course in other words opera [0.2] which is 
also of course is drama to music [0.7] and it's worth [0.3] knowing [0.3] that 
Verdi who i suppose is regarded as the greatest of all opera directors opera [0.
4] 
composers [0.6] er was thought to be a realist he's referred to as er his his 
work is referred to as verismo [0.2] realism [0.4] now i'll talk about the 
paradox of that [0.3] er in a couple of weeks' time and try to think through 
what can that possibly mean [0.2] opera realist how can you even say that [0.3] 
but nonetheless i-, actually within the Italian context [0.3] melodrama is much 
less of a kind of [0.2] shock [0.3] to the idea of realism [0.2] than it is 
within an Anglo-Saxon context [1.1] a final area i want to mention is much more 
the [0.2] subject matter because the subject matter of neo-realism is also very 
important [0.2] and in many ways i've already mentioned this everyday life [0.
2] ordinary people [0.4] er and social problems often [0.2] so first of all 
it's an idea simply of ordinary everyday life [0.5] and er ordinary people now 
[0.4] of course the interesting thing is well what is [0.2] everyday life [0.3] 
er and what actually [0.2] you know after all a-, this is what i do every day 
[0.2] er this b-, b-, but i wouldn't be in an Italian ne-, or even a British 
neo-realist film if 
there was such a thing [0.4] now certain things are thought to be more everyday 
than other kinds of things [0.4] so er ordin-, so everydayness is already [0.2] 
often confined to i-, for instance domesticity therefore [0.2] becomes very 
important [0.2] because domesticity seems like a more common everyday 
experience [0.4] than er more than than many kind of [0.3] jobs and in the 
public world [0.6] and the idea of ordinary people often that to be middle 
class is in fact perfectly ordinary [0.4] but n-, er although statistically [0.
5] now it's statistically it's the most ordinary thing to be [0.2] but 
certainly in er [0.2] the forties it was more statistically ordinary [0.3] to 
be working class or er peasant [0.3] and that actually is what is really [0.2] 
indicated by the notion of ordinary people [0.4] [cough] or just people 
actually [0.3] er in Italian neo-realist cinema [0.2] it's the working class 
it's the peasantry [1.3] [cough] [0.2] now at one level it's just that idea 
well you just observe what's going on [0.4] now it's true that in Paisan [0.3] 
and Rome Open City [0.4] what you're also seeing is 
the war and the resistance so it's rather incredible events and things that 
none of us [0.3] have experienced [0.5] [cough] [0.3] i think [0.4] er but er 
the er [0.2] obviously there you have to say well they had just been fighting a 
war [0.3] so [0.4] yes it's remarkable but it's a remarkable [0.3] it's the 
impact of very remarkable events [0.2] upon nonetheless [0.3] the actually 
rather a-, m-, mundane ordinary lives [0.3] of Italian people [0.9] but that 
sense that really yes it was enough just to see ordinary life in a way [0.2] 
did was not maintained and er [0.8] er [0.2] very often it needed to come down 
to something that [0.2] could be thought of as a social problem [0.4] so 
increasingly it became the problem of poverty [0.3] the problem of unemployment 
[0.2] the problem of prostitution [0.3] the problem of the black market [0.2] 
so that although [0.4] there was a notion that oh it's just anything that 
happens is just ordinary life is interesting [0.3] when it comes down to it it 
often means social problems [0.3] that because they at least they have a kind 
of dramatic [0.3] er hold [0.3] which perhaps just 
seeing someone [0.3] doing the cooking and waiting for their husband to come 
home and whatever [0.3] would would d-, [0.2] in fact didn't really have [0.9] 
but also very important er is the notion of Italian identity [0.4] that a lot 
of these films either explicitly as in Paisan or implicitly [0.3] in many of 
them [0.3] are actually about what does it mean to be an Italian [0.4] and that 
that was of course a question of particular [0.3] sensitivity [0.3] when these 
films were made [0.3] because of course only un-, until [0.4] er the end of the 
war [0.3] it-, Italy had been a fascist country [0.4] and fascism had all been 
about [0.2] the greatness of Italy [0.2] it had been a great appeal to 
Italianness [0.2] the rhetoric of fascism is all about [0.3] national identity 
[0.3] so after the war when everyone had this revulsion [0.3] or everyone but i 
mean everyone claimed to have a revulsion [0.3] against fascism [0.4] er the er 
the question came well [0.3] but if [0.3] that's not if if i don't remember it 
was thirty years we had er sorry [0.2] twenty years [0.2] much longer than in 
er [0.3] Germany [0.2] that fascism was in Italy [0.3] so [0.3] you 
know if that if all of that Italianness of fascism isn't us [0.3] what is it [0.
3] to be an Italian [0.2] and a lot of the films are actually about the problem 
[0.3] of Italian identity [0.5] now that problem [0.2] is exacerbated by 
something that's always been a problem [0.3] about Italian identity [0.3] and 
that is that Italy is in fact a very regional culture [0.4] so that er 
regionality's often much [0.5] more important to people [0.4] er people tend to 
say i'm a Roman [0.3] i'm a Milanese i'm Sicilian or whatever [0.2] much more 
than they say [0.2] i'm Italian [0.4] so that er er regional identity [0.3] is 
actually a problem and of course [0.3] Italy has only really been a nation [0.
3] in any modern sense since eighteen-sixty [0.3] when the resorg-, in what's 
called the Resorgimento [0.2] happened which was the unification of Italy [0.4] 
so the sense of er [0.4] having been a country a long time which is so [0.3] 
pervasive in British [0.3] er sensibility [0.2] is actually not true and was 
even less true [0.2] in the forties [0.2] where it was less than a hundred 
years that Italy [0.2] had been a nation [0.5] 
so the question of Italian identity is partly very urgent [0.3] because you 
want to have a sense of who you are [0.3] in the context of not [0.2] being 
fascist [0.4] but on the other hand who are you as an Italian [0.4] if really 
what you are is Sicilian or Neopolitan or [0.3] whatever particular [0.2] er 
regional identity is concerned [0.3] and that's very much er [0.2] the theme [0.
2] of a lot of the films and it's very marked [0.3] in Paisan [0.3] where you 
actually see which is actually a a trip through Italy [1.3] okay [0.4] now i 
just want to show you then very briefly [0.3] the extract from er Umberto D 
that i mentioned [0.6] er just to show you [0.6] the example [0.9] oh [1.6] 
where's [1.3] did i fail to bring the [0.2] the videos [3.2] oh well i'll show 
it to you next week as an example of realism [0.4] sorry about that i [0.2] i 
hope i haven't lost them along the way [0.4] er i'll just go straight on to the 
next er [0.4] next topic [0.2] i can't see them nobody can see two videos one 
[0.8] just in an ordinary [0.7] recording cover [0.2] no [0.4] sorry [0.6] okay 
[0.4] [cough] [1.0] so let me then turn to saying something about Paisan [0.4] 
and about Rome [0.7] 
saying first of all something about Paisan [0.3] the film that we're just about 
to see [1.4] first of all the title [1.3] it's a very ambiguous title it's not 
a conventional [1.1] Italian word [0.3] it's a way of saying [0.3] paisà [0.8] 
or paese [1.0] and er it's got a double meaning on the on the one hand [0.4] to 
say paisà [0.8] might well be how a peasant [0.2] would talk about [0.3] his 
or her [0.3] village or his or her land [0.3] it er p-, paese is a [0.2] very 
fascinating word 'cause it means both village and land [0.4] er so it's a way 
it's a could be a very [0.4] intimate and er [0.3] felt and located way of 
talking about where you live where you are [0.4] so on the one hand it has a 
very mu-, it's very much about [0.4] being Italian and being rooted in a 
particular place [0.6] my place my paisà [0.5] on the other hand it's also the 
term [0.4] that the Allies used er particularly the Americans used [0.3] to 
call [0.3] the Italians that they met [0.2] in that context it really means 
peasant [0.4] it was actually rather derogatory and say oh you're a [0.3] you 
know you're sort of backward [0.3] er you're a sort of s-, you know you're 
un-, uncivilized undeveloped [0.2] it's actually ra-, it was rather a 
contemptuous term [0.3] that was used by the Allies particularly Americans [0.
3] to describe [0.4] the er people they met [0.3] so it's a very very ambiguous 
[0.4] n-, term [0.4] and as you'll see the whole film actually [0.6] is exactly 
[0.4] plays upon that question of [0.3] what it means [0.2] to be an Italian 
for an Italian [0.3] and how the Italians are perceived [0.3] by the liberating 
forces [1.0] the other thing to say by way of introduction before talking about 
what we're going to talk about tomorrow [1.0] er [0.3] is just to remind you 
you should know this from your reading by now [0.3] er about the situation er 
in which this film would have been made [0.6] Mussolini the fascist leader had 
been in power since the twenties [0.4] er had er fled [0.3] er er by the er 
nineteen-forty-four [0.4] er and was eventually executed [0.3] but [0.5] Italy 
was then occupied [0.2] by the Nazis who were of course the allies of the 
Italians [0.3] during the Second World War [0.4] so at the start of this film 
and also at the start of Rome Open City [0.5] Italy [0.3] is er [0.5] 
occupied by [0.3] the Nazis which of course is has a very different feeling 
from the French [0.3] who were also occupied by the Nazis at the same [0.4] 
period [0.3] but there they were very much c-, a conquered [0.3] nation [0.4] 
whereas of course there was the ma-, that there had been a history of an 
alliance [0.2] between Germans and Italians [0.3] so there's a er er er it's 
quite a complicated [0.3] s-, [0.2] it's quite complicated to sort of work out 
the sense of what it meant [0.3] to be occupied [0.3] by a er [0.4] er by a 
nation [0.2] who was nonetheless [0.3] a er had been an ally of yours [0.9] in 
addition to that it's worth remembering that [0.2] Italy [0.6] has a huge 
history of being occupied and had been occupied by [0.4] Austria [0.3] for [0.
2] er a-, a-, about a century [0.4] now er Austria is not Germany we all know 
that [0.3] but [0.2] probably if you hear an a German voice [0.3] it doesn't 
really matter to you too much if it's Austria or Germany [0.2] it's all part of 
a sort of sense of [0.2] an occupying force so it's an occupying force [0.3] 
who in a sense were invited in [0.3] so it's a very odd [0.2] er situation [0.
5] and then the allies [0.5] 
particularly br-, the bri-, [0.2] British and er Americans [0.5] er [0.2] 
liberated [0.3] er [0.2] i-, Italy [0.2] starting er in Sicily [0.2] and moving 
up the continent [0.2] and er you'll see that [0.3] in er that's what Paisan's 
all about [1.2] now Paisan can be seen as a film [0.3] that's essentially about 
the discovery [0.2] of Italy [0.3] after fascism well that's one of one of its 
themes [0.3] and that's what i w-, particularly want us to focus on [0.3] the 
way in which [0.2] ideas of what it means to be an Italian [0.3] are er [0.3] 
focused on and developed through the structure indeed of a [0.2] what is 
essentially a trip through [0.2] six [0.2] er z-, areas of Italy starting in 
Sicily [0.9] and one of the ways in which this sense of discovering Italy after 
fascism [0.4] er the the the wh-, what is Italy if it's not [0.2] that Italian 
rhetoric that rhetoric of Italy [0.3] under Mussolini [0.3] one of the ways in 
which it's done is actually in the way the ha-, the narrative structure is 
handled [0.3] so very often the stories that are told [0.3] in each of these 
episodes [0.3] are actually about [0.2] the discovery of a hidden truth [0.3] 
er so that [0.2] er 
they're either about the s-, [0.2] sometimes it's we that discover it [0.3] 
sometimes the characters themselves [0.2] discover the hidden truth [0.4] er 
and that that that structure is is already very [0.3] interesting as a way of 
realizing at the level of [0.3] narrative form [0.3] this basic concern with 
finding [0.2] the real Italy [0.2] that people felt had been hidden [0.3] by er 
the er lies of fascism [0.5] er [0.9] the one exception to that [0.3] er is the 
monastery sequence [0.2] and that's very much seen as [0.3] an enclave that 
actually almost [0.2] er separate [0.2] from [0.3] er Italy generally [0.2] and 
so that sense of a er [0.4] this little [0.3] enclave that's hidden away [0.2] 
is although it's not in the narrative structure it's not about discovery [0.3] 
nonetheless the overall [0.3] er struc-, the overall sense of that is that it 
itself [0.3] is a hidden part of Italy [0.5] it's the most controversial part 
[0.3] of the film really you either think it's nonsense [0.3] or that it's 
really very moving [0.4] and its ambivalence is [0.2] actually because it's 
directed by Rossellini who was a Catholic [0.4] and scripted by Fellini who was 
a 
bit more [0.2] ambivalent [0.6] anyway [0.3] er we can talk about that er [0.2] 
tomorrow possibly [1.0] now [0.2] so we've got this idea of the true Italy and 
the discovery of the true Italy now what i want us to talk about tomorrow and 
what we'll do tomorrow in the seminars is look at the Naples sequence in detail 
[0.7] [cough] but er the in the essays i've asked you to look at other [0.3] 
ones well it's it's a possible essay [0.5] er [0.6] what's interesting to think 
about is how exactly is this Italian [0.3] ness constructed [0.6] 'cause first 
there's the question about well who discovered Italy [0.3] is this Italians [0.
2] discovering their own [0.2] culture [0.2] or is it er [0.3] the G-Is the am-,
the amer-, the liberating forces finding it [0.2] or is it in some sense we 
the audience [0.3] who have the [0.3] the the the recognition [0.2] of true 
Italianness that's signalled to us as something [0.2] we can understand [0.8] 
but equally important is who as er who as it were [0.2] represents Italy and 
one might literally say quite literally who embodies [0.3] Italy [0.2] there's 
a sense in which different each [0.2] episode [0.3] er chooses a central 
character [0.3] who in themselves [0.2] represents something way in the and the 
way they look and everything about them [0.2] suggests a particular [0.3] 
regional identity a regional Italianness if you like [0.4] and it's worth 
thinking about well why is it people of this class [0.3] er this age [0.2] er 
this gender what you know what does it tell us that these are the people [0.3] 
who are selected to represent the real Italianness [0.4] but also think about 
what they actually look like [0.4] er you know in other words in the Naples 
episode which we'll talk about tomorrow [0.3] you know why choose a little boy 
[0.4] why choose a why choose a young [0.2] why choose a boy [0.2] why choose a 
boy that's all like this and moving all over the place like that [0.3] you know 
what's that about [0.3] as a percept-, as an embodiment [0.3] of the Neopolitan 
[1.0] er [0.3] but also it's important to think about how they're introduced 
into the narrative [0.3] t-, are they very clearly seen as [0.2] this is the 
star this is the person this is about [0.4] or are they seen as emerging from 
the crowd [0.4] er who they're 
just one of many we could have looked at this one this one th-, what we're 
actually going to look at this one but it could have been any [0.5] or are they 
very much a kind of object of enquiry are they [0.2] actually although they're 
the main character are they really [0.3] the object of a an enquiry [0.3] of 
some other character [0.9] and finally what does Italy look like the actual 
Italy the actual land [0.4] and here there's the notion of paesaggio [0.3] 
which means the idea as it was spirit of place [0.3] the idea that a particular 
landscape or cityscape [0.6] itself embodies certain [0.3] qualities [0.3] er 
which are moral aesthetic [0.5] almost er psychological or felt qualities [0.3] 
er which er are make it distinctive to a particular area [0.5] and again it's 
worth just thinking about [0.3] well [0.2] what does each location [0.2] look 
like [0.3] what [0.2] w-, er what what are the actual characteristics of the 
various locations [0.3] er that that we see [0.5] and are [0.2] characters 
actually [0.4] integrated into their location are they seen as very much 
emerging [0.2] into their location or are they [0.3] 
are they seen as part of it or are they seen as [0.3] set set against it in 
some way [0.7] and it's important to think of ideas of the natural [0.2] the 
eternal the uncivilized [0.4] that after when you start looking for [0.3] the 
real something [0.3] that of-, that often draws you into thinking in terms of 
[0.3] the natural [0.3] the er the the eternal the uncivilized [0.4] and it's 
important to think about [0.3] how those are suggested [1.8] finally i just 
want to say something very briefly about Rome because er it's m-, i'll repeat 
this next week but i want you to i want to say it before you see [0.5] Rome 
Open City [0.4] er [1.4] there's an episode in Rome in Paisan [0.3] Bicycle 
Thieves is also set in Rome [0.4] and the whole question about what Rome means 
[0.3] er is another possible short essay topic [0.6] er [0.2] Rome is of course 
the capital [0.2] of Italy and was then [0.2] on the other hand [0.3] it's also 
seen as a r-, as regional [0.3] it's not actually seen er culturally [0.3] as 
necessarily the centre of things even if it's got most money and the most 
monuments and so on [0.3] nonetheless [0.3] 
er it's still seen as a region and people say oh right that he's that's very 
Roman [0.2] that accent that mat-, that attitude is very Roman [0.3] so there's 
a very strong sense of it as a [0.3] as a regional identity [0.2] even though 
it's the capital [0.8] er [1.0] and it's worth thinking about what Rome means 
on the one hand of course you've got the Rome [0.2] the famous Rome [0.3] the 
Rome of the monuments the Rome that [0.2] everybody probably has some sense of 
[0.2] even if they've never been there [0.3] and there are probably two 
important aspects of that [0.3] one is ancient Rome or classical Rome the Rome 
of the [0.2] ancient Roman Empire [0.4] er and you in Paisan for instance you 
see the G-Is [0.2] outside the Colosseum at one point [0.2] it's a such a 
famous monument [0.4] i imagine a lot of people recognize it [0.3] so [0.2] 
there's that there's those monuments of of Roman antiquity [0.7] but of course 
Rome is also [0.4] er the seat of the Catholic Church [0.3] so it's also very 
important as a Christian city [0.3] and the last shot of Rome Open City [0.3] 
is in fact a shot of St Peter's [0.3] 
the er you know which is like the most important Catholic church in the world 
[0.5] er so er the s-, that's an equally important aspect of Rome [0.3] so it's 
a Rome that's [0.2] of of monuments both to [0.4] ancient antiquity and to 
christi-, [0.2] Christianity [0.3] there are other things like [0.5] er i-, 
within the his-, like Renaissance and so on which are important [0.3] but i 
think much more difficult for us to pick up i think those two [0.3] are not too 
difficult for us [0.6] now the interesting thing to think about in terms of neo-
realism is [0.4] do we get a kind of tourist view of that [0.3] do we get a a 
celebration of that do we get [0.4] the kind of perhaps the official [0.3] 
heritage industry [0.2] to [0.2] use a [0.3] anachronistic term [0.2] view of 
that [0.4] or on the contrary [0.2] is the Rome of the monuments nonetheless [0.
3] very much part of the texture of ordinary life [0.3] what has the Rome of 
the monuments got to do [0.3] with this function of showing ordinary [0.4] 
people in everyday lives [0.3] er do is it a tourist view that's irrelevant [0.
3] is it a pa-, part of an official view [0.3] or is it s-, is it indeed 
integrated into the lives [0.8] but equally important of course Rome is a 
working city [0.4] and Rome is also a living city [0.3] there's both the 
question of people actually working for a living and to what extent [0.3] that 
is emphasized [0.4] and the fact that people actually live there [0.4] and what 
do we see of their lives d-, is what we see of their lives essentially 
domesticity [0.8] is it more a sense of neighbourhood [0.6] how important is 
leisure activity for instance as part of the sense of what Rome is [1.0] and 
the last thing to mention is that this of course is Rome [0.3] after a terrible 
defeat [0.2] in the Second World War [0.3] a Rome of ruins not of the sort of 
grandiose Colosseum type of ruins [0.3] but of modern buildings in ruins [0.4] 
to what extent does one see [0.4] the the the the impact of [0.3] fascism and 
particularly of the Second World War [0.2] within the Rome [0.3] that we see in 
these [0.3] two and two-and-a- [0.3] fifth [0.3] films [1.0] okay [0.2] so i 
just wanted to mention those [0.2] things as things to kind of have in your 
mind [0.3] when watching the the films and they're all they are in fact of 
course relevant to the short essays [0.4] er [0.4] we'll watch Paisà now and 
tomorrow as i say what we'll do [0.2] is look at the [0.2] er Naples sequence 
er in detail in the seminars [0.3] okay let's we'll take a five minute break [0.
4] before the film [0.2] thank you