1. INTRODUCTION
As movies are stories communicated by filmmakers to an audience through motion pictures, they seem to be having an impact on people’s everyday lives. Because movies are made in accordance to the filmmaker’s point of view or perspective, they can subconsciously control how we as the audiences see the world and behave after watching them. Watching a movie may be easy for almost everyone but making it is not a walk in the park. As a result we need to look at the different aspects iota takes to create a story. In this essay I will be discussing Thematic, Narrative, Technological and Cinematographic aspects along with the Narrative and Direction the films, Rome Open City (1945) and Breathless (1960), in contrast and comparison
2. SYNOPSIS OF ROME OPEN CITY (1945)
According to Andrew Dudley, the film is a dramatic thriller that deals with the consequences of war. Giorgio Manfredi, one of the ambassador of the Resistance is tracked down by the Nazi’s. He needs help and he wants or rather has to ask his friend’s fiancé for an urgent help. Giorgio also has to warn the priest that he is soon leaving town (Dudley, 1987).
3. SYNOPSIS OF BREATHLESS (196O)
According to Dudley Andrew, this a dramatic film by Jean Luc. Michel is the main character in this film. He steals cars and sells them to Ressell. On his journey to sell a car while he was on duty, he gets chased by a police officer on a moto boke whom he shoots dead. He runs away leaving the car there. While on the run he appears on televisions and newspapers as the most wanted man. Michel has an American girlfriend who goes by the name of Patricia. They has a very close relationship until the police officers fed Patricia with the reality she happened to have found herself in. They told her that her boyfriend is a thief that steals cars. Having heard that about her lover, she has many doubts about their relationship. Whatever decision she had to take was going to determine where their relationship stood at that time.
4. FILM HISTORY
According to Nick Boughall, in the early nineteen hundreds all filmmakers wanted to be the first to create not only the hardware to record and display a film, but also the flicks themselves. While there is proof that much of the machinery to create moving pictures had been invented as far back as 1888. For many people it was a pair of French brothers named Antoine and Louis Lumiere. They get all the credit for the birth of cinema (Boughall, 2015). We can appreciate that filmmakers of earlier times had different storylines than of today, reason being that they a limitation or resources. Due to that, they were placing their attention on specific topics because they had to catch up with the interests of the cinema goers. Another reason can be the circumstances they were in, for example the commandments of their countries that they had to abide to.
5. ITALIAN NEO-REALISM
5.1 Thematic and Narrative aspects
The film Rome Open City (1945) is portrayed by means of random events and references with no beginning or an end. As a result many plots and plot lines are left unresolved. In the film the director attempts to broadcast the everyday issues people deal with, relating to their defeat, poverty and desperation.
5.2 Technological and Cinematographic aspects
During World War II, Italian film studios were vandalised and ended up being used for other purposes. The use of electrical power supply was also unreliable. Due to that, filmmakers during this period of time were obliged to shoot in the streets using available light. In Rome Open City (1945), most of the shots are taken in external locations. There is a use of simple styles style in terms of camerawork, editing and lighting. With regards to the style used in the film, it can be recognised that there is a use of wide shots, and long takes simply because of the avoidance of having to go through the whole ordeal of editing. The exact reason behind the use of simple style id because there was a limitation to equipment. This did not allow Roberto to create a film with suitable camera angles, shots and the duration of scenes.
5.3 Performance and Direction
Rome Open City is a 1945 Italian Neo-Realism film, directed by Roberto Rossellin. The genre id drama. Because children are the best actors, with regards to portraying honest emotions effortlessly. Roberto in this film features children as the main characters. Non-professional actors are given major roles and this plays as a characteristic of the Italian- Neo Realism movement. In this film we can tell with absolute certainty that the children featured in the film are telling a story with the dialogue they are given realistically. This can also apply to older people in the film. There is a use of no literary dialogue but rather conversational speeches.
6. THE FRENCH NEW WAVE
6.1Thematic and Narrative Aspects
The overall tone of the film Breathless of 1960, resembles bitterness and nostalgia. Characters are living upon the margin of society either as the unemployed members of the working class. Sometimes also featured as criminals that are on the run. With reference to the film itself, we can see that the main character Michel is on the run. The characters in the movie don’t have a defined goal that they work to achieve. The story has no final conclusion that ties everything together. Many plots and plot lines are left unresolved. Thematically The French New Wave shares a distrust of authority, for example, political commitment was not trusted and romantic commitment was suspect.
6.2 Technological and Cinematographic aspects
Michel is the main character in the film Breathless. He is a middle class worker, whom steals cars and sells them to Ressell. On his journey to sell a stolen car, he gets chased by a police officer on a motorbike whom he shoots dead. He runs away leaving the car there. He becomes the most wanted man for his evil deeds. As a result he appears on television and newspapers. Michel has an American girlfriend, Patricia who does journalism for a living. She trusted her partner until the confrontation she got from the police officers telling her that her partner is a thief and that he steals cars for a living. Having heard that about her lover she had to make a decision that was going to determine where their relationship stood.
6.3 Performance and Direction
The 1960 film Breathless is directed by Jean Luc Goddard. In the film the focus was on the script and the script writer and it was about dialogue and language. There was a use of professional actors with a bit of intimacy between them. An idea or story in this film is left open-ended. This means that there is to conclusion that ties up the whole story as well.
7. COMPARISSON BETWEEN ROME OPEN CITY (1945) AND BREATHLESS (1960)
Having made a film during that time, both films had technological and social obstacles that they both somehow managed to get over. Potable cameras, suitable lighting and money to produce proper films or even the right way on how to do them. The characters focus is on language and dialogue. Their locations were external because of the unreliable power supply.
8. CONTRASTING ROME OPEN CITY(1945) and BREATHLESS (1960)
Both the films were shot at different times and periods. The movements under the films are different. The number circumstances in both the films are different. In terms of scope, the French New Wave was broader, more comprehensive and experimental, and revolutionary than Italian neo-realism while there was something like a reasonably well-defined credo within neo-realism, the new wave was really hodgepodge of styles by markedly different artists. One may argue that Rohmer had more in common with Rossellini than with Goddard that Truffaut had more in common with French masters like Renoir than with Rivett, etcetera. Neo-realism was anchored to the world it was trying to convey whereas Neo-realists went from life-to-movies, meanwhile new wavers, in contrast, went from movies-to-life. They grew up in a depressing world of post war Europe and lost themselves in the dream factory of Hollywood movies. Movies became their life, their hopes, their fantasies, their passion. Unlike the previous generation like Rossellini and Jessica who’d seen the rise and fall of Europe and felt personally responsible and obligated to do the right thing, the new wavers didn’t feel any burden of guilt.as the new wave shaped the means by which we interpreted the world.
9. CONCLUSION
Italian Neorealism created a characteristic approach to film style (Broadwell and Thompson, 2010). Neorealism and French New Wave movements illustrated cinema itself as a motivating source, and does so from the view point of journalists. On the other hand, the reciprocated function or reason of reflecting social and economic truth through the creativity of film had encouraged the critical analysis and understanding of ethnic society. Nevertheless, none of the movements lasted a decade, but they have remained important to the film industry to this day and, thus, indicate how the smallest ideas lead to the largest results.