NeoSurrealism

Where are you? Where am I? Where are we going? Will we ever meet? Will we ever see each other again? I love you regardless...

what is your state of being? Are you constantly in a state of here and now, or in a state of coming, or in a state of going. I personally am constantly in a state of going.. Where exactly am i going? why do i break the chains of now moment by moment. it is always in the next moment that glory is to be met with an eager eye and finger on the red button.

How can i be followed if i vanish before the tow rope can be tied. All this just spewed from my being while i ponder the direction of my direction. The film industry is changing and i am going to edge of where it will soon be. Before Hollywood was built the United Artists left New York looking for new ground and broke it in the valley of California that would become Los Angeles. They were escaping the rigid corruption of New York Cinema. Now Hollywood is the Vatican in a country that is on the verge of being "Compromised"

The state of America reminds me of the postwar Italian movement NeoRealism. this movement took its cue from the French New Wave and yet offered a distinct idea. French New Wave could be considered the equivalent of America's independent Film Movement and now that Independent film has been swallowed up by Hollywood.. What's next for Cinema?? Well if history rhymes could Neo Realism be reinventing itself in America. If so what would it be? For that lets look at the essence of Neo REalism



From WALT OSTRANDER
THE IMMORTALITY OF ITALIAN NEOREALISM
The influence of Italian neorealism in the cinematic world is extremely difficult to overstate. One can highlight its methods in American film noir of the late 40’s and early 50’s, its obvious links to works in the French new-wave, and its influence on international third world film of the time for its depiction of common people and its portrayal of the “real.” Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves is certainly neorealist; every principle of the movement is utilized within the film. It is a quiet, tragic anthem to the poverty-stricken working class of postwar Italy, and a beautiful work that has been part of the pallet of the auteur in cinematic movements ever since. It is perhaps the very antithesis to Hollywood film in its subject matter of “life as it is,” as screenwriter Cesare Zavattini has put it.

The stylistic characteristics of what is known as neorealism are readily identifiable, perhaps one of the most important being visual representation. The most appropriate subject for representation (at least from a “pure cinema” point of view) is reality itself. This is achieved perfectly in Bicycle Thieves by its method of filming on location, out in the real world, outside of a studio – not a created world inside a studio as was popular in Hollywood films of the time.

As powerful and provocative a style as it was, neorealism was very short-lived from an historical point of view. Only twenty-one or so films were made in the vein of the movement in a course of seven years, mainly because the creative energy behind it all was completely due to a real historical crisis. By the time Bicycle Thieves was conceived in 1948, the “revolution” of neorealism had reached the end of its rope as a style in itself. Italy was reinvented after the war as a capitalist society stuck in a stasis of unemployment. The film (as noted by the previously mentioned facial expressions of the actors) is balanced on a thin line separating ever-looming melancholy and idealism.

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They say that once you hear about something its already over. the Wave of Trends are only pure in their first light and their first darkness. Everything else in between are the shadows of the True Light that has already come and went.

I always believed that history doesn't repeat it rhymes. NeoRealism will always be the Italian movement we all remember yet within the economic crisis that is America after the fall of Independent film what could be the equivalent to NeoRealism. I desire so much to discover this trend that has yet to be born. Its emerging right now in the consciousness of all filmmakers here in America. Though those who later will provide the commentary for what is certianly emerging will eventually name the movement that is gravitating towards itself i wish to privide a working title to the wave that is forming. I call it NeoSurrealism.

Why be too realistic when we have Reality TV... Why be Hollywood, which never seems to truly change. Why be independent when the essence of independent is dead. This leaves us with what... A unique blend of gripping provocative relentless film that mixes art and provides a surrealistic approach to the NOW and the moments JUST BEFORE and RIGHT AFTER.

and to avoid the potential cheesy conclusions brought forth by all those Matrix fanatics. Yes Neo is an apt word for none other than the idea that if True Immortal Cinema is the Zion of Human existence and the machines are most certainly Hollywood. They have killed cinema movements many times before by swallowing them whole and are going to enjoy watching this new movement die. After-all didn't Hollywood swallow itself by doing a complete 360 degree turn and became the Oppressive New York Cinema Machine that in its inception desperately seeked to abandon. Could NeoSurrealsim be the final battle, the dawn of peace where cinema goers would accept it as cinema for the people and not entertainment to be "Compromised" and "Exploited"

Only the shutters of lenses and eyes will tell.