Realism: Classical Hollywood And Neorealism In The Film

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Classical Hollywood and neorealism are two important movements that have equally influenced the development of filmmaking. They both engage the audience into the film but their narrative conventions do differ from each other. The significance of the location and actors used differentiates the two approaches; as neorealism focuses on portraying reality by avoiding the glimmer of Hollywood stars and mise-en-scène. This allows neorealism to express the natural occurrences in life and the social issues of its time. CHC is known to use continuity editing to produce a naturalistic flow in its narrative to engage the audience in the film, but neorealism avoids these techniques because they simply illustrate an illusion of reality.
The neorealist
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The films were shot in studios, using lighting and sets to enhance visual aspects. Also, most of the actors, if not all, were experienced and selected by their prominence. We can observe this in John Ford’s Stagecoach. Unlike Ladri di Biciclette, this film uses studios to shoot its scene and it is comprised of professional actors. The setting is fabricated in Hollywood, displaying interiors and exteriors of towns and the journey was filmed in Monument Valley. Although, filming in Monument Valley may not seem artificial, the location is recognizable which eliminates that naturalistic aspects of location shooting. The reputation of the actors such as John Wayne and Claire Trevor adds on to the artificiality of the …show more content…
By using cuts regularly, the director can control the pacing of the film and display two different shots without disrupting the flow of movement. This can also help emphasize a person or an object by cutting from establishing shot to another zoomed in angle of the person or object. Another distinct technique would be the use of shot-reverse-shot, which allows the viewer to almost feel as if they are part of the film itself. We can examine these in Stagecoach quite frequently. Shot-reverse-shot is used during the conversations between the characters in the stagecoach and outside. The quick cuts between the two shots allow the director to display two different actions occurring at the same time. These techniques add on to the clarity of the plot, allowing different scenes to connect without confusing the

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