Saturday Night and Rome,the Open City :: essays research papers

Italian neo realist cinema and British social realist cinema have some similarities in some ways. First of all we may say both of them breaks through dimensions for the individuals of their culture. They try to give tensions about the war. Both gives us a perspective to smack at the cinema as a natural eye. The important thing is to able to look and see as Bergers said. (John Berger _ Ways of Seeing) So I will try to give a brief story of two films from these fields.Saturday night and sunshine morningRome Open CityThe approximately world-shattering film of the 1960s British new wave in cinema, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was in many ways the most influential of the group, with its flop anti-establishment stance, unblushing treatment of sex and working class protagonist Arthur Seaton was something new in British cinema. While other films of the period have dated somewhat, most of Reiszs ground-breaking film looks as fresh and powerful as ever, and its valid to observe just how good Albert Finney was in the role of Seaton Set in the colourise industrial town of Nottingham, Alan Sillitoes novel SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, with all of its black realism, is successfully adapted to the screen with a powerful performance by Albert Finney in his first starring role. Director Karel Reisz draws on his work in documentaries to give the film a sharp eye for the look and feel of northern England. Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) is a young man trapped in a mindless factory job, intrinsically rebelling, but without any focus to his anger. He spends his Saturday nights getting drunk and his Sunday mornings fishing. His affair with a married neighbor, Brenda (Rachel Roberts), seems to please him only for its risky illicitness. Their love scenes are controversial for the palpable expression of real sexual pleasure that Roberts shows in the role of an ordinary English housewife, and because of the fact that she receives, from a handsome younger man, the sexual fu lfillment that her husband can not provide. Arthurs best friend Bert (Norman Rossington) shares Arthurs animosity but avoids his self destructive ways. Arthur gets into increasing trouble when he impregnates Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the neglected wife of Arthurs mild-mannered co-worker Jack (Bryan Pringle). Abortions were illegal at the time, although often hinted at in British films.In the story that follows, we see this insolent rebel bluster his way through some of the formative experiences of his young adulthood.