Representation of social reality in the cinema of Italian neorealism: main concepts and features

The aim of the study is to identify segments of sociocultural reality that form the specifics of its representation in the cinematic works of Italian neorealism, as well as to determine the features that characterize the reflection of this reality by neorealist directors. The three most characteristic works of the mentioned movement of cinema created by three different directors in the second half of the 1940s ( Rome, Open City by Roberto Rossellini, Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica and The Earth Trembles by Luchino Visconti) were used as objects of study. The materials were based on research by Russian, Italian and American film experts, art critics and philosophers. The culturological nature of the work determines the use of systemic and structural-functional analysis. The specific methodological scheme used in the course of the research (the model of a multi-layered social system) is based on the theory of speech acts by the modern American thinker John Searle. In general, the study is aimed at analyzing and systematizing the experience of Italian neorealist cinema in reflecting social and cultural conditions in art. The author consistently examines the concepts that in the three mentioned films are of decisive importance for the nature of the representation of sociocultural phenomena: state and power, family and generational connections, religion and faith, city and province, individuality and personal interactions. The degree and nature of representation of each concept in the content of the studied cinematic works are analyzed. The author concludes that in the examined key films of Italian neorealism the following specific segments of social reality were revealed: political structure (the Italian state of the mid-1940s and the peculiarities of its exercise of power), family-intergenerational system of relations, religious life (the position of the church and the place of faith in the minds of citizens), a complex of phenomena constituting urban and provincial culture, the importance of personality and individuality in social life. The features of the creative method of neorealist directors, which determined the configuration of the artistic space characteristic of this direction, were: the criticism of power, the identification of authors and viewers with the people and their screen characters, the primacy of society over the institution of family, the conflict of religion and faith with everyday life, the inductive nature of revealed themes, a materialistic applied attitude to the meaning of art and the role of society in the formation of personality.