What is neorealism?
A cinema experiment: what rival visions would emerge if you pitted the director of The Bicycle Thieves against the producer of Gone with the Wind on the same movie material? History can tell us…
The only great problem of cinema seems to be more and more, with each film, when and why to start a shot and when and why to end it.”Jean-Luc Godard
Every cut is a form of judgment, whether it takes place on the set or in the editing room. A cut reveals what matters and what doesn’t. It delineates the essential from the non-essential. To examine the cuts of a filmmaker is to uncover an approach to cinema.
The happenstance of Vittorio De Sica’s Terminal Station and David O. Selznick’s Indiscretion of an American Wife offers a rare opportunity to compare two cuts of the same film from a leading figure of neorealism and a leading figure of Hollywood.
If neorealism exists, it is in contrast to the dominant approach to moviemaking, shaped and exemplified by Hollywood. In comparing Terminal Station to Indiscretion of an American Wife, we must ask, What difference does a cut make?
The new issue of Sight and Sound
On the cover: Jodie Foster, Ethan Hawke, Daniel Day-Lewis and the legendary Kim Novak on the art of acting. Plus actors including Isabelle Huppert, Wagner Moura, Sopé Dìsírù and Jennifer Lawrence nominate performances they treasure from cinema history. Inside: Berlin film festival report, Robert Duvall obituary, plus reviews of new releases and a look back at the work of action heroine turned Wong Kar Wai muse, Maggie Cheung.
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