Despite Buñuel’s objections to neorealism, he is very much in line with Zavattini’s vision of it, but with two important caveats:
The first is articulated at the end of “Cinema, Instrument of Poetry” and has to do with the portrayal of the collective rather than the individual. We see this in Los olvidados and City of God. In contrast, in Bicycle Thieves and B-Happy one person constitutes the principal focus of the narrative, and his or her specific situation comes to represent thousands of similar situations existing in the real world. The other caveat is that Buñuel wants viewers to feel assaulted by what they see, assaulted by the unpleasant reality that unfolds before them, as if to say, “look at this horrific and unnecessary human spectacle of pain and violence; it is all true and it should distress you!” Buñuel and the co-directors of City of God focus on inequality and uneven power relationships in society that facilitate or propel violence and discrimination. Their vision is dystopian and unapologetically pessimistic. B-Happy also focuses on inequality and uneven power relationships in society, but its vision is not dystopian or pessimistic. Justiniano (B-Happy) and Zavattini (script writer for Bicycle Thieves) want to build bridges of solidarity between viewers and those real people who their characters represent; in this sense, their characters function as synecdoches. The effects that Zavattini and Justiniano hope their films will produce in their viewers, in contrast to Buñuel, are awakening, empathy, and (self)reflection.
IMPORTANT NOTE: As we move forward with the remaining films for this unit, look for the ways in which they exemplify the readings by Zavattini and Buñuel, and attempt to situate them on the axis described above.
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