'Bicycle Thief' and 'Un Chien Andalou'

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews two examples of avant-garde cinema, Italian neorealist filmmaker Vittorio De Sica's 'Bicycle Thief' and Spanish filmmakers Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's 'Un Chien Andalou'. According to the paper, avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm within definitions of art, culture and reality.

From the Paper:

" For example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the actor who played Antonio, was in real life a factory worker in Rome ("Bicycle Thieves"). (In the aftermath of World War II, it is also likely, however, that this casting of "real people", instead of professional actors, was done to save money by not having to pay professional actors). The documentary-style camera work of De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, moreover, further increases for the audience the sense that the film is about true-to-life people and real situations, a characteristic also typical of post-World War II Italian neo-realist cinema. This is, also, an avant-garde filmmaking technique that resists, explicitly and implicitly, the commercialism of Hollywood, while offering, instead, a "purer", more "realistic" (and lower-cost) alternative to film audiences."

Sample of Sources Used:

• "Avant-garde." Wikipedia. May 7, 2006. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from: <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde.html>.
• "Avant-garde (Experimental) Films." April 3, 2001. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from: <http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/gfloren/F-avant.htm>.
• "Bicycle Thieves." Wikipedia. May 1, 2006. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from: < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thief.html>.
• "Italian neorealism [sic]." Wikipedia. April 28, 2006. R Retrieved May 8, 2006, from: < http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:U1H_9FGwLW4J:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_neorealism+wikipedia+italian+neorealism&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1.html>
• Papciak, Bryan M. "Thank God I'm an Atheist:" The Surrealistic Cinema of Luis Bunuel." Communication and the Arts. Retrieved May 8, 2006, from: < http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/papciak.html>.

More papers on 'Bicycle Thief' and 'Un Chien Andalou':

• Film Review # 33088 : "Triumph of the Will" and "Un Chien Andalou"."
• Essay # 26357 : "Un Chien Andalou"
• Film Review # 110144 : "Le Chien Andalou" -The Movie"

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