Hope in Squalor

 Logan Peterson

Professor Saphire

COM 126.01

11/5/2020

Hope In Squalor

It may sound a bit obvious, but neorealist films are the most real films I’ve ever seen. All too often in life, we find hope in small things, only to have these hopes dashed. Through set design, filming techniques and the choice of actors, the directors of neorealist films excel in above all else making films that portray life in a gritty way, forcing the viewers own hopes to get up with that of the character, before causing them to crash back down to the earth. Neorealist films are the documentation of our lives: sheep being led to the slaughter.  

Bicycle Thieves is not a happy film. It thrives off of giving the viewer hope and ripping it away as soon as it gets the chance. While focusing on the main character, Antonio, the film isn’t necessarily about him. An article by Godfrey Cheshire claims that the film “renounced “egoism” for collective concern, envisioning a cinema of impassioned social conscience”. In this, the film excels. Bicycle Thieves uses Antonio only as a body to tell the story of postwar Italy. High unemployment, markets where thieves can sell their wares and churches that give out free shaves and food. Like the people around him, Antonio will find hope, only to have it ripped away. He finally finds work, only to have his bike stolen on his first day. His friend helps him look for it at the thieve’s markets and Antonio sees the man who stole his bike, only to watch him ride away. He and his son track an old man who may know the whereabouts of his bike and to the viewers' surprise, Antonio is told where the thief lives. He goes to the man’s home, only to find no proof. Finally, Antonio himself becomes a bicycle thief and as he reads away, you find your hopes rising, until he’s taken down by a group of men and sent along his way. He joins a crowd of people, all of them likely living a similar hell to his own. His son looks up to him, tears in eyes. Cousins mentioned in his documentary on neorealism the innocence of the child, the realistic nature in which he is presented. His innocence stands in stark contrast to his father’s newfound moral ambiguity and one cannot help but wonder if the child will be corralled into a cage not unlike his father and led to the slaughter.

Killer of Sheep finds it’s main character in a very different place. He has a job and is able to provide well enough for his family. It is his happiness that suffers. Cheshire’s Criterion article says that Bicycle Thieves’ realistic nature is not a choice made to advance the aesthetic of film, but of moral urgency. That holds true in Killer of Sheep as well. Stan’s job allows him to pay the bills, but he finds himself depressed in the squalor of doing the same tasks everyday. He is incapable of making love to his wife, he rarely smiles and he never laughs. Bicycle Thieves is about the lives of everyday people in postwar Italy and it found a lot of traction amongst the public there. In Cousins’ documentary on New Wave cinema, he mentions that soon after the war, the economy got better in Italy and so did the quality of life. This is the primary difference between the two films, because life improved for people like Antonio, no matter how bleak it seemed to be. Killer of Sheep is a tale of being left behind. The film uses small, claustrophobic spaces to insinuate that Stan is in a cage that he’ll never escape. He can barely move around in his own kitchen and when he sits on his front steps, he takes up nearly the whole space. He is not unlike the sheep he kills every day. In his article, Chris Norton writes a small segment on Killer of Sheep, pointing out that the film uses the same documentarian style of filmmaking, giving it a gritty. More importantly though, the film uses natural locations, the actual neighborhoods that have been left behind. While directing the film, Charles Burnett did not have access to modern filming tools and had to use low quality cameras, film and sound equipment. The more one examines Killer of Sheep, the more it feels like a metafilm. Stan and the inner city have been forgotten. Charles Burnett made a groundbreaking film about the black experience in America and he too, was forgotten. Yet, by the end of the film, we finally see Stan smile and though he faces an uphill battle, he has hope. Despite their challenges, both filmmaker and his characters fight on, because perseverance is worth the struggle and that makes Killer of Sheep feel more real than Bicycle Thieves ever did.

Moonlight is my favorite of the three. It’s hard to look into the past and understand why a realistic film was groundbreaking back then, especially when you weren’t and you’ll never experience the same things the characters did. For me the film is a window into a culture I’ve observed at a distance, but could never understand myself. The film follows Little, a young black man dealing with the challenges of being gay in an incredibly masculine culture. Unlike the former two films, Moonlight very rarely gives the viewer hope. The man who helps Little when he’s young, dies. Little’s mother abuses him on a daily basis. When Little finally takes matters into his own hands and takes down the bully that has been terrorizing him, he’s arrested and has to leave the state. Moonlight differentiates itself in it’s highly stylized technique of filming, using lighting in particular to great effect. The scene at the very end of the film when Little walks to the restaurant his friend Kevin works at is particularly beautiful. The shadows from the trees of move across Little’s back and it’s really quite beautiful. Like Killer of Sheep, Moonlight ends with a bit of hope. Little is broken, he’s strong now, but hasn’t found someone to love yet. He’s lost himself, falling into the drug trade. Moonlight ends with a final shot, Kevin holding Little, suggesting they may finally be together and Little when he was only a child turning to face the camera.

It would seem that these films aren’t very different. Bicycle Thieves shows the wreckage of WWII and the effect it has had on the Italian people. The two subsequent films show the forgotten parts of America and speak to the fight that black Americans find themselves in every day.  The primary difference is hope. Bicycle Thieves ends on a dark note, hoping to inspire social change, or at least consciousness of what's going on. Killer of Sheep and Moonlight end on  a different note. They are not trying to inspire “impassioned social conscience”, but instead showing how even though these parts of the country have been forgotten and beaten by the world around them, they persevere, because it’s worth doing. For all of human history, a disproportionate percent of the population has endured lives not unlike the lives of sheep. They are raised and cultivated to serve a purpose and then they are led to the slaughter. However, even in the life of a sheep, there is hope and so we shall persevere.