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A.O. Scott of the NYT writes on a current trend in American movies (Wendy and Lucy, Frozen River, etc) which he calls Neo-Neo-Realism, after the post-war Italian cinema exemplified by the work of Rossellini (Open City), Visconti (La Terra Trema), and De Sica (Bicycle Thief).

Richard Brody reacts in his New Yorker blog, saying A.O. Scott’s essay “rests on questionable premises and reaches dubious conclusions.” He goes on to describe this Neo-Neo-Realism as “granola cinema, abstemious films that are made to look good for you but are no less sweetened than mass-market products, that cut off a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and experiences on ostensible grounds of virtue. It’s not new; it’s self-consciously, fashionably old-fashioned.” I love it when critics disagree.

For a crash course in Italian Neo-Realism, I refer you to Martin Scorsese’s documentary, My Voyage To Italy. Scorsese is a wonderful teacher and his passion for the cinema is infectious.

If I knew A.O. Scott I’d recommend a viewing of Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges, in which Sullivan the successful director of musical comedies decides to make a socially-conscious drama (O Brother Where Art Thou—title coopted decades later by the Coens) about the plight of the workingman. When studio bosses point out that Sullivan knows nothing about the poor, he declares that he will do research by living among them. Trouble follows.

Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake in Sullivan’s Travels

Where are we in this discussion? There’s a strong strain of Italian Neo-Realism in Filipino cinema since the 1970s (and earlier, I suspect, in the films of Silos and Avellana). In the 60s Manila’s movie theatres screened a lot of European movies, so we can argue direct influence. You can trace the DNA of Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag back to Visconti (especially Rocco and His Brothers) and De Sica (Shoeshine). Many of today’s Filipino filmmakers openly aspire to Brocka-ness; they are the Neo-Neo-Neo-Realists.

Celso Ad Castillo’s Burlesk Queen was descended from the post-Neo-Realist Fellini. What about Joey Gosiengfiao and Elwood Perez? That’s easy: Douglas Sirk. And Ishmael Bernal? He was practically French, our local New Wave rep. Bernal’s Pito Ang Asawa Ko was inspired by Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black. (Although he also played Pasolini in Anton Juan’s stage production of Death in the Form of a Rose.)