Italian neorealism developed as a particular form of cinematic expression during the period when Italy was ruled by the Fascists. One of the best-known of what would be called the neo-realist approach to film was Roberto Rossellini's Open City (1945), and many of the characteristics of the movement were evident in this film. These films had an anti-establishment, revolutionary attitude. They had an extemporaneous, documentary quality enhanced in the early era by the materials from which they were made--war-time film stock, cobbled-together equipment, non-professional actors, and location shooting. Open City is a good example of this early period in neorealism, while Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief (1948) is an expression of the fully developed tradition from the period after the expulsion of the fascists and after the end of World War II. Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (Ossessione) is another example of how the style was used, this one produced during the war. These three films display a challenge to the establishment of the time and a social consciousness that delves into the reality rather than the image of the nation. For this reason, neorealism encountered hostility from the established forces because these films portrayed Italy in a realistic and critical way that was not the sort of image the establishment wanted for the country, particularly to be presented to the outside world.
Bondanella sees the development of neorealism as a high point in the history of the film and one that would be highly influential to later works and movements. Bondanella cites critic Andre Bazin, who called neorealism "a cinema of 'fact' and 'reconstituted reportage'" which offered a message of fundamental human solidarity fostered by the anti-Fascist Resistance. Bazin says that these works often embodied a rejection of both traditional dramatic and cinematic conventions. The filmmakers most often employed on-location shooting rather ...