| This dissertation uses a reader-response/reception study framework to analyze Italian Neorealism. The central question of the study is practical: How did viewers construct meaning from their interaction with the films? I argue that the interaction of the viewer with Neorealism reveals the body of films as an ultimately conservative humanistic movement that apologizes for Fascism, finds new villains for Italian society to oppose, and, ultimately, calls for a new, unified Italy. I also compare and contrast these findings to the dominant critical discourse surrounding the movement, and I find that these conclusions are mostly opposed to that discourse. |
