It’s interesting to shortly run over again the story of the word Neorealism, because it lets us seize two fundemental aspects of this movement’s nature: the strict link it had with cinema, from which it originates the title, and the edge of the actual work and the problematicity that has accompained this cultural movement till today.
Infact, even if the term Neorealism started to be used at the end of the Twenties with reference to the artistic tendencies of that period and the German word “Neue Sachlichkeit” (New objectivity), who used it in a new way was the film editor of the film “Ossessione” by Visconti, and this caused its quick diffusion in the film sphere.
After 1943 the term extended in the literaty sphere too, with different interpretations and overlapping with other terms: realism in general, social realism, Socialist realism.
As we said, the story of this term show us the strict link between the film and the literary sphere, and it testifies at least three of the most important expressions of Neorealism in literature: a early “new realism” that can be placed at the end of the Twentys with Moravia (Gli indifferenti, 1929), Alvaro (Gente in Aspromonte, 1930), Silone (Fontamara, 1930), an unaffected Neorealism, following 1943, and a Neorealism with a political-ideological and clear consciousness that expressed itself after 1947/48.