Cinema of anxiety: A psychoanalysis of Italian neorealism

Rocchio builds his analysis around case studies of the films ´´Rome: Open City, Bycicle Thieves, La Terra Tema, Bitter Rice´´, and ´´Senso´´. Through the lens of psychoanalysis, he challenges the traditional understanding of Neorealism as a progressive cinema and instead reveals the anxieties it encodes: a society in political turmoil, an economic system in collapse, and a national cinema in ruins.