The Night of the Shooting Stars is a dazzling film that seems to follow something more along the lines of The Ox-Bow Incident where the characters are forced to come to a realization of some sort through their experiences that are made in their time period. In this case, World War II. I like to think of this film as having a sort of feeling that is what in my terms (through a personally coined phrase which is trademarked and subject to legal ramifications if in any way shape or form is copied altered or blah blah blah). Wait for it…“Neo-Neorealism”
Because that’s what the film is, it reminisces in the films of Fellini but instead of making the situations seem true by structure, they seem to make the situations true through raw emotional grit. And as we’re forced to watch a film that gives us way too many characters to be completely invested in (between this, Gomorrah, and Rome Open City is anyone else starting to see a trend?) I’m still emotionally invested through the use of dialogue, camera shots, and just personal stories that wisely makes me feel as though I’m another citizen of the town rather than a voyeur or not there at all, because Night of the Shooting Stars just pulls you in…and never lets you go.
Rome was a great setting for the movie. It is a vast and expansive area full of hundreds of beguiling people. The thing about the Rome in Bicycle Thief is that we are never shown the same place twice. (Except for the psychics house). We are essentially taken on a tour of the city, and shown all it's parts, from the crowded streets, to the workers union, to a poor mans home, to a police station, to a fancy restaurant, to a church, and to a river. We are shown every aspect of the city, and it is presented to us the same way it is seen by Ricci. The church and police station are not fancy or glorified, because they were of little help to him. The restaurant was fancy because Ricci saw it as a place where the wealthy go, and thus the building came to visualize what he considered to be wealth.
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