Post-War Cinema

Postwar film saw many changes, and most were driven by a newly jaded America and Europe. Movies after World War II were starkly realistic, and at times even more pessimistic than that. To quote A Short History of Film, “Crime films became more bullet ridden, westerns more violent, and action thrillers added a new streak of sadism, to appeal to an audience that no longer believed in the Capraesque vision of small-town American life” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 167). It seems that we can attribute much of today’s violence in the movies to the neorealism movement. However, not all that came out of the postwar era was bad. In fact, one of my favorite lines from our text so far refers to director Vittorio De Sica’s refusal “to give the audience the artificial luxury of a happy ending” (pg. 169) in the 1948 film The Bicycle Thief. Some of my personal all-time favorite films defy what I like to call “the Hollywood ending.” Films like City of Angels, The Mist, The Butterfly Effect, The Road, (500) Days of Summer, pretty much any Robin Williams movie prior to 2006, and anything Johnny Depp did before he became a sell-out (oh yeah, I went there) give us that look at the world in a raw, un-sugarcoated way. Even if some of the premises of these films are a bit fantastical, the ways in which the plot unfolds and is handled by the characters is realistic, and for that reason, I think, more relatable. These films also do not give us those warm fuzzy feelings that, over time, become false expectations as we are indoctrinated into the culture of “happily ever after” endings.


Film noir was a reflection of two predominant social attitudes prevalent in postwar America. The first was the climate of mistrust and deception that came from the ambivalence surrounding the war and its outcome. Gender roles and the perception of women had also changed, and were illustrated in the genre with the use of strong, independent female characters (pgs. 174-176). Social problem films dealt with real-life issues such as alcoholism, life in prisons and mental institutions, anti-Semitism and racism (pg. 177).

During this time, technology was also moving along, and the film industry suddenly had competition, in the form of television. In order to contend, filmmakers began looking for new approaches to wow their audiences. New innovations such as CinemaScope, 3-D and Cinerama were introduced, but were only short-lived fads in the end (although 3-D keeps rearing its ugly head every few years, and IMAX, which is nothing but a refined version of Cinerama, is reasonably popular as a novelty medium). What really stuck around were color films, which had become nearly standard fare by the mid ‘60s, still lagging behind color television by over a decade.

Other changes and advances that occurred in postwar film were less technological and social movements than they were legal rulings. In 1947, the Supreme Court did away with the practice of block booking, essentially making “B” movies obsolete. Five years later, the Supreme Court’s “Miracle” Decision gave film as an art form the protection of the First Amendment (pgs. 171-172).

One of the happiest scenese in The Bicycle Theif... But still bittersweet...