In the relatively current study, Fascism, Writing, and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, published on September 1995, Ruth Ben-Ghiat conducts a retrospective analysis of the relationship between politics and memory within the context of postwar Italy. She investigates the manner in which its intellectuals responded to fascism and their consequent inclinations in the representation of the regime. Her thesis proposes that after the fall of the regime, the ambiguous and allusive nature of the realist discourses allowed for extensive flexibility in the processes of reinterpreting the realist texts as being antifascist (Ben-Ghiat, 632). This assertion is quite pioneering in the field due to its underlying notion that the chief distinction between the interpretation of realist texts as being pro or antifascist is inherent in its vagueness, rather then a set of definitive characteristics. One of the ways in which she differentiates her position from those adopted by other historians is by centering her analysis on the utilization of the realist aesthetic in the realm of literature. Italian realism is most commonly perceived as the post-WWII neo-realist movement, which encompasses the struggle of the Resistance; however, Ben-Ghiat begins the investigation by tracing the tendencies that were surfacing in the realist aesthetic more then a decade prior. Ben-Ghiat clarifies the unconventionality of her perspective by suggesting that,

This association between realism and the Resistance has structured critical narratives of the development of the movement in the prewar period, as literary historians have tended to link the impulse to chronicle reality with antifascist political sentiments

She proposes instead that realism progressively developed in the early 1930s as an attempt of the Italian intellectuals to construct a culture that would reflect the notion of fascism as a revolutionary "third way" - a fundamentally distinctive set of political doctrines and methodologies from those of liberalism and Marxism (Ben-Ghiat, 631). As envisioned by cultural implementers, the ideological undercurrents of realist literature were to serve as a vehicle for this revolution "by addressing contemporary social and moral problems on the peninsula and by promulgating new antibourgeois values and codes of behavior" (Ben-Ghiat, 631). She also differentiates her study from those conducted by other historians by considering the responses of both fascist and antifascist critics and writers to a given trend, thus incorporating a more dynamic and balanced set of perspectives. In consideration of these perspectives, Ben-Ghiat deconstructs the strategies mobilized by the Italian intellectuals after 1945, in reshaping the memory of their relationship with the fascist regime.

While she primarily focuses on the realist aesthetic within the literary sphere, Ruth Ben-Ghiat extends the parameters of her investigation to circumstances beyond the immediate subject. Ben-Ghiat begins by considering the "affinities of Italian cinema and literature with other contemporary realist currents," as they were influence by Italian fascism (637). She thoroughly evaluates this influence on realist literature by examining three novels: Alberto Moravia's Gli indifferente, Eurialo De Michelis's Adamo, and Umberto Barbaro's Luce fredda. Ben-Ghiat supports her suppositions with well-established data, in the form of literary reviews; however, she inverts the reader's expectations as to their significance by exploiting them to emphasize the ambiguities inherent in realist text.

Ben-Ghiat draws on a valuable observation by a commonly cited historian, James Wilkinson, who wrote The Intellectual Residence in Europe. He proposed that despite dissimilarities between individual political inclinations of the Italian intellectuals, the years following WWI witnessed their unification in a campaign for a "return to the concrete" and "the real," which echoed throughout many areas of culture, including cinema, literature, philosophy, and architecture (Ben-Ghiat, 633). Instead of strictly focusing on realism in Italy as a homogeneous movement, which constitutes a customary approach for many historians in the field, Ben-Ghiat frames this part of her arguments by counterbalancing the Italian example with references to the German, Russian, and French cultural currents.

Ben-Ghiat suggests that through its emphasis on "moral and traditional values" and the persistence on “spirituality” - an individual ethical and creative sensibility - as a set of defining characteristics of fascism, the ideological construct of the third way would conveniently function as an ambiguous symbol of the fascist identity. Realism, she asserted, adopted the vagueness inherent in the rhetoric of the "third way," as it subliminally conveyed the discourses of the regime (Ben-Ghiat, 632). Furthermore, realist rhetoric reflected the regime’s adoption and "recontextualization" of the leftist ideology "and the anxiety of fascists to develop a literature that would be 'social' but not socialist" (Ben-Ghiat, 632). Ben-Ghiat insists that the literary works of many fascist intellectuals intertextually operated to affirm the regime’s public persona as the embodiment of a an "ethical" revolution that encouraged consciousness within the individuals of its society.

Due to her focus on the literary art form, there is little reference to the visual codes inherent in Italian cinema. This aspect is extensively discussed in most writings on the subject, including Zavattini’s essay and such texts as Robert Kolker's The Validity of the Image. Nevertheless, Ben-Ghiat does insist on the notion that Italian realism concealed its point of view by resorting to the discourse of objectivity, often adopting documentary codes of representation in order to exude a sense of aesthetic "naturalness" and "transparency" (Ben-Ghiat, 636). Italian fascism promoted an "anti-ideological ideology" – deriving its imperatives from fact rather then theory – thus providing a point of reference for the artistic interpretation of the realist aesthetic "of the concrete" (Ben-Ghiat, 638). A direct transference of this tendency later resurfaces in the intertexual fabric of neo-realist cinema, which becomes evidentiary within the formal articulation of Zavattini’s article.

It is also useful to acknowledge the following notions as many of them will provide a contextual basis for the understanding of the fundamental discourses of the neo-realist movement, as articulation by Zavattini in A Thesis on Neo-Realism. Ben-Ghiat analyzes the pliable and often contradictory reception and interpretation of the three discussed novels by various critics. She achieves this by contrasting the reactions to, and reading of, these works during and after the fascist regime. She suggested that some of the ways in which the fascist writers facilitated the reinterpretation and recontextualization of their realist discourses in the postwar period was by employing two methods. The first constituted a general reluctance in explicitly naming the regime in their writing, and the second took the form of collectively presenting the intellectual discourses as as "objective" rather then propagandistic. Through the utilization of these techniques, they consciously induced s and allusive prose into their work. She then supports the delineated findings with the intertextual reading of the ideological implications made within the literature itself.

While the common inclination among other authors, including Zavattini, has been to address the realist aesthetic as being intrinsically different and separate from the tendencies apparent in neo-realism of the postwar era, Ben-Ghiat undermines there presuppositions. Within the conclusive pages of her study, Ben-Ghiat suggests that by the fall of the dictatorship, the tendencies in the realist aesthetic were transferred onto the cinematic apparatus through Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (659). Barbaro, one of the discussed writers who made no secret of his faith to fascism, taught the future neorealist directors, Roberto Rossellini and Giuseppe De Santis, in this institution. The postwar “identification of an aesthetic of the concrete with antifascist ideology,” (encompassed in the literature and cinema of neorealism) was advocated by those intellectuals who were responsible for its initial development in the thirties (Ben-Ghiat, 663).

While Ben-Ghiat’s analysis encapsulates a persuasively argued position, it evades some relevant discourses within the study. As has been previously touched upon, while Ben-Ghiat intensely discusses the realist aesthetic in literature she devotes little attention to its application within the cinematic realm, in either pre or postwar years. She failed to clarify how the transference of the realist doctrines, that was inherent in Italian literature, manifested themselves within the visual codes of the cinematic medium. In this regard, Cesar Zavattini’s essay simultaneously improves upon Ben-Ghiat’s article and ratifies her underlying assertions. Nevertheless, despite the absence of such elaboration, Ben-Ghiat’s article encompasses a set of valuable observations that enrich other historians’ knowledge of the subject.

In Cesare Zavattini’s, A Thesis on Neo-Realism, functions as an alternative approach to the study. This essay encompasses three of his articles – written in early 1950s. It articulates some of his basic ideas on neo-realism, as envisioned by one its most predominant proponents and implementers – a quality that makes his perspective very relevant and valuable to historians. In contrast to Ben-Ghiat’s article, these writings embody a more contemporary perspective on, and a response to, the social and cultural issues of the moment in which it was written. Furthermore, while Ben-Ghiat’s develops her argument primarily through the consideration of literary examples - due in part to her focus on realism rather then neo-realism – Zavattini strictly addresses the analysis of neo-realism as it pertains to the cinematic medium. He improves upon Ben-Ghiat’s study by discussing the formal qualities of the neo-realist rhetoric within the parameters of the cinematic medium. He identifies the most important aspect of neo-realism as the realization that a story is no longer necessary.

Ben-Dhiat’s argument about the transference of the emphasis on “truth, objectivity and concreteness” from the literary realm of realism onto the cinematic sphere of neo-realism, becomes exemplified through Zavattini’s instance on the significance of these qualities within this “new” cinematic movement. Respectively, the prevailing thesis of the three articles by Zavattini contends that the aesthetic characteristics of neo-realism must be a “faithful way” of representing “reality” and not an “imaginative choice” (70). He asserted that:

This powerful desire of the cinema to see and to analyze, this hunger for reality, for truth, is a kind of concrete homage to other people, that is to all who exist…For the time being we have only an analytic “attitude,” but this attitude brings with it a powerful movement towards facts (Zavattini, 71).

He expounds the same importance of “ethical” responsibility of the artist, the same rejection of the “bourgeois aesthetic,” as were encoded within the realist literature in the years of the fascist reign, as explained by Ben-Ghiat. These parallels legitimize and strengthen Ben-Ghiat’s study as they plainly exemplify the evidentiary application of her theoretical discourses.

Zavattini differentiates his position from those adopted by other authors by arguing for a more pronounced application of the neo-realist rhetoric. The films that Ben-Ghiat singles out as representatives of the neo-realist cinema – Roberto Rossellini’s Roma citta aperta (1945), and Elio Vittorini’s Uominie e no (1945), are the same films that Zavattini regards as not “real neo-realism” because while they “contain passages of great significance” they do not “apply the documentary spirit simply and fully” (73). This inclination towards the extreme constitutes the principal distinction between Zavattini’s arguments on the topic of the (neo)-realist aesthetic from that of any other writer or theoretician. While he does not use secondary data in conjunction with his claims, Zavattini does extend his insight to circumstances beyond immediate object as he places American cinema in direct opposition to the neo-realist trend in Italy.

While Zavattini’s essay is useful as a study of his personal conception of neo-realism as a cinematic movement, Ben-Ghiat’s article encompasses a more thorough and incisive analysis of the realist aesthetic in general – beginning its development in the 1930s and continuing in its various forms until 1950s. She constructs her intricately synthesized arguments with what may be interpreted as an aura of detached sensibility, which can be partially attributed to the fact that she is retrospectively analyzing the subject, more then thirty years past its time. Her assertions about the transference of such notions as the importance of “ethics, anti-bourgeois aesthetic, factuality, and concreteness,” from the literary doctrines of the fascist regime to the neo-realist cinema of the postwar years, become indubitably exemplified in Zavattini’s essay. The portion of Ben-Ghiat’s thesis that addresses the ambiguous and allusive nature of realist literature, illustrates an acuteness and insightfulness in her treatment of the subject that is invaluable within the field. It makes the interpretation of the historical data richer and more meaningful as it illuminates another dimension in consideration of Italian realism.

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, "Fascism, Writing, and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, 1930 1950." The Journal of Modern History, 67:3 (September 1995), pp. 627-665.

Kolker, Robert, "The Validity of the Image," The Altering Eye, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Zavattini, Cesare, "A Thesis on Neo-Realism," Springtime in Italy: A Reader on Neo Realism, ed. David Overbey (London: Talisman, 1978), pp. 67-78.