Bazin and Deleuze: Neorealism as an opening of the philosophical archive of cinema

Abstract

 The purpose of this article is to examine Italian neorealism as an event that opens up the philosophical archive of cinema, through a comparative analysis of the ontological readings of André Bazin and the epistemological readings of Gilles Deleuze. The methodology we have adopted is that of a comparative theory and conceptual analysis perspective, articulating the textual exegesis of philosophical sources (Bazin, Deleuze) with the formal examination of canonical films, proposing a reading "against the grain" that avoids the dogmatic application of categories. The result of our analysis reveals that neorealism historically realizes Bazin's realistic ontology (trace, duration) while inaugurating the Deleuzian regime of the time-image. Both readings, although divergent, are complementary and trace a constitutive dichotomy of modern cinema between revelation and thought. The conclusions we reach are that neorealism transcends its context to establish itself as an epistemological threshold and a problematic global heritage, opening up a field of possibilities where cinema is configured as a form of ethical and philosophical knowledge through the time-image.