Almost as good as Soviet cinema: Reception of Italian neorealism in Poland: 1946–56

Abstract

With the onset of the Cold War, the cinema culture in the People’s Republic of Poland underwent rigorous transformation. One of its aspects was the new film import schema: most of the international sources dried up to be replaced, for the most part, by films from the Communist Bloc. However, Italian films constituted an important exception. This article investigates the critical reception of Italian neorealist films in Poland in the first decade after the war, focusing mainly on reviews published in Film, the most relevant Polish magazine dedicated to cinema culture. The first part of the article outlines critical debates on differences and similarities between neorealism and socialist realism. The latter part of the article focuses on the critical reception of Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) and Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan), as evaluations of the Italian director’s cinema fluctuated during the Stalinist period and after the thaw.