ABSTRACT

Italian neorealism was very much a political movement, taking a stand against the form and content of Hollywood and Hollywood-influenced films that came before it, and facing the political wrath of the Italian government that did not like the way the films portrayed Italy. After WWII, France became inundated with American films of the 1940s which had been embargoed during the Nazi occupation. Several things occurred in response: the French government set up a quota system that guaranteed that French films would be seen on French screens along with the more popular American movies. French writers and filmmakers, themselves members of the middle class, have traditionally taken aim at this class, attacking it for its complacency, its acquisitiveness, its fake moralism and dubious moral authority. None went as far as Godard to see the end of the bourgeois world in violent, apocalyptic terms. Weekend begins with a warning in bold, red letters, roughly translated as “Prohibited for viewers under 18.”.