"If there were ever any doubts about neorealism’s enduring power to generate fine scholarship, Karl Schoonover’s book should lay them to rest. To this most exhaustively studied body of films, the author brings a doubly original perspective-both geopolitically oriented and ethically charged. The result is a theory of spectatorship that goes far toward accounting for neorealism’s pivotal role in the history of film." -Millicent Marcus, author of After Fellini: National Cinema in the Postmodern Age"While many scholars have struggled to describe the film movement known as neorealism, Brutal Vision advances a different and intellectually productive approach to a vexed subject. The innovative book undertakes a multi-faceted rewriting of post World War II cinema history in a national and international context." -Marcia Landy, author of Stardom, Italian Style: Screen Performance and Personality in Italian Cinema"This challenging study-with its surprising, persuasive new connections-offers many fresh insights into familiar films. Highly recommended." -CHOICE"Karl Schoonover’s study is a thoroughly worthwhile reconsideration of Italian neorealism. The text accomplishes an always valuable and always challenging objective, namely, that of offering a new critical perspective on a critically well-trodden field. In a seamless blend of theoretical, formal, and archival analysis, Schoonover proposes a future itinerary for scholarly work on neorealism." -Italian Culture"After reading Brutal Vision, it will not be possible to observe the pain of Italian cinematic bodies without thinking of the geopolitical antes being waged on Italy’s body-politic during the second half of the twentieth century. However, the importance of Schoonover’s book goes well beyond Italian borders. Brutal Vision is a convincing warning against a cinema of pity, and a cautionary tale on the risks of any representational mode founded on the spectacularization and exploitation of suffering. In an age of perpetual humanitarian crisis, Brutal Vision is of utmost urgency and relevancy." -Journal of Italian Cinema & Media"Schoonover’s study severs neorealism from the dominant debate on its centrality to Italian national identity and film history, and reimagines it on a global plane. Distinctively, however, Schoonovers pursues not a discussion of neorealism’s influence on past or present world film styles, but bringing and international and transnational perspective to bear on its geopolitical context." -Screen
