Abstract/Summary

This chapter argues that an ethical engagement with material reality defines world cinema’s most creative peaks. After a survey of the debates surrounding the concepts of “world cinema,” “realism,” and “ethics,” it delves into the study of the consequences of realism within and beyond the realm of cinematic representation. Starting with one of Neorealism’s most iconic films, Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948), it looks at the impression of reality that takes place majorly on the representational realm of verisimilitude and narrative suture, both heavily reliant on humanistic melodrama. In focus are films from Iran, China and Saudi Arabia, all of which draw on De Sica’s foundational masterpiece. It then goes on to define a physical approach to filmmaking through which presentation of reality takes the upper hand over representation, and cinema comes close to merging with real life – and real death. The analysis culminates in some radical examples from China’s independent production, in which the effort towards the decentering of the human being takes the extreme form of self-sacrifice. Setting these trends within a context marked by convergent tropes and recurrent motifs, the chapter proposes realism as an ethical commitment to truth, which binds together peoples across the globe.