Communism and the Ironic Value of Property in Italian Neo-Realist Cinema

This paper will explore in depth the issues raised in La Terra Trema (“The Earth Trembles,” 1948). Director Visconti, raised in an aristocratic life of privilege, sets out to give an exposé of the poor working conditions of Sicilian fisherman. But, in a turn of ideology, one family mortgages their meager house and buys their own boat to get out from under the oppressive capitalists, and voila, they become owners themselves

Volume 20, Number 4 (2006)