Michael Haneke's Amour in the Light of Italian Neorealism

This article examines Haneke's 2012 film Amour within the framework of the tenets of Italian neorealism. It is argued that if we look closely at Cesare Zavattini's critical ideas behind Italian neorealism, and Vittorio De Sica's implementation of these ideas-in a film like The Bicycle Thief-we will find that, for a number of reasons, the principles of neorealism are, in fact, compromised. The article suggests that upon scrutiny, Amour is in many ways as "true to the principles of Italian neorealism as the Italians were. And, in fact, in some ways it is even more "true to those principles.