The realism of Italian cinema after World War II represented and in many ways attempted to contain the turmoil of a society struggling to rid itself of Fasciscm while fighting off the threat of radical egalitarianism at the same time. In this book, the author combines Lacanian psychoanalysis with narratology and Marxist critical theory to exmine the previously neglected relationship between Neorealist films and the historical spectators they address. Rocchio builds his analysis around case studies of specific films. Through the lens of psychoanalysis, he challenges the traditional understanding of Neorealism as a progressive cinema and instead reveals the anxieties it encodes: a society in political turmoil, an economic system in collaps and a national cinema in ruins, while war, occupation, collaboration and retalliation remain part of everyday life.