Poetic realism

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Poetic realism was a film movement in France leading up to World War II. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel Carné. Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Simone Signoret and Michèle Morgan starred in many Poetic Realist films. The films center on marginalized characters who get a last chance at love, but are ultimately disappointed. They have a tone of nostalgia and bitterness. They are "poetic" because of a heightened aestheticism that sometimes draws attention to the representational aspects of the films. The movement had a significant impact on later film movements, in particular Italian neorealism (many of the neorealists, most notably Luchino Visconti, worked with poetic realist directors before starting their own careers as film critics and directors) and the French New Wave.