Italian Neorealism is probably the most influential film movement since the end of World War II. The
fighting wasn't even finished when Roberto Rossellini began filming the essential drama of the Italian
war experience,
Rome Open City. Made with scavenged B&W stock, some of it stolen from American
newsreel cameramen, Rossellini's story of Italians caught up in the ruthless occupation made a powerful
statement.
The term Italian Neorealism is now equally associated with Vittorio De Sica's
Bicycle Thieves and
Umberto D.
Later analysis has nominated De Sica's wartime
The Children are Watching Us (1944) and
Luchino Visconti's
Ossessione (1943) as prototype forerunners for the style. To paraphrase a
dozen film school classes, Italian Neorealism ran counter to Mussolini's glossy escapist "white
telephone" dramas. Filmed outside the studio environment, often with non-actors, they attempted to
reflect the human condition as experienced by the common man on the street. Poverty, despair and other
social ills were presented in an unflinching manner.
Previously a director of short subjects and features (some with pro-fascist themes), Rossellini quickly
earned international acclaim. For its 500th spine number the Criterion Collection has assembled a box
set of his war-era films called
Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy. It's a very welcome release,
as quality presentations of these films have long eluded collectors.
Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta) is Neorealist mainly in spirit. The depiction
of German troops and fascist Italian police arresting civilians must have been a shock to Roman
audiences that had just spent five years under wartime terror and twenty-five under fascist rule. The
images have a gritty, unpolished look, some of which is attributable to the mismatched film stock that
was used. Rossellini used German prisoners to play "themselves", but only a few of the speaking parts
are filled by non-professionals. The two most important roles went to well-known film personalities
associated with comedy. Legends about Rossellini filming secretly while Rome was still occupied are not
true. The director says that filming was begun as soon as the city was liberated; others report that
the start of production was in January of 1945, half a year later.
The script acknowledges the role of Fascist collaborators in the arrest and torture of the mostly
communist resistance. The Germans are portrayed much the same as those in a Hollywood anti-Nazi film.
The SS commandant is determined to arrest resistance leader Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero). Ingrid
(Giovanna Galletti), a predatory lesbian agent in the pay of the SS, has located Manfredi's girlfriend
Marina (Maria Michi), a dissolute Italian showgirl. Ingrid plies the thoughtless Marina with cocaine
and expensive furs. The ensuing wave of arrests swallows up the film's romantic working couple, Pina
and Francesco (Anna Magnani & Francesco Grandjacquet). She's a widow pregnant with Francesco's child
and preparing for her wedding day; warm hearted priest Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi) has agreed to give
them a church wedding. Pina's son Marcello (Vito Annichiarico) belongs to a gang of pre-teen saboteurs.
Marina's betrayal results in grief for the apolitical Pina as well as the active resistance
partisans.
Open City is traditionally scripted, but its subject matter is very daring. Actors recite fairly
crude position speeches, as when the anguished Don Pietro curses the Germans: cue audience approval. A
drunken German officer pointedly condemns his superior's vile methods, already shown in a graphic
torture scene. In one shot a man's chest, scorched with a blowtorch, actually burns for a second. The
movie spells out how easily the corrupt Marina is manipulated; the perverted Ingrid is rewarded with
money and sex. Rossellini expresses his country's mixed feelings toward the U.S. with a sly aside: when
asked if the Americans really exist, Anna Magnani's Pina points to a bombed building.
Rossellini's most pure Neorealist movie is the impassioned, bleak
Paisan (Paisà),
a collection of brief sketches that follow the Allied advance northward, starting with Sicily. Many of
the performers are first-time actors. Each freestanding little drama ends on a note of irony, if not
outright tragedy, although one chapter in a monastery is lighter in tone. Between each episode is a
buffer montage of newsreel footage.
Paisan has a much more authentic feel than
Open City. The loose form offers a variety of
viewpoints and the moral lessons are often conveyed through visuals. Each episode carries a potent
emotional kick. Americans landing in Sicily enlist a frightened young woman (Carmela Sazio) as a guide.
A black G.I. in Naples (Dots Johnson) chases down a scavenging local kid who steals his shoes.
Screenwriters Sergio Amedei and Federico Fellini advance each story just far enough to hit an emotional
nerve, without spilling over into outright sentimentalism.
Some of the episodes involve misunderstandings between the Italians and their liberators. Maria Michi
returns for a romantic piece set in Rome about a young woman who has turned to prostitution. Harriet
White Medin, a USO performer who jumped ship to join Rossellini's movie troupe, plays an American nurse
who crosses enemy lines in Florence. The young Giulieta Masina (
The Nights of Cabiria) makes a
brief appearance in a scene on a stairwell. William Tubbs (
The Wages of Fear) is a chaplain who tries
to explain his tolerance of Protestants and Jews to a group of Catholic monks.
Paisan concludes with an uncompromising look at guerilla warfare. American OSS agents and
Italian partisans fight a losing skirmish against Germans in the Po Valley, a marshland with few hiding
places. The American officers use crude Italian to communicate with their comrades. Rossellini pushes
the episode forward without sentiment or "style", and the underdog raiders are soon routed. The bleak
finale, contrasted with a voiceover announcing the soon-to-come victory, puts glamorous depictions of
war to shame.
Germany Year Zero (Germania anno zero) sees Rossellini capping his trilogy with a story
from the enemy's point of view. The result is a much more obvious message movie. Caught in the war's
aftermath is Edmund (Edmund Meschke), a small boy in the ruins of Berlin. His sick father can't work so
he tries unsuccessfully to fit into the black-market netherworld of have-nots, thieves and scammers.
Unfortunately, Edmund falls under the influence of his ex- teacher, a bitter philosopher (and possible
pedophile) who fills the boy's head with the fatalistic idea that the weak (like Edmund's father) must
be killed to make room for the strong. Cheated and misled, Edmund takes some tragic actions.
Filmed in the German ruins,
Germany Year Zero has convincing settings but manages little relief
from its one note of despair. Although Rossellini's handling of non-pro actors is better than ever, his
story's profoundly negative ending is far too easy to predict. Rossellini's picture makes an interesting comparison with Fred
Zinnemann's superficially similar, more accessible
The Search. Both films are blunt about
the effects of the war on children.
Criterion's 3-Disc set of
Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy presents good transfers of films
rarely seen in anything better than ragged, sometimes incomplete dupes with inaudible soundtracks.
Rome, Open City and
Germany Year Zero are in good condition;
Paisan is by far the
improved although some passages are still worn and scratched.
Germany Year Zero finally appears
here with its original German dialogue track. In
Paisan, it's amusing to hear Rossellini's
American non-actors: their appropriately awkward accents don't match the too-perfect grammar in the
dialogue provided by the Italians. One obvious jump cut in
Paisan arouses our attention: it
occurs in the middle of a speech about religious tolerance, and we can't help but wonder what might
have been excised.
Disc producer Johanna Schiller has assembled a mountain of fascinating extras. Among the associates and
experts contributing to the new interview pieces is Roberto Rossellini's daughter Isabella. Filmed
interviews with spouse Ingrid Bergman help illuminate the director's fascinating career, through the
1950s to his self-banishment to television projects in his later years.
Introductions by the director accompany each film; they're from a 1965 French TV presentation.
Roma carries a commentary by Peter Bondanella. In addition to the lengthy documentaries
Once
Upon a time ... (2006) and
Roberto Rossellini (Carlo Lizzani, 2001), shorter featurettes
cover Rossellini's Rome locations and offer visual essays by Tag Gallagher and Thomas Meder. A
videotaped lecture and a podium discussion are also included, as well as an Italian credit sequence for
Germany Year Zero.
The set definitely does not lack for expert critical comment and opinion. A 44-page insert booklet has
essays by James Quandt, Irene Bignardi, Colin MacCabe and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Seeing the films before
sampling the extras is a recommended choice, as the video pieces are loaded with visual spoilers. The
most famous shot from
Rome, Open City must be repeated five times in various featurettes.
For more information about
Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy, visit
The Criterion Collection. To order
Roberto Rossellini's War
Trilogy, go to
TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
