Rome, Open City
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| Rome, Open City | |
|---|---|
 film poster |
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| Directed by | Roberto Rossellini |
| Produced by | Giuseppe Amato Ferruccio De Martino Roberto Rossellini |
| Written by | Sergio Amidei Alberto Consiglio Federico Fellini Roberto Rossellini |
| Starring | Aldo Fabrizi Anna Magnani Marcello Pagliero |
| Music by | Renzo Rossellini |
| Cinematography | Ubaldo Arata |
| Editing by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Distributed by | Minerva Film SpA |
| Release date(s) | September 27, 1945 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Language | Italian German |
| IMDb profile | |
Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta) is a 1945 Italian film, directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani. The film is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944.
This film has not been rated by the MPAA. As it has violence but no graphic sex, it has been rated K-16 in Finland, and acceptable for 15-year-olds and older in England and Sweden.
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[edit] Plot summary
As Nazi soldiers march around town, Giorgio Manfredi eludes them by jumping around roofs. A priest, Don Pietro Pellegrini, helps the resistance transmit messages and money. Don Pietro is scheduled to officiate Pina's wedding. Pina is not very religious, but would rather be married by a nationalist priest. Her son, Marcello, and his friends have a role in the resistance. Pina's sister befriends Marina, who betrays the resistance in exchange for drugs, fur coats and other creature comforts. The Gestapo commander in the city, with the help of the Italian police commissioner, captures Giorgio and the priest, and interrogates Giorgio violently. The attempt to use Pietro's religious beliefs to convince him to betray his cause, citing that he allies himself with Atheists. Pietro responds that anyone who strives to help others is on that path of God whether they believe in Him or not. They then force Pietro to watch as Giorgio is tortured to death. When Don Pietro still refuses to crack, he is executed.
[edit] Production
In August of 1944, just two months after the Allies had forced the Germans to evacuate Rome, Rossellini, Federico Fellini, and Sergio Amidei began working on the script for the film. The devastation that was the result of the war surrounded them as they wrote the script.
Shooting for the film began in January of 1945. The only two professional actors in the cast were Aldo Fabrizi and Anna Magnani.
Four interior sets were constructed for the most important locations of the film.
Rossellini relied on traditional devices of melodrama, such as identification of the film's central characters and a clear distinction between good and evil characters.
Legend has it that the actual film stock was put together out of many different disparate bits, giving the film its iconic documentary or newsreel style. But when the Cineteca Nazionale restored the print in 1995, "the original negative consisted of just three different types of film: Ferrania C6 for all the outdoor scenes and the more sensitive Agfa Super Pan and Agfa Ultra Rapid for the interiors." The previously inexplicable changes in image brightness and consistency are now blamed on "poor processing (variable development times, insufficient agitation in the developing bath and insufficient fixing)" (Forgacs, 26).
[edit] Exhibition
The film opened in Italy in 1945, with the war damage to Rome not yet repaired. The United States premiere followed on February 1946. The American release was censored, resulting in a duration reduced by about a quarter hour. In Argentina, the movie was inexplicably withdrawn in 1947 following an anonymous government order.
[edit] Awards
- Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival 1946 (ex-aequo with six other movies)
- Nastro d'Argento 1946: "Best Director" (ex-aequo with Alessandro Blasetti e Vittorio De Sica), "Best Scenery", "Best Actress" (to Anna Magnani)
- New York Film Critics 1946: "Best Foreign Film"
- National Board of Review 1946: "Best Actress" (a Anna Magnani)
[edit] Critical response
Since early on, this film has been considered a quintessential example of neorealism in film, so much so that together with Paisà and Germania anno zero it is called Rossellini's "Neorealist Trilogy." Robert Burgoyne called it "the perfect exemplar of this mode of cinematic creation [neorealism] whose established critical definition was given by André Bazin."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Robert Burgoyne, "The Imaginary And The Neo-Real," in Enclitic, 3:1 (Spring, 1979) Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press
- Forgacs, David. Rome Open City. London: BFI, 2000.
- Virginia Lee Warren, "Delayed Censorship," in the New York Times, December 7, 1947
