Rome, Open City
1945
Based on true the story of Don Morosi, a priest and Resistance worker shot by the Germans in wartime Rome, Roberto Rossellini's first feature after the Mussolini era has become synonymous with Italian neo-realism. Shot on the locations where the events actually happened, using hand-held cameras, film bought from street .. Read more
| Starring | Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi |
|---|---|
| Director | Roberto Rossellini |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Rome, Open City
Based on true the story of Don Morosi, a priest and Resistance worker shot by the Germans in wartime Rome, Roberto Rossellini's first feature after the Mussolini era has become synonymous with Italian neo-realism. Shot on the locations where the events actually happened, using hand-held cameras, film bought from street photographers, and a largely non-professional cast, Rome, Open City still retains its remarkable immediacy, its sense of life captured as it happens.
| Starring | Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi |
|---|---|
| Director | Roberto Rossellini |
| Studio | ARROW FILMS |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 37 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Italian |
| Released | DVD: 28 Mar 2005 Production year: 1945 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Roberto Rossellini came to international prominence with this emotive Cannes Grand Prize-winning resistance drama, which formed part of a wartime trilogy that was completed by 1946's Paisà and 1947's Germany, Year Zero. Based on actual events, this is set during the last days of the Nazi occupation of Rome and was shot on location using fragments of painstakingly spliced film stills. It's a landmark of neorealist cinema, despite the melodramatic storyline, montage structure and star performances (from Aldo Fabrizi and Anna Magnani at the head of a primarily non-professional cast) somewhat undermining the social commitment, visual authenticity and technical rigour demanded by the movement's intellectual founder, Cesare Zavattini.
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Rossellini's film, one of the definitive works of the Italian neo-realist period, was shot under extremely difficult... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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23 out of 27 people found this review helpful
Essential
I came to this film pretty damn eagerly as according to myth and legend its the film where Rosselini single handedly invents my beloved Italian cinema (OK Fellini helped with the script - You can actually spot bits and go 'I bet that was Fellini'). It does not dissappoint and remains fresh as a daisy after all these years. Its one of those films that brings home to you how little the art of film making has changed over the decades. Again and again you sit there watching the old mise en scene thinking that if you were to film it tomorrow, you'd probably want to do something pretty similar. Essential viewing for film fans, then.
As for the film itself, a based-on-fact drama about war-time oppression in Rome it remains gripping and moving. Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi, comic actors (at the time) were cast against type, a bold decision but one that invests the characters they play with a sense of everyday people caught up in tragic events. Rosselini keeps himself from portraying the doomed resistance leaders as victims, instead showing their refusal to submit to torture as a herioc act of rebellion, and even gives the Nazi's a conscience in the voice of a drunken officer who's seen too much.
The major pay-off though, is the portrait of the city itself. Rome is an amazing place, no less in the glum backstreets Roma, Citta Aperta, than at the Fontana Trevi. Taking his camera and crew onto the streets was Rosselini's great stroke of genius, and the influence on later film makers, from Mike Leigh to Martin Scorcese is incalculable. Essential viewing. -
Most recent members' review
View all -
23 out of 27 people found this review helpful
Essential
I came to this film pretty damn eagerly as according to myth and legend its the film where Rosselini single handedly invents my beloved Italian cinema (OK Fellini helped with the script - You can actually spot bits and go 'I bet that was Fellini'). It does not dissappoint and remains fresh as a daisy after all these years. Its one of those films that brings home to you how little the art of film making has changed over the decades. Again and again you sit there watching the old mise en scene thinking that if you were to film it tomorrow, you'd probably want to do something pretty similar. Essential viewing for film fans, then.
As for the film itself, a based-on-fact drama about war-time oppression in Rome it remains gripping and moving. Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi, comic actors (at the time) were cast against type, a bold decision but one that invests the characters they play with a sense of everyday people caught up in tragic events. Rosselini keeps himself from portraying the doomed resistance leaders as victims, instead showing their refusal to submit to torture as a herioc act of rebellion, and even gives the Nazi's a conscience in the voice of a drunken officer who's seen too much.
The major pay-off though, is the portrait of the city itself. Rome is an amazing place, no less in the glum backstreets Roma, Citta Aperta, than at the Fontana Trevi. Taking his camera and crew onto the streets was Rosselini's great stroke of genius, and the influence on later film makers, from Mike Leigh to Martin Scorcese is incalculable. Essential viewing. -
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