Roberto Rossellini's Roma, Città Aperta (known in English as Open City) was one of the landmark films of the 1940s on several levels. Aesthetically, it was one of the first major works of Italian neorealist filmmaking and perhaps the single most influential example of the style. Historically, it was among the first postwar European films to gain a significant audience in the United States, opening the door for a greater appreciation of international filmmaking in America. And politically, it was
a work of tremendous bravery. The screenplay was written by Roberto Rossellini in association with Federico Fellini and Sergio Amidei while Rome was still occupied by German forces in 1943-44. Rossellini began filming in secret, using scavenged film stock without sound equipment, shortly before the city was liberated in June of 1944. Several key members of his creative team had been active in the Italian resistance movement. With its rough, documentary-style look, multi-layered narrative, and a cast that mixed amateurs with actors who didn't look like film stars, Roma, Città Aperta captured the harsh and unforgiving textures of real life as few movies of its time had dared. It set the pace for Italian Neorealism as an influential postwar film style that combined outdoor light and location shooting with non-actors, a focus on simple stories of everyday life, and a concern for the poor and for social problems. Roma, Città Aperta shows the lives of a group of people living in Rome during the Nazi occupation, after the Germans had declared it an "open city." Anna Magnani plays a woman in love with a member of a resistance group; in helping him, she risks not only her own life, but also that of her unborn child. Aldo Fabrizi plays a priest who aids the anti-Nazi cause and pays dearly for his activism. Marcello Pagliero is an outspoken communist who runs afoul of the Nazis. And Harry Feist plays a German officer who has taken an Italian lover, but whose affection for Romans does not run especially deep. While Roma, Città Aperta shows flashes of the melodramatic sentimentality that would mark much of Rossellini's later work, it still rings true as a chronicle of a city under siege and as the genesis of a powerful new film style whose influences include such later filmmakers, among many others, as John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Spike Lee. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Its realistic treatment of everyday Italian life heralded the postwar renaissance of the Italian cinema and the development of neorealism; the film astonished audiences around the world and remains a masterpiece.
its rough, newsreel-like aesthetic gives the story's undeniably melodramatic tensions and clear-cut depictions of good and evil a sense of gritty reality and true gravity
Roberto Rossellini had been a journeyman director working within Mussolini's Italian film industry when he redefined his career and all but inaugurated the neo-realist movement...
Announcing the arrival of a new, revolutionary paradigm, Italian neorealism, Rossellini's masterpiece shows the tension between his realistic docu-style and use of some melodramatic devices, but flaws are overcome by unified vision and political fervor
Stunned audiences the world over recognized in it an unmediated authenticity more evocative of the documentary quality of wartime newsreels than of conventional WWII dramas.
Pedra fundamental do neo-realismo italiano, o filme traz atuações marcantes de Magnani e Fabrizi e ainda hoje (quase seis décadas desde sua realização) provoca forte impacto.
altho not the first nor the definitive neorealist film, it was the one that caught the world's attention. filmed in the streets under difficult circumstances shortly after rome's liberation and still thrilling to watch, the film follows resistance fighters and ordinary people trying to get on with their lives in the
wake of nazi occupation. the criterion edition with high def digital transfer looks terrific. if you've tried watching this before but was put off by poor picture quality and bad subtitles check it out now :)
November 21, 2010
Stella Dallas
Super Reviewer
A great early Italian Neo-Realism film, a must see.
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