ROSSELINI
MISCELLANEA by Howard Hughes
The BFI
has released a three-disc Blu-ray set of Robert Rossellini’s celebrated ‘War
Trilogy’. The three films, Rome, Open
City (1945), Paisà (1946) and Germany Year Zero (1948) are among the
jewels in neorealism’s crown. Set in Italy during the German Occupation and its
aftermath, the first two films depict Italy wartorn and almost on the brink of
capitulation, while the third looks at a post-war Germany shattered by the
conflict.
Rossellini had made three fascist propaganda
films during the war: The White Navy (1941
– detailing hospital ships), A Pilot
Returns (1942 – the air force) and Man
of the Cross (1943 – the Eastern Front). But in the immediate post-war
period his War Trilogy told a very different story of the conflict, often from
a civilian perspective. The Allies invaded Italy, first in Sicily in July 1943
and later the mainland in September of that year. As the liberators fought
their way northward, the Germans exacted terrible revenge on their one-time
allies.
ROME,OPEN CITY
Set in the winter of 1943-44, Rome, Open City depicts the hunt for
Giorgio Manfredi (Marcell Pagliero), a resistance leader in Rome. Another
member of the resistance, Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet), is due to marry
widow Pina (Anna Magnani), but on their wedding day the Gestapo and Italian
fascists raid their apartment block. Later SS Major Bergmann (Harry Feist)
captures Manfredi and also orders the execution of a priest, Don Pietro
Pellegrini (Aldo Fabrizi), who has aided the resistance. Rome, Open City is a powerful film about the German occupation,
made on location and with a strong sense of authenticity. The ‘Open City’
epithet is a reference to Rome being declared an ‘open city’ on 14 August 1943,
meaning that the defenders had abandoned all efforts to protect the city. This
tactic was intended to safeguard the civilian population and the historical
landmarks from street fighting and aerial bombing (Paris had made the same declaration
in 1940, as did Brussels and Oslo). Rome,
Open City headlines Anna Magnani’s star-making role and established
Rossellini on the international stage as a leading light of the neorealist
movement. Mangani’s death scene, outside her house in Via Raimondo Montecuccoli
in Rome, is among the most famous moments in international cinema. The BFI’s
release is a newly-remastered presentation of the film. Also included on the
disc is Children of Open City (2005,
51 mins) a documentary about the making of the film with Vito Annicchiarico
(who played Pina’s son in the film), and an illustrated booklet by Jonathan
Rosenbaum and Paul Fairclough.
PAISÀ
Paisà , my personal favourite of
the trilogy, is perhaps Rossellini’s greatest film. Here the grit and sorrow of
neorealism combines with newsreel combat footage to moving effect. The
six-episode film is set during the Allied campaign to liberate Italy. It begins
in Sicily in 1943 and concludes in the Po Delta in the winter of 1944. In the
first episode, Carmela (Carmela Sazio), a young Sicilian woman, acts as a guide
to a GI patrol on a nighttime patrol. When GI Joe (Robert Van Loon) attempts to
show her a photo of his sister, he strikes a light and a German sniper kills
him. Later the GI’s think Carmela is responsible for Joe’s death. Episode two
is set in Naples. Orphaned street urchin Pasquale (Alfonso Pasca) steals the
boots off drunken American military policeman Joe (Dots Johnson). Later the MP
meets Pasquale again and when he sees Pasquale’s squalid living conditions and
those of other Neapolitan civilians, he realises why the orphan needs to steal
boots. In Rome following the Anzio landings, Sherman tank crewman Fred (Gar
Moore) hitches up with a prostitute. He drunkenly remembers that six months
ago, on his first arrival in Rome, he met a wonderful Roman girl called
Francesca. He is too drunk to realise that the woman he is with is Francesca,
who has been compelled to become a ‘working girl’ to avoid starvation. The film
continues with an episode set during the German retreat north through Tuscan.
In Florence, British nurse Harriet (Harriet White) and Massimo (Enzo Tarascio)
attempt to cross the River Arno: she to contact her lover, Guido Lombardi who
is now heroic partisan leader Lupo (Wolf), he to see his wife and child whose
house is caught up in the fighting. Traversing rooftops and rubble, and
avoiding fascist snipers and patrols, they make contact with partisans in the
German occupied zone. In the next story, at the Gothic Line three US chaplains
– Captain Bill Martin (William Tubbs), Captain Feldman (Elmer Feldman) and
Captain Jones (Newell Jones) – seek shelter in a Franciscan monastery in the
Apennines. The chaplains give the monks Hershey bars and their supplies of
tinned food, but the monks’ attitudes change when they discover that two of the
chaplains are not of the ‘true faith’, but are Jewish and Protestant. In the
final episode, anti-fascist partisans and American OSS operatives fight the Germans
in the Po Delta, south of Venice. This episode is the most actionful and
climaxes with a battle between the partisans and German gunboats on the delta. Paisà depicts the stark reality of war
and its wider impact on society in a way that makes Hollywood and British war
films of the period look inauthentic in comparison. The BFI’s presentation of Paisà includes Into the Future (2009), a 30-minute visual essay on the War Trilogy
by film scholar Tag Gallagher, and an illustrated booklet written by
Gallagher.
GERMANY
YEAR ZERO
Germany Year Zero (1948) was set and filmed
in Berlin in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat. The film follows a German
family, the Köhlers. The father (Ernst Pittschau), a widower, is infirm: the
victim of a weak heart and poor diet. His daughter Eva (Ingetraud Hinze) works
at night as a prostitute and his eldest son Karl-Heinz, an ex-soldier, is in
hiding and fears being carted off to a prison camp. The film’s principal
protagonists, the Köhlers’ youngest son Edmund (Edmund Meschke), falls in with
gangs of petty thieves and street kid urchins, and hawks wares on the street
for his old schoolteacher, Mr Henning (Erich Gühne). Rossellini’s documentary-like
style and good performances ensure the degradation of post-war life in ruined Berlin
is palpable. Piles of real Berlin masonry, as photographed by Robert Juillard,
are the haunting backdrop to the story. The BFI edition is a restored print and
includes a booklet with writing on Rossellini by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith,
Jonathan Rosenbaum and Paul Fairclough. The disk also features Rossellini’s
1948 film, L’amore: Due storie d’amore,
a two-part film starring Anna Magnani, which runs 77 minutes. The first part, A Human Voice, is a screen adaptation of
Jean Cocteau’s La Voix humaine while
the second, The Miracle, was based on
a story by Federico Fellini, who was also the film’s assistant director and
appears in the film as a shepherd.
The three films are available on Blu-ray as a
limited edition numbered boxed set or as individual DVDs. The extras are
comprehensive and enlightening. These are superb presentations of three key
Italian films and as a set are essential purchases for anyone interested in
post-war world cinema.
Blu-ray
product details:
RRP:
£49.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1193 Certificate 12
Variously
in Italian, German and English language, with optional English subtitles/ 301
mins / BD50 x3 / 1080p / 24 fps / PCM mono audio (48k/24-bit) / Region B/2
All
three films are in 1.33:1 screen ratio
Individual
DVD releases RRP £19.99 Region 2
All
text © Howard Hughes 2015
Howard
Hughes is the author of Cinema Italiano:
The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult and When Eagles Dared: The Filmgoers’ History of World War II, both
published by I.B. Tauris.