Great films are those you can watch decades after their making with an even deeper appreciation than on first viewing. One such is Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (Roma Città Aperta).
It was considered to be the first Neorealist film of the most notable era of the Italian cinema and a precursor of the French New Wave. Jean-Luc Godard wrote: “All roads lead to Rome, Open City.” But, in fact, this highly emotional melodrama was a transitional film, coming between the dramatic certainties of Hollywood and the old Italian cinema and an entirely new concept of how films should be made.
Shot in 1945 and set two years earlier — after the dismissal of Mussolini and before the Allied liberation — when the Nazis still controlled the city, the film mixed professional actors such as Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi and Maria Michi with amateurs virtually picked from the street.
It also combined studio sequences with location scenes and used the flat of writer Sergio Amidei for some of the action. There is too much artifice for this to be pure Neorealism but where it does adhere most closely is in Rossellini’s handling of character. Here he captured their courage and tenacity as they fought for their liberty in a world that didn’t want them to be free.
Shot for $25,000 and augmented by dollops of Rossellini and Magnani’s own savings, it was made with bits and pieces of old film stock, which today makes it look almost like a documentary. “I intervene as little as possible,” Rossellini said. “My work is scientific.”
But this wasn’t entirely true of Rome, Open City. The rapacious lesbian Gestapo agent and stereotypical Gestapo chief are certainly interventions, which were afterwards followed by films such as The Conformist, The Damned and The Travelling Players in characterising Nazis as gay.
Even so, Rossellini’s essential humanity and his determination to create a picture as real as possible shines through. His film is evidence that great films don’t have to be perfect to be great.
Rome, Open City is re-released Fri Mar 7 and showing at BFI Southbank, SE1, Curzon Mayfair, W1 and other cinemas.
