Rome, Open City: 75 years

On September 24, 1945, the premiere of Roberto Rossellini's film "Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City)" took place in Rome.

There are two conflicting facts about this film. First, initially Italian film distributors accepted Rossellini's creation very coldly, claiming that the film was neither documentary nor fiction. Second, it is believed that it was this film that laid the foundation for the movement that received the name "Italian neorealism", which glorified Italian cinema throughout the world. To understand the reasons for this contradiction, you need to look into the history of this film and the biography of its director.

Roberto Rossellini, being the son of the owner of the first cinema in Rome, was in one way or another connected with cinema since childhood, having tried himself in various professions of filmmaking. During the years of the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, being friends with his son, Roberto Rossellini worked in the official film industry. During the period of the fascist dictatorship, Rossellini made 6 short and 3 full-length feature films, mainly praising the exploits of the soldiers of the Italian fascist army on the fronts of the World War II, including in the Soviet Union (for example, the film "L'uomo dalla croce (The Man with the Cross)" in 1943).

In 1944, immediately after the defeat inflicted by the allied armies on the Italo-German armed forces, Rossellini unexpectedly "regained his sight", according to some information, destroyed copies of some of his films shot under Mussolini, and, like all of Italy, suddenly deployed its bayonets by 180 degrees, also "turned his movie camera and changed its optics." In short, Rossellini decided to hastily create an anti-fascist film.

However, no one wanted to finance the work of the director, known for his apologetics for Mussolinian militarism, in anticipation of the arrival of the Allied troops. Chance helped: one elderly and wealthy Roman woman turned to Rossellini with a request to immortalize in the form of a documentary the memory of her acquaintance, the Catholic priest Don Pietro Morosini, who was shot by the Gestapo for having links with Italian partisans.

The financial resources of the elderly Roman woman, although significant, were still limited. Therefore, when creating the film, Rossellini had to focus on those who were ready to cooperate on a voluntary basis, primarily friends. Sergio Amidei, a well-known figure in Italian cinema, began work on the script. But Amidei, although he had rich experience in screenwriting, mainly specialized in the processing of classic romantic plays into film screenplays. Therefore, Rossellini turned for help to his friend Federico Fellini, who by that time was already known as a screenwriter, but did not dare to start his directing career.

Fellini did not immediately agree to participate in the creation of the script. The fact is that in the outline of the script prepared by that time by the forces of Amidei and Rossellini, much attention was paid to the struggle of the Italian Resistance and one of its leaders, Giorgio Manfredi, who had a real prototype in the person of the communist Celeste Negarville. Fellini generally had a negative attitude towards the activities of the Italian Resistance, especially in the very last months of the presence of the German Nazis in Italy. Fellini believed that the days of the Nazis in Italy were coming to their end, that the allied troops were about to destroy or drive the German army from the Apennines, and the actions of the Resistance only provoke the Nazis to brutal repression against the civilian population. Somehow Rossellini managed to persuade Fellini, but on the condition that Fellini would focus exclusively on the storyline of Don Pietro Pellegrini, whose prototype was the above-mentioned Don Pietro Morosini.

Due to the scarcity of the budget, the shooting of the film was carried out in the real conditions of dilapidated Rome, in which only 2 months before filming there were battles. Most of the roles were played by non-professional actors, and the crowd scenes used captured German soldiers. As a result, the film “Rome, Open City” was created, which was denied wide distribution by Italian film distributors, thereby expressing disapproval of the rapid change in the political orientation of its director and suggesting the same attitude towards the director from the majority of Italian cinema-goers.

But outside of Italy, the film was received with enthusiasm. The first country in which this film was shown after Italy was the United States. Moreover, this film came to the USA not through official channels. Fate literally brought Rossellini to the private of the American army Rod Geiger, who in his barracks bag took the reels with tapes to America. And as a reward he received the mention of his name as one of the producers of the picture. Subsequently, this episode even served as the reason for the trial. The fact is that Federico Fellini, in his memoirs in the 60s, wrote that Geiger was not any producer, but was just a half-drunk soldier who played the role of an ordinary courier. Geiger took offense at this and sued Fellini. Geiger's argument against Fellini's words was the fact that in Rossellini's next film, "Paisan" in 1946, he was again titled as a co-producer. Apparently, such an agreement was between Rossellini and Geiger.

Be that as it may, on February 25, 1946, the premiere of the film "Rome, Open City" took place in New York. And, of course, literally the day after its premiere, The New York Times film columnist Boseley Crowther published his downright rave review of the film. In it, he named Rossellini's film "unquestionably one of the strongest dramatic films yet made about the recent war". As an unconditional merit of the film, he noted that in it "Anger, grim and determined, against the Germans and collaborationists throbs in every sequence and every shot in which the evil ones are shown. Yet the anger is not shrill or hysterical; it is the clarified anger of those who have known and dreaded the cruelty and depravity of men who are their foes. It is anger long since drained of astonishment or outrage."

Along with the laudatory epithets for the film, Crowther states the obvious haste with which this film was created. In addition, he calls it "a strange irony" that this anti-Nazi film was made not just anywhere, but in Italy: "It may seem peculiarly ironic that the first film yet seen hereabouts to dramatize the nature and the spirit of underground resistance in German-held Europe in a superior way—with candid, over-powering realism and with a passionate sense of human fortitude—should be a film made in Italy.And the fact that it was hurriedly put together by a group of artists soon after the liberation of Rome is significant of its fervor and doubtless integrity."

Reviews of other American film critics were also filled with enthusiastic assessments about Rossellini's film (by the way, the guru of American film critic Roger Ebert did not devote a single review to this film or any other Rossellini's film). With this train of accolades, "Rome, Open City" was presented at the First Cannes International Film Festival in 1946, where it won the Grand Prix. However, in fairness it should be noted that by the decision of the jury chaired by the French historian Georges Huisman, on whose initiative the Cannes Film Festival was established, in addition to Rossellini's film, ten more films were awarded the Grand Prix at this festival. Including, for example, the Soviet film "Великий перелом (The Turning Point)" by Friedrich Ermler, the American film "The Lost Weekend" by Billy Wilder, the British film "Brief Encounter" by David Lean. But there were 44 nominees, too. That is, every fourth participant was declared the winner. Like, "all sisters have earrings". By the way, the famous Soviet film director Sergei Gerasimov was part of that jury.

And at the beginning of 1947, the film "Rome, Open City" was nominated for an Oscar. True, only in one category - Best Original Screenplay. After all, the nomination "Best Foreign Language Film" did not exist then. Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini were announced as nominees. But the Oscar did not go to them, because it was awarded to Robert Sherwood, the screenwriter of the film "The Best Years of Our Lives" directed by William Wyler.

And now, taking into account the listed achievements of the film "Rome, Open City", film critics decided that this film laid the foundation for a movement in cinema, which was called "Italian neorealism", and Roberto Rossellini was proclaimed the founder of this movement.

In Germany, this film, despite all its merits, was banned until 1960. And after 1960 it was shown in cinemas in Germany with a cut 15-minute scene of the brutal torture of a fighter of the Italian Resistance by the Gestapo. However, the film was not shown in Soviet cinemas either.

The first film of "Italian neorealism" was highly praised not only by American film critics. The well-known Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev gave R. Rossellini's film 10 points on a 10-point scale and wrote in his review: ““Rome, Open City” should be considered a genuine and, possibly, the only film in the spirit of neorealism. Because it more accurately, in the artistic and ideological terms, was a model of the new truth about reality. Epic, as a document of the struggle of the Resistance Movement, where the Catholic priest Don Pietro Pellegrini and the underground communist Luigi Ferrari, who used the name of Giorgio Manfredi, acted side by side. ... Rossellini's work is majestic as a fresco of Italian life at the end of the war. And it is philosophical - like the story of the eternal struggle between good and evil. Its heroes are not just typical, like the characters in other neorealist pictures. They are like generalizing symbols. And in this sense, they are heroes of philosophical tragedy."

Another Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov gave an equally enthusiastic response to the film "Rome, Open City": “Despite the tragic outcome, the film makes a life-affirming impression, extolling the greatness of the human spirit, which serves as the true guarantee of victory. Infinitely kind and a little ridiculous, Signor Pellegrini will remain all his life an indisputable moral authority and a role model for his young flock - a band of boys who, through an oversight of the executioners, witnessed his execution."

Modern cinema audiences rated the film "Rome, Open City", most likely, much higher than Italian audiences did in 1945. 70% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film ratings from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of the film "Rome, Open City" by Roberto Rossellini according to FilmGourmand is 8.632 and it is 268th in the Golden Thousand.