Born Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (1906-1977) a director who was to be so astoundingly prolific even considering the fact that his work was for the most part resolutely noncommercial, with the exception of neo-realism's brief dalliance with its early moments of glory. Roberto Rossellini's output tended to be divided into separate periods : 'Fascist' (1941-1943); neo-realist (1945-1950); a quintet of films produced between 1949 and 1954 and a singular episode of the portmanteau series We, the Women which starred Ingrid Bergman who married Rossellini in the year 1950 amid a major scandal and divorced him eight years later after a minor one; the Indian documentaries (India;Matri Bhumi), war and historical films and stabs at commercial cinema during 1957-63; the specifically made for television documentaries and historical reconstruction of 1964 onward. Yet he was unwavering in his quest for truth and reality as he deemed them even in the most unpromising of circumstances. Rossellini himself pointed to 'the documentary attitude of observation and analysis,' to a 'perpetual return to fantasy,' and to effective spirituality' (as opposed to specific religious faith) as recurrent elements.
To Rossellini, what was of the essence of the technique was that which can not be learned, that certain doesn't mean a thing lest the swing - 'You feel when the point is made' and that was what the director believed to be the true rhythm of art. He always believed that truth comes as a result of the waiting and then it is ultimately unfolded. Rossellini also held the tenet that traditional narrative forms were overly manipulative of emotions and concepts. He eschewed scenarios and balked at the concept of a dialogue that was complete down to the last gritty detail, Rossellini's preference was to depend on the inspiration of the moment and of the place and of the actors. Following Rome, Open City, and Paisa (Paisan,1946), which commemorated the progression of wartime liberation from the South to the North in six episodes, his best known works are Germania, Anno Zero (Germany,Year Zero,1947), Il Miracolo (The Miracle), the second episode of L'amore (Love,1948), in which actress Anna Magnani played a simple village woman who gets impregnated by a vagabond (Federico Fellini) whom she simultaneously believes to be St Joseph, two starring wife Bergman, Stromboli, Terra di dio (Stromboli,1950), set on a volcanic island, and Viaggio in Italia (Journey to Italy,1954), with George Sanders and the French made for television film 1954's La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (The Rise of Louis XIV) that was also widely screened in art-houses.
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| Taxiiiiiiiiiiiii |
Among the elder directors to attempt the neo-realist style was Aldo Vergano with the impressive Resistance film Il sole sorge ancora (Outcry,1946). One of its writers, ex-critic Giuseppe De Santis, made his own debut with Caccia tragica (The Tragic Pursuit,1947), a story of peasant farmers chasing bandits during the Emilia of the post-war period co-scripted by Michelangelo Antonioni A Lux film production from De Santis, Riso amaro (Bitter Rice,1949) a noir-inspired effort that was written by not only De Santis, but seven co-writers and was intended as social criticism of the exploitation of workers in the Po valley rice fields. The film was carried to international success by the liberally displayed physique of Silvana Mangano who married legendary film producer Dino De Laurentis at the age of nineteen. Less popular was Non c'e pace tra gli ulivi (No Peace Under the Olive Tree,1950) this one boasted six seperate writers including De Santis and Gianni Puccini and it was shot in De Santis' native region of Ciociara. Rossellini would return to the city in Roma Ore 11 (Rome 11 o'clock,1952) which was based on a real-life tragedy, when a staircase collapsed under the weight of a few hundred girls who showed up cattle-call style in hopes to fill a secretary position in a Roman office. Meanwhile his assistant on the first three films, another communist critic, Carlo Lizzani, had made a belated start with Achtung! Banditi! (Attention!Bandits!,1952) starring Gina Lollobrigida.
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| Collapse of a Roman Empire at 11'oclock |
Among Lollobrigida's (and Mangano's) earliest films was Alberto Lattuada's Il delitto di Giovanni Episcopo (Flesh Will Surrender,1947). It was co-penned by Federico Fellini, as were Lattuada's Senza Pieta (Without Pity,1948), Il mulino del po (The Mill on the River,1949) and Luci del varieta (Variety Lights,1950), the last of which, a music-hall story, Fellini would co-direct and co-write Rossellini's Rome, Open City, Paisa, The Miracle and Francesco, Giullare di Dio (Flowers of St. Francis,1950), as well as Pietro Germi's very first Sicilian film, In nome della legge (In the Name of the Law,1949), and his tale of illegal immigration into France, Il cammino della speranza (Path of Hope,1950). Luigi Zampa made his mark with Vivere in pace (To Live in Peace,1947) and Anni difficili (Difficult Years,1948).
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| From Antonioni's first feature Cronoca di un amore (1950) Lucia Bose and Massimo Girotti |
After a number of documentaries produced, Antonioni would embark on directing his first feature, Cronaca di un amore (Chronicle of a Love) in 1950; it concerned a young wife's adultery and plot to murder her husband in a swank Milanese setting, contrasted with the working-class background of her lover, from which she also originated. Antonioni was only rarely to deal with working-class life thereafter, an in this as well as in his frequently elegant visual style he seemed already to be inaugurating a post-neo-realist phase.