Open City
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VHS Movie Reviews of Open City
Movie Review: Prompt and perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
Prompt and perfect.....and, of course, A Classic (for this American guy and his bella Italian wife)Movie Review: Unique and Powerful.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to agree with a couple of the reviewers here that this film is rather dated, but I can think of few movies from the late forties, even the great ones, that the same thing can't be said about. Open City captivates the viewer almost immediately as it is a moving story. With our first glimpse of Manfredi on the balcony we get a pretty good idea about what the plot will concern. I found it to be legitimately suspenseful and a classic in every sense of the word. One must remember that artists like Rossellini were the building blocks with which our contemporary cinema was erected. There's much that's "great" about this movie. The only contrived element, in my mind, was the speech of the German soldier at the very end which was not believable, but at that time it was the first self-denigrating speech of its kind. What is clich?d and hackneyed to us now was breathtakingly new back then. Considering that many of its actors had no acting experience whatever, Open City is an amazing endeavor. Movie Review: Unique and Powerful.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to agree with a couple of the reviewers here that this film is rather dated, but I can think of few movies from the late forties, even the great ones, that the same thing can't be said about. Open City captivates the viewer almost immediately as it is a moving story. With our first glimpse of Manfredi on the balcony we get a pretty good idea about what the plot will concern. I found it to be legitimately suspenseful and a classic in every sense of the word. One must remember that artists like Rossellini were the building blocks with which our contemporary cinema was erected. There's much that's "great" about this movie. The only contrived element, in my mind, was the speech of the German soldier at the very end which was not believable, but at that time it was the first self-denigrating speech of its kind. What is clich?d and hackneyed to us now was breathtakingly new back then. Considering that many of its actors had no acting experience whatever, Open City is an amazing endeavor. Movie Review: A most enduring and powerful classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Open City is a classic that nearly defies classification of genre. Although hailed by serious critics as a neorealist masterpiece, and understandably so, it's strength, ironically, lies in its starker resemblence to melodrama, similar to Luchino Visconti's The Damned. What makes Open City a masterpiece is not only its trim, forceful screenplay but Rossellini's ability to utilize the wartime, grainy film stock and presence of the actual, newly defeated fascist army to portray a sense of immediate reality of the occupation and those who so courageously fought against the fascists. Open City's plot and characters are black and white, because, to the courageous resistance fighters in fascist occupied Rome, there was no luxury of quibbling over nuances and perspective. Rossellini's filmmaking, such as his meticulously judicious use of closeups, is still one of the most meticulous of any director to this day. This film is an enduring film classic that should be seen by not only students of film but all young people. Open City's stark characterization need to be understood in the context of the situation. Audiences can, with hindsight, make good sense of Rossellini's choices and contextualize them as they gain appreciation for this beauty of film classics.Movie Review: DVD quality poor...Actual Movie Excellent.
Summary: 3 Stars
A beautiful and gripping story is marred by the use of poor movie print when transferred to DVD. I would have to believe there is a better copy of the movie available to transfer to DVD. A five star movie is reduced to 3 stars by the poor DVD.