Open City
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VHS Movie Reviews of Open City
Movie Review: Filmed in Anger
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion and Rossellini's Open City one day apart. Renoir's film about WWI prisoners of war was filled with nuance, ambiguity, and a sense of now muddy the waters are in life.Rosselini's Open City rejected nuance and ambiguity; it was an angry film and understandibly so. Yet both Rosselini's film and Renoir's film attempt to reveal what is noble in humans.
Many criticisms can be made of Rosselini's film--other reviewers have made them--but it is a film that has an impact on the viewer. But the viewer should be reminded of one of Renoir's points: to what exent does the belief in black and white and the belief that good will eventually triumph serve as a grand--but false--illusion.
The viewer of Open City should keep in mind the real world political context of the film: the resistence movement in Italy was often led by communists. This was true in many other European countries during WWII. Rossellini's film certainly presented a communist leader as noble and heroic.
This was a real problem for the US forces which displaced the Germans. Domestic communists often had the most legitimacy of all groups who resisted the Germans. US policies in the immediate post-WWII period often attempted to undercut the political standing of the communists. Some have argued that the post-war Marshall plan for the reconstruction of Europe was based on the attempt to foster pro-business groups in Europe in order to undercut the social standing of communists.
I'm sure that the US post-war European authorities hated Open City because of OC's celebration of the role of communisits.
Movie Review: Five stars for the film - Four stars for the DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an awesomely powerful film - great movie! This is a must-see film for all movie fans worldwide. I loved the characters! They are so memorable - wonderful characters!There are so many subtleties in this film, such as the "inverted" sexuality of the evil Nazi leaders, the cooperation of the Catholic clergy and the Communist rebels, the "good wife" vs her wanna-be starlet younger sister, the future of Italy expressed by the children at the end of the film, etc that it takes several viewings to absorb it all, but the ride is worth it.
The DVD is mastered at somewhat less than perfect standards however and the subtitling is part of the film and not overlaid and clearer in image unfortunately. There are no extras on the DVD, nor is there an audio-commentary track which would have been a wonderful addition! (Maybe next time).
Still, this is a brilliant film and I highly recommend it!!!
Movie Review: Brilliant, But Slightly Dated
Summary: 4 Stars
Photographed on scraps of film abandoned by German forces as they retreated from Rome toward the end of World War II, Roberto Rossellini's OPEN CITY was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of realism when it hit screens around the world in the late 1940s. Seen within the context of its time and with reference to the circumstances under which it was made, OPEN CITY is a staggering accomplishment; even so, by modern standards, it feels visually static and slightly contrived.The great strength of the film is in the direct way Rossellini tells his story of Italian resistance fighters trying to dodge capture by the Nazis in occupied Rome--and in the performances of Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi as two Italians who become increasingly caught up in resistance activities. But time has not been entirely kind to the film: the story seems somewhat superficial, portions of it lack expected intensity, and some performances seem more than a little artificial, with a lesbian subplot, the famous torture scenes, and Maria Mitchi's performance cases in point.
Ironically, these drawbacks actually result from comparisons with later, still more realistic films that followed its example--and it is a great tribute to the strength of the film that it survives the revolution it started as well as it does. (One does well to recall that at the time OPEN CITY was made such slick Hollywood films as MRS. MINIVER were considered the height of realism.) Still, because of these issues I would hesitate to recommend OPEN CITY as an introduction to Italian neo-realism for one not already well-versed in it. But those with an established appreciation of Italian cinema will find it very rewarding.
Movie Review: So dark, and so brilliant.
Summary: 5 Stars
I wonder about some complaints over this DVD. The transfer is fine - it's an old, black-and-white film and for all that looks pretty darn good. Less than 5% of the dialogue is untranslated in subtitles, and as an Italian speaker I can tell you what's left out is insignificant chit chat.See it for the fine performances, the achievement of its making, and for the history it portrays.
Movie Review: Photographing the 'real' to reveal the soul.
Summary: 5 Stars
After Melville's 'Army of Shadows', 'Rome Open City' is the best film about Resistance to the Nazis we have. From the dynamic opening sequence - in which a man, later to be identified as the leader of the (Marxist) Liberation Committee, runs across high-rise rooftops to escape a Gestapo round-up - the tension never lets up. Rossellini concentrates as much on the mundane details of clandestine activities, pumped up by context, as on action: the practicalities of finding somewhere to hide and sleep; the concealing of funds in books; the different codes and signals used to identify comrades. But it is the more familiar aspects of Resistance that carry the most impact - the ambush of prisoner trucks; the unflinching depiction of interrogation and torture (including whips and blowtorches); the ritual of execution.Melville's film was made with the hindsight of three decades, and he was able to emphasise the ambiguity of the Resistance, their own violence echoing that of the SS; their need to live in shadows dissolving, rather than affirming, their identity, forever removed from the society they defend. Filmed in the immediate aftermath of Liberation, there is no such ambiguity in 'Rome'. There are no posturing heroics, but these men are heroes, and every important incident - from arrest to torture to execution, is made into a spectacle, something to be witnessed, affirmed. This is natural enough, and the spiritual showdown between the priest and the Gestapo chief has a fierce power.
Unfortunately, there is a somewhat distasteful division of moral spoils - the Resistance are linked, no matter how loosely, to the Christ-like clergy, family, community, poverty, the nation. Betrayal and collaboration, which is female, is defined by lesbianism, drug-taking, nightclubs and material greed. A woman's role is in the home, taking care of domestic problems, providing invaluable moral support. It is also true that some of the representations of the Nazis that would become cliches in the 60s and 70s - the louchely decadent, sexually perverse, morally defeatist, piano-playing parties in back-rooms - originate here.
'Rome' was the first neo-realist film to win international recognition, and there is an extraordinary immediacy to the external scenes, the sheer novelty of outdoor locations, the rubble of Rome, the lives of ordinary people (caught between the desire to assert normality and the hysterical frustration of doing so in a crisis that is anything but normal), all caught by Rossellini's amazingly supple camera, which seems to catch the very breathlessness of people running (ditto his abrupt editing).
But, at this distance, it is easier to see how contrived Rossellini's realism is, how he is replacing one constructed Truth (Fascist propaganda) with his own. There is none of the sensuousness of sound or location you get in the proto-neo-realism of Renoir or his protege Visconti. Much of the film takes place indoor, with the camera conventionally static - this achieves a certain dramatic force, but one different from 'realism'. The blaring score is pure Hollywood. On the level of subject matter, the widespread collaboration of the population and clergy are displaced onto a couple of unrepresentative moral weaklings; many characters have a too-obvious symbolic value (especially the children).
But the sheer unsentimental passion, the attention to detail, the cinematic adventurousness, the conviction of doing something absolutely NEW and the narrative drive of 'Rome' still give it an impact today that most neo-realism doesn't have.