Open City
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VHS Movie Reviews of Open City
Movie Review: Rossellini's Breakthrough
Summary: 3 Stars
Italian film owes much to Roberto Rossellini. World film owes him more than he's worth, I'm afraid. Made under some of the most impoverished conditions an underground film ever had to face, Rome Open City has its moments of almost "documentary" realness. But then Rossellini had to tell a hopelessly melodramatic story of partisans betrayed by faithless women (most assuredly not Anna Magnani!) tortured by Nazis without betraying a single comrade, while an Italian priest watches over it all like Edmond O'Brien and invokes the wrath of God on the Germans. Far less "neo-realist" than propagandistic. Yet Rossellini got a career (and Ingrid Bergman) out of it.Movie Review: Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
A Great film ..filled with the emotion of the times. It was here that Rosselini hired an assistant named Frederico Fellini to help him with this film.This film frames this postwar period like none other..passionate.
Movie Review: Great film but poor subtile ( DVD version )
Summary: 4 Stars
I hope Amazon can change their rating system so that I can give this film a fair rating. This is a great film ( 5 stars ) but quality of DVD is not great ( 2-3 stars )although still watchable. My biggest complaint is that Image Ent has done such a bad job on subtile which is not only brief but about 20% of dialogue were not even translated. Maybe the VHS tape version is a better choice. Just want to alert other DVD collectors.Movie Review: One of the Finest Pictures Ever Made
Summary: 5 Stars
Open City is a film that I had heard of once, vaguely, in a magazine article, a title that for some reason had stuck in my head until I came across it in a video store years later. Interested, my memory sparked by the title, I decided to give it a try. As a film student I felt obligated to see something other than American dramas.Having seen the film in the privacy of my studio apartment, in all the breathtaking expanse of my thirteen-inch television screen, I can only say that this film must have felt like an event to anyone who had the good fortune to see it on the big screen. I am unable to forget several of the scenes, not that I would ever want to, and much of the film's commentary is valid to this day -- a mark of a truly timeless film, one which was born out of one kind of suffering and still speaks to us this day, fifty years later.
The performances are subtle, the sentiment universal, and the cinematography precise and memorable, offering up haunting visions of hope and hopelessness for generations of people who will never have to suffer through the kind of war the Italians and countless others did in World War II. Perhaps anyone who ever considers waging war in the future should be encouraged to watch a handful of films on the subject, and perhaps Open City should be chief among them. This is a film that will stay with you long after the final scene, long after the final vision of hope is cast out and reborn.
Movie Review: In the smallest list of the greatest films of all time
Summary: 5 Stars
Open City is generally considered to be in the top ten films of all time in terms of historical cinematic importance, stylistic achievement, and emotional power. It established the modern film, using available light, actual settings and a mix of theatrical and non-theatrical actors. Its musical score is breathtaking. It remains the first modern film, the first Italian neo-realist film, and possibly the most powerful film ever made. I have seen it three times in a theatre. Each time, virtually the entire audience was overwhelmed, sobbing uncontrolably at the end of the picture. There has been so much written about this picture, I will only mention a few details. It was shot in Rome using captured German newsreal film as the Nazis left town. (Which is the reason the film quality bounces around as the differing film stocks were used.) When Ingrid Bergman saw the picture, she fell in love with the director she had never met, left her husband, flew to Italy, and married Rossellini.
There are too many great scenes to list. Let me just say that the near-final scene when the little priest damns the German officer and then apologizes to God is, for me, the single greatest moment in film.
Open City should be seen and owned by anyone interested in the movies.