Italy, Estonia
1946
120 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
English, German, Italian
498
Roberto Rossellini’s follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan (Paisà), which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, and taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley. With its documentary-like visuals and its intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, Italians and their American liberators, this look at the struggles of different cultures to communicate and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances is equal parts charming sentiment and vivid reality. A long-missing treasure of Italian cinema, Paisan is available here for the first time in its full original release version.
| Carmela | Carmela Sazio |
| Joe (first episode) | Robert Van Loon |
| Joe (second episode) | Dots M. Johnson |
| Francesca | Maria Michi |
| Fred | Gar Moore |
| Harriet | Harriet White |
| Massimo | Renzo Avanzo |
| Captain Bill Martin | Bill Tubbs |
| The friar guardian | Father Vincenzo Carrella |
| Dale | Dale Edmonds |
| Director | Roberto Rossellini |
| Producer | Roberto Rossellini |
| with the participation of | Rod E. Geiger |
| Screenplay | Sergio Amidei, Klaus Mann, Federico Fellini, Marcello Pagliero, Alfred Hayes and Roberto Rossellini |
| Cinematography | Otello Martelli |
| Sound | Ovidio Del Grande |
| Music | Renzo Rossellini |
| Editing | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Assistant directors | Massimo Mida and Federico Fellini |
The critics agree that Criterion’s release of Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy, featuring major restorations of the unassailable landmarks of Italian cinema Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero, is something of a landmark . . .
Roberto Rossellini’s second postwar film was released in the United States as Paisan, and one can understand why the distributors wanted to use a title familiar to many Americans as meaning “friend” . . .
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