Italy
1945
100 minutes
Black and White
1.37:1
German, Italian
497
This was Roberto Rossellini’s revelation, a harrowing drama about the Nazi occupation of Rome and the brave few who struggled against it. Though told with more melodramatic flair than the other films that would form this trilogy and starring some well-known actors—Aldo Fabrizi as a priest helping the partisan cause and Anna Magnani in her breakthrough role as the fiancée of a resistance member—Rome Open City (Roma città aperta) is a shockingly authentic experience, conceived and directed amid the ruin of World War II, with immediacy in every frame. Marking a watershed moment in Italian cinema, this galvanic work garnered awards around the globe and left the beginnings of a new film movement in its wake.
| Don Pietro Pellegrini | Aldo Fabrizi |
| Pina | Anna Magnani |
| Giorgio Manfredi | Marcello Pagliero |
| Marcello | Vito Annicchiarico |
| Agostino | Nando Bruno |
| Major Bergman | Harry Feist |
| Ingrid | Giovanna Galletti |
| Director | Roberto Rossellini |
| Screenplay | Sergio Amidei |
| with the participation of | Federico Fellini |
| Cinematography | Ubaldo Arata |
| Editing | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Art director | Rosario Megna |
| Music | Renzo Rossellini |
| Assistant director | Sergio Amidei |
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 . . .
"All roads lead to Rome Open City,” Jean-Luc Godard once said, playing on the old Italian proverb—and meaning, we can assume, that when thinking about . . .
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