Roberto Rossellini was one of the seminal directors of the Italian neo-realist era. A filmmaker rooted in documentary style approach, he applied that to chronicling the change in people and places after the trauma of World War II. This was perhaps never more effective than his defining works Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero.
Now Criterion brings together these three connected films with a wealth of extras in this superb package. It’s a fitting release to mark Criterion’s 500th spine number.
Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. And it was with his trilogy of films made during and after World War II — Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero — that he left his first transformative mark on cinema. With their stripped-down aesthetic, largely nonprofessional casts, and unorthodox approaches to storytelling, these intensely emotional works were international sensations and came to define the neorealist movement. Shot in battle-ravaged Italy and Germany, these three films are some of our most lasting, humane documents of devastated postwar Europe, containing universal images of both tragedy and hope.
ROME OPEN CITY
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.
War films often focus on the conflict, the armies, the soldiers. Rome Open City offers an intimate look at a city under Nazi occupation that is no less harrowing. Co-scripted with Federico Fellini, Rome tends towards the more dramatic in comparison to the other films here, but still drips with authenticity, showcasing the filmmakers documentary roots.
Choreographed sentiment against a bleak backdrop, a touching performance from Anna Magnani as a widow, and brief moments of levity from a priest played by Aldo Fabrizi show defiance and hope in the face of despair. Rome packs a punch, with sequences and characters’ fates taking the viewer through a gamut of experiences and emotions to sympathize with those involved in the resistance against the occupation.
PAISAN
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 in its full original release version.
Paisan shakes off the more melodramatic elements of Rome Open City, and in doing so it becomes a far bleaker affair. The film presents six vignettes that chronicle different stories towards the end of the war, as Italy is on the verge of liberation from Germany’s occupation.
Rossellini uses actors and locals to impressive effect, crafting a film with a heightened sense of realism. The connective strand is a group of American soldiers moving through Italy and their encounters with different women at different points throughout the conflict. With this framing, it’s an effective and unsettling look at how war changes people, not just in how they initially respond, but over time.
GERMANY YEAR ZERO
The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin, seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy. Living in a bombed-out apartment building with his sick father and two older siblings, young Edmund is mostly left to wander unsupervised, getting ensnared in the black-market schemes of a group of teenagers and coming under the nefarious influence of a Nazi-sympathizing ex-teacher. Germany Year Zero (Deutschland im Jahre Null) is a daring, gut-wrenching look at the consequences of fascism, for society and the individual.
Set in Berlin in the aftermath of World War II, Germany Year Zero follows a young boy (Edmund Meschke) who was once part of the Hitler youth group. He looks to find his place in the devastation that is his home, and society. He’s also at odds with his father, tarnished by his associations. An Oliver twist figure, largely devoid of hope and anything resembling childhood innocence, he gets caught up in the local black market and underworld dealings as a way to find a place and to survive.
It’s visually the most striking of the three, often conveying in a single image much of the horror Rossellini looks to deliver. It’s stunning imagery that haunts, showing a penance paid, a toll extracted from the people who survived and live in the husk of Berlin. This theme is given greater potency through the life of this child dealing with the aftermath of this conflict.
The Package
The liner notes mention previous releases of these films used “mismatched stock” and “damage from generational elements” in previous releases. After viewing, the restoration is truly impressive. Blacks are deep, detail is impressive, no major flaws are evident. You can see the age and texture of the film; nothing is lost in over-processing, it’s a clean and natural representation.
In this collection, each film is housed in its own cardboard case, which slips into a hard cover-sleeve. The Germany Year Zero case is marginally wider as it houses the accompanying booklet (details on contents below). A wealth of extras are included that replicate the content previously available on the 2010 DVD release.
Special Features:
- Introductions by Roberto Rossellini to all three films: Each running just under 5 minutes, welcome but nothing too in depth as you’d imagine.
- Interviews from 2009 with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà, film critic and Rossellini friend Father Virgilio Fantuzzi, and filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani: Contributions include personal insights, first encounters with the man and his works, and commentaries on Rossellini’s influence on their own career. Features like these are always welcome, with personal anecdotes doing much to add dimension to the filmmaker.
- Audio commentary from 2009 on Rome Open City by film scholar Peter Bondanella: Sadly the only audio commentary present. It’s an interesting listen, touching on technical aspects of filming as well as the themes and characters Rossellini explores.
- Once Upon a Time . . . “Rome Open City,” a 2006 documentary on the making of this historic film, featuring rare archival material and footage of Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini, Ingrid Bergman, and many others: Running just shy of an hour, it combines old footage and interviews to make for a captivating ‘making of’ featurette.
- Rossellini and the City, a 2009 video essay by film scholar Mark Shiel on Rossellini’s use of the urban landscape in The War Trilogy: A visual essay that delves into how Rossellini used the post-War landscapes in his films.
- Excerpts from rarely seen videotaped discussions Rossellini had in 1970 about his craft with faculty and students at Rice University: Some interesting insights into the director’s process.
- Into the Future, a 2009 video essay about The War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher: One of the highlights included here, a superb analysis of the films and their context in regards to the war, and post-war society
- Roberto Rossellini, a 2001 documentary by Carlo Lizzani, assistant director on Germany Year Zero, tracing Rossellini’s career through archival footage and interviews with family members and collaborators, with tributes by filmmakers François Truffaut and Martin Scorsese: Running just over a hour, this documentary serves as a retrospective of Rossellini’s life and career. A very well put together feature.
- Letters from the Front: Carlo Lizzani on “Germany Year Zero,” a podium discussion with Lizzani from the 1987 Tutto Rossellini conference: Lizzani worked as assistant director on Germany Year Zero. In this footage, he shares his memories of filming, framed via his reading of letters he wrote during that time to his friend and critic Antonello Trombardi.
- Italian credits and prologue from Germany Year Zero
- PLUS: Essays by James Quandt, Irene Bignardi, Colin McCabe, and Jonathan Rosenbaum: A handsome enclosed booklet contains essays contributed by these folks who share detailed thoughts on the director and this film trilogy.
The Bottom Line
Rossellini’s War Trilogy is a mesmerizing and often haunting piece of cinema. It shows lives and landscapes changed by the traumatic events of World War II in a way that no other group of films has to date. A impressive body of work, given a handsome treatment and release by Criterion.
Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy is available via Criterion from July 11th
