|
|
 |
|
Few films are as central to the history of cinema as Rome Open City; “all roads lead to Roma Città Aperta,” Godard said. Not
only did it introduce the world to a revolutionary new film movement
(neorealism), but also to a major new dramatic actress: Anna Magnani. Shot in
the war-torn streets of Rome,
using remnants of film stock and relying on erratic electricity, Open City focuses on a resistance leader
who, fleeing the Gestapo, takes refuge with an ally and his pregnant fiancée
(Magnani). Much has been made of the film’s newsreel-like rawness and
immediacy, its use of natural light, actual settings, and non-professional
actors. But, as has also long been noted, the film is strange as a standard
bearer of neorealism. Many of the performances are stylized, the plot often
melodramatic, and the expressionistic portrait of the Nazis is an instance of
the leftist Italian cinema’s insistent connection between “sexual deviance” and
Fascism. (Pauline Kael refers to “such stock elements as a rapacious lesbian
Gestapo agent and a Hollywood-and-Vine type Gestapo chief.”) Whether
appreciated as an emotional tour de force – Magnani rips your heart out – or as
a “contradictory text,” Rome Open City
is compulsory viewing.
| | |