Roberto Rossellini: Italian neorealism’s most potent force
One of the easiest ways to assess and gauge the impact any director has made on cinema is by the calibre of filmmakers they inspired in the years to come, and in that regard, it’s beyond reproach that Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential in history.
Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini both collaborated with Rossellini at the beginning of their careers and viewed him as a mentor figure, and it was his work that first illustrated “the power of cinema” to Martin Scorsese, while Luca Guadagnino listed four of his features among his own ten personal favourites, with Wes Anderson another lauded auteur to celebrate the shadow he cast over the entire medium.
The neorealism movement may have only lasted roughly a decade, but it was a transformative period for cinema, with traditional barriers being broken down and subverted in favour of a more naturalistic, socially-conscious approach to structuring and shooting films. Rossellini was at the forefront alongside Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, described by the British Film Institute’s Giulia Saccogna as “the canonical trio” of the cinematic paradigm shift, despite being “three very different directors”.
Born from the harsh realities of the World War II era, the socio-economic upheaval opened the door for Rossellini and the neorealist figureheads to shine a raw, unflinching, and unfiltered light on the everyday realities of post-war Italy, with the resilience of the working population in the face of constant adversity and hardship quickly establishing itself as one of its most prominent – and important – motifs.
A crucial part of neorealism – and Rossellini’s approach at large – was both the desire and willingness to ignore the boundaries of what cinematic storytelling had become. Intentionally avoiding classicism, structure, and convention in a typical sense, there was a naturalistic feeling and improvisational style to his work, with untrained or non-professional actors and tangible on-location shoots adding extra immersion and authenticity to his productions.
Blurring the lines between cinema as entertainment and a means to critique the circumstances of the time, Rossellini deftly balanced his artistry and immaculate compositions with thematic undercurrents ready, willing, and able to critique those roaming the corridors of power, which was rendered truer than ever in his 1945 breakthrough feature Rome, Open City, which first raised his profile to international levels.
One of the first post-war Italian films to gain worldwide attention, Rossellini’s unvarnished drama casts its eye over an eclectic group of characters dealing with the Nazi occupation of the titular city in 1944. In addition to an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ and a Palme d’Or victory, it distilled the essence of what Italian neorealism was to its purest form. Although the director maintained he’d been exploring similar territory in 1941’s The White Ship, it was Rome, Open City that opened the doors to the world sitting up and taking notice of what would soon become a defining period in cinema history.
The following year’s Paisan and 1948’s Germany, Year Zero are often referred to as Rossellini’s ‘War Trilogy’ for the way they individually and collectively examine the cost of war on the human populace, the desire to seek redemption in the face of its eventual end, and the explorations of trauma, loss, and resilience that defined both the characters within the context of their stories, and Italy’s own approach to the difficult post-war years to expertly weave together the micro and macro across several seminal features.
Reconstruction was a key term on a narrative, thematic, figurative, and literal level of Rossellini’s neorealist work, posing pertinent moral and existential questions on how the people caught in the destructive aspects of World War II could forgive, forget, and rebuild their lives in the face of a conflict that had rocked the entirety of society to its very foundations. The power of the human spirit was crucial to this approach, with a glimmer of hope remaining visible even in the darkest moments of his films.
Throughout it all, Rossellini remained a singular talent who bowed to no one. His style was often experimental and antithetical to the norm and not without controversy on occasion. 1948’s anthology L’Amore was banned in the United States for four years after being declared blasphemous, and his off-camera dalliances found him in the headlines, but his influence remains undimmed.
Given his lauded position among the key figures in the movement, it’s ironic that Rossellini wasn’t entirely enamoured by the definition of the term to which he’s so intrinsically associated, once saying that “my own personal neorealism is nothing but a moral stance that can be expressed in four words; love of one’s neighbour”. And yet, history will always remember him as one of its most important figures.
Chasing the Real: Italian Neorealism is at BFI Southbank from May 1st – June 30th, with selected films also available to watch on BFI Player.
Rome, Open City is re-released by the BFI in selected cinemas from May 17th.