Roberto Rossellini: War Trilogy (The Criterion Collection)

Wow, a week after this has been released there's still no reviews. I'd like to think that's because this set is jammed with such great content--movies and extras--that even the early adopters are still absorbing it.

It seems that Criterion thought long and hard about release #500. And it shows. These are three extraordinary movies. They're all over 60 years old, but they still pack an emotional and cinematic wallop.

"Open City" is the most familiar and revered title here. It has lost little of it's power or immediacy. Maybe the melodrama is a bit more obvious to our jaded 21st century sensibilities, but that doesn't mean you won't get caught up in the story. Short, plump Aldo Fabrizi plays one of the least unlikely resistance heroes imaginable, and Anna Magnani is nothing short of iconic. This may not be the birth of Italian Neo-realism, but it's certainly a precocious infancy.

"Paisan," here in its first US DVD release, was Rossellini's follow-up to "Open City." It seems to beg the question, how imperfect can a movie be and still be great? The acting is uneven to say the least (arguably the amateurs are more convincing that the professionals), not all of the six short story-like episodes are equally compelling, and most of them end with an unsatisfying abruptness. But on some very basic level, these imperfections just don't matter. In one of the special features, Martin Scorcese makes a very telling distinction between "realism" and "authenticity" and this film never feels less than authentic, often chillingly so.

"Germany Year Zero" is the most problematic of the films, if only because it's so heartbreaking, few people will want to sit through it more than once. It's nonetheless an amazng feat of sympathetic imagination, as Rossellini brings neo-realism to the ravaged streets of post-war Berlin. It's almost as if he's apologizing for depicting the Germans in "Open City" as so single-mindedly villianous.

I've blathered on and on yet I've barely scratched the surface. Virtually all the extra features are worthwhile, especially Adriano Apra's comments on each film. Picture quality, though imperfect, is far superior to the previous releases of "Open City" and "Germany Year Zero." Sadly, only "Open City" includes a commentary track, but more so than a lot of great movies, these films speak for themselves. An essential purchase for film buffs.

Two of these three Rossellini films made at the very end of WWll are considered classics: Rome, Open City, and Paisan. The third film, the disturbing Germany Year Zero has always been controversial and was a failure, though it is loved dearly by some.

The copies of the films are fantastic, especially Rome, Open City and Germany Year Zero, pristine, sharply focused black and white and Rossellini's great mastery of light, shadow and intensity and contrast of that palette is astoundingly captured. Paisan is a very good copy, though some shots are a little dim or faded looking. For those who know Rome and Paisan from VHS copies that circulated there is no comparison in any sense -- these are tremendously vivid, absolutely complete (the VHS copies I owned clipped small sections and had jumpy cuts), with superb sound tracks (that means tolerating Rossellini's brother's music which can be intrusive, especially in Paisan though one must assume auteur Rossellini wanted this since he was notoriously a complete control freak.)

Most people with any interest in film will know that Rome, Open City stunned Europe and was credited with creating a movement called 'neo-realism', though one of the late interviews with Rossellini included in the many invaluable extras shows him mocking the term. Whatever one calls it, much that happened in European film in the late forties and early 50's was influenced by both this film and Paisan -- Godard and Truffaut not to mention Fellini (who had his first serious film jobs assisting Rossellini on Rome and Paisan), De Sica and a host of others all traced their choices back to Rossellini's courage and vision.

Rossellini in that interview is a little defensive about Rome, Open City and the extras include the flamboyant stories of its making -- not all true (electricity was stolen -- true -- film stock had to be begged, borrowed or stolen and there was very little available, much of it of poor quality -- true; the film, contrary to standard claims, was not improvised at all, there was a completely written script shot precisely as written. Only a few of the prominent actors were amateurs, the great Anna Magnani was a well known film and stage actress and Aldo Fabrizi, the priest, was a big movie star though as a comic -- it was on his fame that Rossellini was able to raise his tiny budget). All the interiors were shot in a small film studio, not on location; the few exterior shots included serious risks though the one where Magnani chases after her finance who the Germans have seized and herded into a truck along with other men only to be shot as he screams at her to go back has to be one of the most memorable scenes in all of movie history even if her performance is a little operatic. Fabrizi is clearly more comfortable and convincing in the mildly quirky or funny scenes (probably written by Fellini)than when he needs to be very serious or righteous in facing the Nazi villain (glycerine tears are clearly used for him in one scene). But the scenes of his execution are very moving and the final image of his pupils, they've sneaked out of the city to see him die, slowly roaming off back to Rome is another unforgettable image.

Paisan is a different matter. This was entirely improvised though Klaus Mann (son of Thomas) had written a detailed scenario and another American, Alfred Hayes, had written a script. Rossellini discarded both except for a sequence in Rome written by Hayes -- the weakest stretch of the movie. It is six episodes, all short stories, though only a few have a neat beginning, middle and end. All but one of the performers was an amateur, the Italians were found in the different locations. The best of these are the story in Naples where a black G.I. meets up with a street urchin who is not to be trusted. The ruins of Naples, the drunk G.I. stumbling into a traditional Neapolitan puppet show (I suspect a Fellini idea), the street life of the jammed but ruined city and the devastating final scene are amazing. The final story where a group of Partisans and GI's (all cast from life) are hemmed in and eventually slaughtered by a small group of ruthless Germans on the marshes of the Po is stunning from every angle and was a tremendous influence on post war avant-garde film making.

Germany Year Zero is so horrifying it's hard to get to grips with. A young boy in a devastated Berlin where the Germans are starving is the sole support of a dysfunctional family and eventually takes drastic action. The story seems forced to some but the way it is shot and Rossellini's evident identification with the desperate, terrified and confused child carries one through some obvious contrivances. This has several brilliantly managed exterior scenes of the boy wandering in despair through the bombed out city that are tough to sit through but worth it.

The features are amazing, consistently interesting, sophisticated, enormously informative even when commentators contradict one another. A film about how the movies were assembled is revelatory. A photo montage of Rossellini's until now mysterious affair with a German woman (while he was married and seeing other women, he left her for the impossible Magnani much to his eventual regret) is stunning and moving.

When the films were shown on French TV Rossellini recorded introductions (watch the movies first) and those are invaluable. But some issues about Rossellini are scanted -- his earlier work in the Fascist film industry, which eventually cost him much of his popularity in Italy when it was revealed, the details of his monstrously difficult personality are left a little vague (though the letters written to and read by his only Italian collaborator on Germany year Zero, which include references to his idiosyncratic interaction with the slightly crazy Marlene Dietrich certainly convey a lot).

There is also his use of homosexuality to demonstrate the most unthinkable of all evils (the swishy but vicious Gestapo officer, his looming lesbian sidekick in Rome, Open City -- as though the Nazis tolerated open or even suspected homosexuals, they imprisoned or killed those they caught and none could have made a career in the Gestapo of all organizations, the pedophiles in Germany year Zero -- more plausible, maybe, but handled with a heavy hand) -- that's disturbing (in one of the late interviews Rossellini seems to apologize for this but doesn't go into detail). So he wasn't perfect or simple...

But this is the sort of treatment all great films should get and I can't imagine being without it.

Excellent ! A perfect collection of the war that I was in. Robertto Rossellini captured the human side of the WAR. A must have collection.