A close analysis of the seven films that mark important turning points in Rossellini's evolution: The Man with a Cross (1943), Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), The Machine to Kill Bad People (1948-52), Voyage in Italy (1953), to General della Rovere(1959), and The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966).
Roberto Rossellini's Rome Open City instantly, markedly, and permanently changed the landscape of film history. Made at the end of World War II, it has been credited with initiating a revolution in and reinvention of modern cinema, bold claims that are substantiated when its impact on how films are conceptualized, made, structured, theorized, circulated, and viewed is examined. This volume offers a fresh look at the production history of Rome Open City; some of its key images, and particularly its representation of the city and various types of women; its cinematic influences and affinities; the complexity of its political dimensions, including the film's vision of political struggle and the political uses to which the film was put; and the legacy of the film in public consciousness. It serves as a well illustrated, up to date, and accessible introduction to one of the major achievements of filmmaking.
Roberto Rossellini, famous Italian film director and icon of neorealism, would have been 100 years old on 8 May 2006. Isabella Rosellini, offspring of the Bergman/Rossellini cinema dynasty, herself a film star, author and celebrated photo model has dreamed up a very special hommage to her father on the centenary of his birth.
He Had Come To See A World At The End Of One Period Of History And At The Beginning Of Another More Dramatic One. When He Came To India In December 1956 Roberto Rossellini Was An Internationally Renowned Figure. Highly Acclaimed As A Director Of Italian Neo-Realist Films And Married To Hollywood Legend Ingrid Bergman, His Was An Ebullient Yet Intense Personality That Combined A Fondness For Flashy Cars And Lovely Women With A Passionately Serious Commitment To Exploring The Human Condition And Portraying It With Unflinching And Unvarnished Honesty. Rossellini Had Come To India At The Invitation Of The Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His Aim Was To Make A Series Of Films Which Would Capture The Newly Independent Country As It Came To Grips With Progress And Development After Centuries Of Colonialism. He Deliberately Eschewed The Exotica Which Had Beguiled All Too Many Western Travellers. He Refused To Be Distracted By The Monuments, The Spirituality And Cultural Bric-A-Brac, Preferring Instead To Fix His Gaze On The Actual Moment, On The Grand Endeavours Of Industrialization, Land Reform And The Then Still Fledging Democratic Spirit-- The India Of Nehru S Vision. India Changed Rossellini Irrevocably. It Was Here That He Encountered The Dusky, Doe-Eyed Sonali Dasgupta, Then 27 Years-Old, The Wife Of A Documentary Film-Maker And The Mother Of Two Small Children. Their Connection Scandalized Indian Society And Became The Object Of A Sustained Campaign By Elements In The Indian Press, Instigated By The Bombay Film Industry Which Resented Nehru S Patronage Of A Foreign Film-Maker And Rossellini S Unconcealed Contempt For Their Overblown, Fantastical Extravaganzas. Eminent Journalist Dileep Padgaonkar Enters The World Of India In The 1950S--The Great Political Expectations, The Curious, Interconnected Lives Of The Bombay Elite, The Still Isolated Universe Of Indian Villages--And Traces Rossellini S Passage Through All Of Them. Using Contemporary Reports, Interviews And The Published And Unpublished Reminiscences Of Those Involved In The Drama, He Looks At The Films That Rossellini Made And At Events As They Unfolded To Create A Portrait Of A Remarkable Man Who Fell Under The Spell Of A Woman, A Country And Its People. Under Her Spell Is Spell-Binding...The Personality (Of Rossellini) That Emerges From Dileep Padgaonkar'S Painstakingly Researched Work&Is That Of A Complex, Creatively Restless, Controversial And Often Contradictory Human Being, Who Also Happened To Be A Classic Alpha Male. -Shyam Benegal, Film Director Rossellini Transgressed Every Conceivable Boundary He Was Confronted With - Personal Or Professional. Some Of The Transgressions Were Path-Breaking In His Life And In His Work. Some Others Brought On Meaningless Misery And Disappointment. He Remained A Teacher In Failures, Even. Under Her Spell Is An Engrossing Account Of Magnificent Compulsions. -Mani Kaul, Film Director A Well-Researched And Original Inquiry Into A Key Period Of Rossellini S Evolution Towards A New Kind Of Cinema. Dileep Padgaonkar S Account Of His Passage To India Reads Like A Passionate Novel. -Adriano Aprà , Italian Film Historian The Joy Of Discovery In Rossellini S (Film), India, Is Echoed In This Magnificent Chronicle Of The Italian Director S Incredible Adventures& Dileep Padgaonkar Has Found A Wealth Of New Sources For This Amazing Story. -Tag Gallagher, Author Of The Adventures Of Roberto Rossellini)
A master of modern European cinema and a key figure in the Italian neorealist movement, Roberto Rossellini had one of the longest and most varied careers of all major directors. From 'Rome Open City' and 'Paisà ' through to the 'Bergman' classics 'Stromboli 'and 'Journey to Italy' and his later work for television, Rossellini's work and ideas had a profound influence on filmmaking and criticism. This specially commissioned overview of Rossellini's works examines key issues and themes covering all phases of his career. Leading critics from across the world examine, among other issues, the Fascist context of Rossellini's early work, the view of Europe that emerges in his films, the stylistic trajectory of the work through neorealism and beyond and its influence on the French New Wave, the issues of representation that emerge in later films and his extensive work for television. The significance of Rossellini's relationships with Ingrid Bergman and Anna Magnani is discussed and the book also includes a dossier section of materials providing an overview of the most important facts and documents concerning the director.
Utterly original, human, and provocative--like the author herself--"Some of Me" offers a fascinating, quirky, and, above all, personal look at Isabella Rossellini--actress, model, daughter of Ingrid Bergman--illuminating her life and work in a brilliant mosaic of short takes accompanied by scores of photos.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018 A lively and timely introduction to the roots of self-understanding--who we are and how we should act--in the cultures of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Middle Ages and the Renaissance "Know thyself"--this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece, specifically in Delphi, the temple of the god Apollo, who represented the enlightened power of reason. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge. Addressing the curious lay reader with an interdisciplinary approach that includes numerous references to the visual arts, Know Thyself will reintroduce readers to the most profound and enduring ways our civilization has framed the issues of self and society, in the process helping us rediscover the very building blocks of our personality.