497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

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Jeff
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497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#1 Post by Jeff » Thu Oct 15, 2009 5:45 pm

Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

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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 effectively launched 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 that encompass both tragedy and hope.

• New illustrated essay by film scholar Thomas Meder on Rossellini's relationship with his mistress Roswitha Schmidt
• New and improved English subtitle translations
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by director Irene Bignardi and film scholars Colin McCabe, James Quandt, and Jonathan Rosenbaum

Rome Open City

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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 a bit more melodramatic flair than the other films that would form this trilogy and starring 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 was an international sensation, garnering awards around the globe and leaving the beginnings of a new film movement in its wake.

• New high-definition digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introduction by Roberto Rossellini
• Audio commentary from 2009 by film scholar Peter Bondanella
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
• Interviews from 2009 with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà
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
• Interview with film critic and Rossellini friend Father Virgilio Fantuzzi, who discusses the filmmaker and the role of religion in Rome Open City

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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, 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 for the first time in its full original release version.

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/product_images/924/498_box_348x490_w100.jpg[/img]

• New high-definition digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introduction by Roberto Rossellini
• Interview from 2009 with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà
• Excerpts from rarely seen videotaped discussions Rossellini had in 1970 about his craft with faculty and students at Rice University
Into the Future, a 2009 video essay about The War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher

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Germany Year Zero

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/product_images/918/499_box_348x490_w100.jpg[/img]

The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin shown through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy. Living in a bombed-out apartment building with a 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.

• New high-definition digital restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introductions by Roberto Rossellini
• Italian credits and prologue from Germany Year Zero
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
Letters from the Front: Carlo Lizzani on "Germany Year Zero," a podium discussion with Lizzani from the 1987 Tutto Rossellini conference
• Interview from 2009 with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà
• Interviews from 2009 with filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

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montgomery
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#2 Post by montgomery » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:25 pm

Yeah.

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domino harvey
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#3 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:27 pm

Anyone else surprised that Tag Gallagher is only barely included in the extras?

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cdnchris
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#4 Post by cdnchris » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:29 pm

I noticed that, too. I'm actually a little disappointed since his contribution to the last Rossellini releases (including the notes in the Eclipse set) were quite good.

hangman
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#5 Post by hangman » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:32 pm

domino harvey wrote:Anyone else surprised that Tag Gallagher is only barely included in the extras?
Definitely, considering that Gallagher writes quite a bit about Rossellini, he has a book (and IMO is one of the best writers out there) one would think that criterion would've asked for more out of him, commentary would be great but a visual essay on each film would've just been as good.

Still this set looks great, there goes my cash this January on this and the Ernst Lubitsch box planned by MoC T_T

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#6 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:51 pm

domino harvey wrote:Anyone else surprised that Tag Gallagher is only barely included in the extras?
Yes, indeed. Maybe that visual essay will be a doozy, though. James Quandt and Jonathan Rosenbaum are good to have on the set at least. I'm also surprised that there isn't more Scorsese as well, but maybe he was too busy for extended consultation. Anyway, I'm glad it's finally here and available at $80!!

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#7 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:09 pm

Priceless set, excellent month, I say!

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LQ
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#8 Post by LQ » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:32 pm

Really, really looking forward to getting my hands on this set. Out of the three I've only seen Rome Open City before, and it WAS an abysmal print..I remember a notable amount of dialogue wasn't even subtitled. And another Bondanella commentary, nice.

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Peacock
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#9 Post by Peacock » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:35 pm

Haven't seen any of these, held off on the UK dvd of Rome Open City because it was cut, hope the Criterion isn't! (I know, it won't be)

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Florinaldo
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#10 Post by Florinaldo » Thu Oct 15, 2009 8:23 pm

Wow, it's been a few months since I have been so anticipating a Criterion release the moment it's announced!

Only last week I was watching Voyage in Italy and thinking how unfortunate it was that these earlier films had not been released in satisfactory DVD editions. I do not own the Germany Year Zero DVD, but I remember watching it a few years ago and thinking how fuzzy it was.

The low presence of Tag Gallagher may indeed be surprising, but perhaps he feels he has said all he has to say in his massive and excellent biography/critical study of Rossellini. And anyway, Criterion still has time to update the extras, as they have done in some cases.

If it takes more commercial releases like Benjamin Button now and again to help bankroll projects such as this one, then I am all for them.

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zedz
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#11 Post by zedz » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:03 pm

I've loved Gallagher's contributions to the previous DVDs, but of all the Rossellini films in the pipeline, these are the ones about which everybody's got something to say, so I'd much rather they kept him up their sleeves for Ingrid or more of the television stuff, where intelligent commentary might not be so thick on the ground.

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Anthony
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#12 Post by Anthony » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:45 pm

I don't mean to rain on the parade here... but let's just hope to god that these aren't pictureboxed.
Last edited by Anthony on Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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brendanjc
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#13 Post by brendanjc » Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:08 pm

You mean hope that they are not pictureboxed right?

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alandau
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#14 Post by alandau » Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:21 pm

Most definitely Criterion of the year. I am overwhelmed. Thanks Criterion.

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Anthony
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#15 Post by Anthony » Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:39 pm

brendanjc wrote:You mean hope that they are not pictureboxed right?
Yep, sorry... I fixed my comment. :-"

Perkins Cobb
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#16 Post by Perkins Cobb » Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:06 am

Sort of off-topic, but I see the Walter Reade in NYC is programming a 40-film Italian neorealism series in November ... just the thing to whet my appetite for this release.

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ellipsis7
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#17 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:49 am

David Forgacs would have also made good commentary on ROME OPEN CITY, still we have his excellent BFI monograph on the same, and both Bondanella and he have fine chapters in RR's ROME OC edited by Sidney Gottlieb......

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Ben Cheshire
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#18 Post by Ben Cheshire » Fri Oct 16, 2009 5:51 am

Blind buying this one.

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Tribe
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#19 Post by Tribe » Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:42 am

The smoking gun no one has commented on yet: this is the first Criterion box set where the spine number for the set succeeds the individual spine numbers for the components of the set. Criterion has ruined and manipulated its spine number system just so the set spine number could be 500.

I think a boycott is in order. =D>

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Tommaso
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#20 Post by Tommaso » Fri Oct 16, 2009 3:44 pm

Truly excellent. With that load of extras, all of which seem to be highly interesting, I'm very favourably reminded of what I used to associate with Criterion, and to associate with Criterion exclusively, until one or two years ago. A very fine way to celebrate spine #500 indeed. Blind buy for sure.

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GringoTex
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#21 Post by GringoTex » Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:54 pm

Dave, you should know- which of these films received the restoration everybody was ga-ga about a couple of years ago?

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Matt
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#22 Post by Matt » Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:57 pm

Are you thinking of the MoMA restoration of Paisan, circa 2005? But then Rome Open City was restored recently too, by the Cineteca Nazionale.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#23 Post by HerrSchreck » Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:45 pm

Indeed-- I have a disc of Open City that I've owned for five years that I refuse to watch.. actually less deliberate than that. It was supposed to be 'restored' but it's such a horror that I literally, no matter how many times I try, can't stick with it.

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Erikht
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#24 Post by Erikht » Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:49 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Indeed-- I have a disc of Open City that I've owned for five years that I refuse to watch.. actually less deliberate than that. It was supposed to be 'restored' but it's such a horror that I literally, no matter how many times I try, can't stick with it.
Good choice. I had to watch it.

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ellipsis7
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Re: 497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

#25 Post by ellipsis7 » Sun Oct 18, 2009 3:25 pm

The R2 UK Arrow disc of OPEN CITY also lacks a whole load subtitles for quite a bit of the dialogue too - no doubt to be put right in the new set... I guess we have a preview glimpse of some of what the CC set will look like with the clips excerpted in Tag G's visual essay on LOUIS XIV - work in progress then as regards the digital restoration etc...

Did Tag G do a visual essay on FRANCIS? It's not listed in the specs on the CC site - would be interested, have the MoC, but that would be a supplement that might persuade me to double dip when I'm picking up the WAR TRILOGY in the New Year...

The standout film in this set, for me, is PAISAN... I still rely on a DVD-R from a 20 year VHS recording off the BBC until now... PAISAN, even more than OPEN CITY, is a radical breakthrough in cinematic storytelling - it's fragmented episodic structure, with no overall protagonists - but each of the three are really fascinating in their interrogation of the reality and fallout of WWII, and simply landmark sea change cinema... In the freshness and authenticity of their treatment of actual experience, creatively fused into fiction film, they broke the sanatised stranglehold of Hollywood melodrama forever...

As Tommasso says, this is a return to gold standard Criterion...
Last edited by ellipsis7 on Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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