497-500 Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy

[Matango]

Good to see William 'Bill' Tubbs as the priest in Paisan. I often wonder about his career...and how such a frankly bad actor appeared in so many great films, especially Wages of Fear. Check his resume on imdb, it's pretty impressive.

[knives]

I'd love to give a thousand kudos for criterion on this. Finally poped in Open City, and my god is it gorgeous. I thought i was going to be lost in the visuals. The improvements are almost comical. If the other two can keep up this picture quality I might start to think that criterion will never beat this release.
As for the film itself, as usual I'm in love. My favorite aspect is how Rossellini conveys the every dayness that has filled these people's lives. The little things like the kneeling upon entering and exiting the church is what held me the most. How can these revolutionaries living in such horrible conditions in such a horrible time live so nonchalantly? Of course this only covers the fantastic first half. The different, but also great second half has just as many interesting components. I didn't like it as much as the first half, but I think it still stands up with the likes of The Army of Shadows. The last ten minutes or so in particular convey something I love about Rossellini. While he does take a minimalist and realist formalism to the camera, there is something almost Hollywood in how he presents expo speak and totally unreal characters in a way that makes them feel as if they only could be real. Things like the master race speech or the entire confrontation between the Nazi and the priest should be terrible, obvious, and gauf worthy, but instead they are the aspects that make this a great film.
Before I take my stream of consciousness too far I'll end this little love letter, but not before mentioning how much I appreciated the way even this early in his career Rossellini could have an actor do the subtlest thing and have it be overwhelmingly dramatic or funny, lots of unexpected humour here.
Here's hoping the other two are at least as good.

[swo17]

Finally poped in Open City

Pun intended?

[knives]

There's a pun?

[aox]

Finally poped in Open City

Pun intended?

Don't like Open City?

[swo17]

I take it the rest of my Pope jokes will be lost on you guys.

[aox]

To be fair, I was drunk last night and read it as 'pooped'.

Sorry.

[knives]

What's the consensus on the fifth story? It was my favorite of the six until the Jew/ Protestant thing was brought up which just confused me. Very tricky thing to tackle, especially in a short like that, but I think Rossellini pulled it off even if I can't entirely tell what it is he pulled off. The first story was also basically perfect with one of the best oners, emotionally if not showy, I've ever seen.

[dad1153]

Turner Classic Movies will be showing "Paisan" as part of their Memorial Day Weekend schedule this Sunday night (Monday morning) at 2:45AM ET/11:45PM PT.

[HistoryProf]

as the frenzy of the B&N sale slows I can now turn to actually watching all the stuff I bought and had to start here. I was hoping to move through at least R:OC and Paisan, but after the amazing opening film, I had to dive into the extras and explore everything Criterion so carefully put together for us. It truly feels like a labor of love unlike any other dvd set I've ever owned. Glorious.

The film itself - Rome: Open City - was a revelation and I want to savor it a bit. To think that this was made in 1945 is really hard to fathom. The subversiveness of it all, even with the touches of melodrama and obviousness in things like the Master Race scene, it still boggles the mind that he pulled this off. Magnani is just amazing to watch...I don't know what it is about her, but she might be the closest thing to a deity in human form cinema has ever had. She simply seems of another world, but at the same time projects and presents the very essence of humanity in every look, movement, and word she speaks. She is more than captivating or stunning...she's ethereal. I've known this of course, but to see her here was like watching her arrival or something. The final shot of part 1 moved me more than anything I can recall, and I knew it was coming. That's something.

I wish I had started this yesterday so I could spend all day sunday with the next two instead of putting it in at 6pm on a Sunday night.

[kinjitsu]

Better late than never: Jason Hardy on creating the package design.

[mfunk9786]

Really makes you appreciate the gorgeous final product.

[kinjitsu]

My favorite packaging last year.

I can see why this was rejected.

[HerrSchreck]

Guys I need a qiick bit of help... On one of these discs Rosselini is talking about how one of the most important lessons he ever learned was when he was filming the scene where the priest is killed at the end of ROMA, and the scene wasn't working, and what he did was to begin banging on a chair to create a sense of rhythm, which ultimately caused that scene to work in his view.

I know this statement is on one of the extras in the set but I can't find it for the life of me. I need it for the commentary that I'm doing right now for L'ATALANTE.

[Peacock]

I think that it's either from that Rice Q&A or from that big documentary by Carlo Lizzani...

[HerrSchreck]

Specifically.. I scrolled through the bulk of everything and can't find it. If someone knows exactly it'd be a great help.

[HerrSchreck]

Ahhhhh. . . . . At last.

Thats exactly it D, thanks much. I thought I'd never find it.

I'll bring this up here because 1) you'll probly get a kick out of hearing it, and 2) no other film on the face of the earth could be more incongruous to this thread:

Based on your championing of the film elsewhere, I gave a second look to The Mesa of Lost Women. Dude there are so many sublime moments in that film too numerous to count. To think that it was photographed by Karl Struss of SUNRISE ( plus so much chaplin and much much more) as well as Paul Leni's ace cameraman Gilbert Warrenton makes it all the better. Parentheses and ellipses and tales within tales.. Coogan as cyclopsish Frank..

" I call her tarantella.."

[scotty2]

Wrote this meandering essay after visiting Rome and thinking about Rossellini's films.

[ellipsis7]

New resto of PAISA showing at Venice (sezione Venezia Classici)... Maybe will allow a decent Blu Ray upgrade...

Progetto Rossellini
Il Progetto Rossellini ha visto cooperare Cineteca Nazionale, Cineteca di Bologna, Cinecittà Luce e Coproduction Office in un piano di restauro digitale complessivo di una parte centrale, e fondamentale, della filmografia di Roberto Rossellini, nella sua promozione e diffusione a livello mondiale. La Mostra di Venezia presenta quest'anno il restauro di uno dei più importanti capolavori del maestro italiano, Paisà.

[movielocke]

In theory, I had watched Rome Open City before. So I skipped it at first, because who can forget that image of the Mother being shot down in the street and her son flying to her body (and how can you forget it when it's referenced so often)? I later went back and watched the whole thing and discovered that this is a film I slept through most of in college, I suspect it was one of those nefarious pre-noon classes, I remember about half of the first part of the film, but thought the film ended when part one ended. I had no recollection of Part II, which has been my loss.

From having watched both box sets in last couple months, This film stands head and shoulders above the rest (though some of the other films are phenomenal) as Rossellini's masterpiece. The vital urgency of the story, of the filmmaking grabbed me to a degree matched only by Bicycle Thieves of the neo realist films. The whole production is stunning and the story is uncompromising, it feels like a lightning bolt in world cinema, I can absolutely see why it was such a shock and success. Wow.

Germany Year Zero is nearly equal. It is not quite up there, the performances are not quite as good, the script is a little more preachy. You can sense Rossellini is being drawn artistically in the direction of pulling the moral more front and center, as he did later in Europe 51. Still, the film is mesmerizing throughout, and a stunning piece of work.

Paisan I was slightly disappointed in, but only because it doesn't quite measure up to the other two. The anthology structure is very nice, it gives the film a unique rhythm and each segment is so well done within the pacing of it's own story. There were things to love in each conception, and there are different bits of Rossellini it seems in each pod. The sweep and scope of the battlefront is brilliantly handled, he manages to boil epic stories down to the human hearts and the blood and sinew binding peoples together. Striking, and wonderful.

[ellipsis7]

New resto of PAISA showing at Venice (sezione Venezia Classici)... Maybe will allow a decent Blu Ray upgrade...

Progetto Rossellini
Il Progetto Rossellini ha visto cooperare Cineteca Nazionale, Cineteca di Bologna, Cinecittà Luce e Coproduction Office in un piano di restauro digitale complessivo di una parte centrale, e fondamentale, della filmografia di Roberto Rossellini, nella sua promozione e diffusione a livello mondiale. La Mostra di Venezia presenta quest'anno il restauro di uno dei più importanti capolavori del maestro italiano, Paisà.

Added to this, the Janus Films poster for the new 4K resto of ROMA, CITTA APERTA, surely points to a BR upgrade of the complete WAR TRILOGY by Criterion...

[domino harvey]

Upgrade coming

[domino harvey]

MSRP for the Blu-ray is $100, guess those $80 boxes truly are a thing of the past (even though this was one of them on DVD...)

[Werewolf by Night]

I guess I can stop holding out on this now after 7 1/2 years...

[Perkins Cobb]

Is the Criterion Blu going to include L'Amore? If not, that BFI set I got on eBay for $26 last week is going to seem like an even better deal.