:
Marcello Pagliero
see all cast/crew...
: NoShame
: Foreign, Italy
|
|
Post-war Rome is the setting for this lyrical and heartbreaking character study of bitterness, loneliness and reconciliation in the months following Italy's liberation by the Allies. On a rainy night in the heart of the city, a cat burglar (Nando Bruno of Rome, Open City (1945)) inadvertently saves the life of a would-be suicide (Black Sunday (1960)'s Andrea Checchi), despondent over having been betrayed by his fiancée while fighting in the war. Joining the avuncular thief for a night of misadventure, the young man intervenes in the arrest of an impoverished typist (Valentina Cortese, of Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965)) who has turned to prostitution to pay for her boardinghouse room. Ducking out of the rain into a coffee bar, the strangers share hard luck stories over cognac and encounter a distinguished amnesiac (The Bicycle Thief (1948) writer-director Vittorio De Sica), begging to be told who he is. When the new friends find themselves invited to an illegal private casino, old lovers are reunited, old grudges are revived and first love is given a second chance.
Made during the seminal years of Italian neorealism, Roma Citta Libera (Rome Free City) was directed by Marcello Pagliero, famous for having played the stoic resistance leader tortured to death by the Nazis in Roberto Rossellini's incendiary Rome, Open City (1945), and shot on location by Aldo Tonti, who would bring the same mixture of street-level grittiness and breathless magic to Frederico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria a decade later. Scripting the film was a who's who of up-and-coming giants of Italian cinema's golden age, including Ennio Flaiano (La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963)), Suso Checchi D'Amico (The Leopard (1963), Rocco & His Brothers (1960)) and Cesare Zavattini (The Bicycle Thief (1948), Miracle in Milan).
Completely restored from the original 35mm vault negative, Roma Citta Libera is only now available uncut and for the first time on DVD
|
| The Italian Character, Immediately Post-WWII
by talltale
November 25, 2006 - 5:11 PM PST
|
|
|
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
|
Part of my delight in ROMA, CITTA LIBERA must have to do with how it deflected then rose above all my expectations. Instead of being a Rossellini-type example of neo-realism, it's more a romantic, charming story of Italians trying to get by in the difficult period immediately-after WWII. The movie admits to all that is going on surreptitiously, but then gives a typically Italian shrug that manages to get around morals and law, the Americans, and even the Italians' own guilt and shame at their place in the war.
The cast is magnificent, with Vittorio De Scia and Valentina Cortese wildly charismatic, and lesser lights (on our shores, at least) Andrea Checchi, Nando Bruno and Marisa Merlini equally fine. No Shame video deserves high praise for mining this gem. Watch the special features, too, for some interesting history about the period and its filmmakers (such as Marcello Pagliero, who directed this lovely example). |
|
|
GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.75)
4 Votes
add to list 
|
|
|
Your cart
Eoliano
© 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. Portions of content provided by All Movie Guide®,
a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.