Open City (1945)

The Allies had barely driven the Nazis out of Rome when Roberto Rosselini went to work on Open City, considered by most to be his greatest work. Shot on bits and short ends of scavenged film, this film helped define Italian neorealism. Audiences were convinced that the actors were all amateurs (they weren't) and the whole film was improvised (it wasn't; the three screenwriters included Federico Fellini). With its semidocumentary camera style and use of actual locations, the film does feel very real. Of course, so does the opening half-hour of Saving Private Ryan, and like that film Open City is at its heart a classic war yarn any Hollywood studio would feel at home with. The story involves members of the Italian underground trying to smuggle badly needed cash out of Nazi-occupied Rome to partisan fighters in the mountains, while the Nazis are hunting down one of the underground, a notorious freedom fighter and seditionist. Anna Magnani (an actor well established in her own country who became an international star with this film) is often singled out for her portrayal as the pregnant, unwed woman who gets caught up in the action on her wedding day, but the entire cast is topnotch. The sparse subtitles are both a blessing and a curse--there is less to read, which allows the viewer to concentrate on the visuals, but there are times when non-Italian-speakers will feel like they're missing out on some juicy dialogue. --Geof Miller Amazon.com

Prompt and perfect

Prompt and perfect.....and, of course, A Classic (for this American guy and his bella Italian wife) July 6, 2008

Unique and Powerful.

I have to agree with a couple of the reviewers here that this film is rather dated, but I can think of few movies from the late forties, even the great ones, that the same thing can't be said about. Open City captivates the viewer almost immediately as it is a moving story. With our first glimpse of Manfredi on the balcony we get a pretty good idea about what the plot will concern. I found it to be legitimately suspenseful and a classic in every sense of the word. One must remember that artists like Rossellini were the building blocks with which our contemporary cinema was erected. There's much that's "great" about this movie. The only contrived element, in my mind, was the speech of the German soldier at the very end which was not believable, but at that time it was the first self-denigrating speech of its kind. What is clichéd and hackneyed to us now was breathtakingly new back then. Considering that many of its actors had no acting experience whatever, Open City is an amazing endeavor. May 30, 2007

Unique and Powerful.

I have to agree with a couple of the reviewers here that this film is rather dated, but I can think of few movies from the late forties, even the great ones, that the same thing can't be said about. Open City captivates the viewer almost immediately as it is a moving story. With our first glimpse of Manfredi on the balcony we get a pretty good idea about what the plot will concern. I found it to be legitimately suspenseful and a classic in every sense of the word. One must remember that artists like Rossellini were the building blocks with which our contemporary cinema was erected. There's much that's "great" about this movie. The only contrived element, in my mind, was the speech of the German soldier at the very end which was not believable, but at that time it was the first self-denigrating speech of its kind. What is clichéd and hackneyed to us now was breathtakingly new back then. Considering that many of its actors had no acting experience whatever, Open City is an amazing endeavor. May 30, 2007

A most enduring and powerful classic

Open City is a classic that nearly defies classification of genre. Although hailed by serious critics as a neorealist masterpiece, and understandably so, it's strength, ironically, lies in its starker resemblence to melodrama, similar to Luchino Visconti's The Damned. What makes Open City a masterpiece is not only its trim, forceful screenplay but Rossellini's ability to utilize the wartime, grainy film stock and presence of the actual, newly defeated fascist army to portray a sense of immediate reality of the occupation and those who so courageously fought against the fascists. Open City's plot and characters are black and white, because, to the courageous resistance fighters in fascist occupied Rome, there was no luxury of quibbling over nuances and perspective. Rossellini's filmmaking, such as his meticulously judicious use of closeups, is still one of the most meticulous of any director to this day. This film is an enduring film classic that should be seen by not only students of film but all young people. Open City's stark characterization need to be understood in the context of the situation. Audiences can, with hindsight, make good sense of Rossellini's choices and contextualize them as they gain appreciation for this beauty of film classics. January 5, 2007

DVD quality poor...Actual Movie Excellent.

A beautiful and gripping story is marred by the use of poor movie print when transferred to DVD. I would have to believe there is a better copy of the movie available to transfer to DVD. A five star movie is reduced to 3 stars by the poor DVD. December 3, 2006

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