By Fatmir Terziu
When the German soldier pushes the old women in front of Pina, her body language is clear to understand that she hates the Nazi Germans. Later when the Nazi major strokes Pina in her arm, while the women next to her is crying Rossellini finds the pretexts to explore Pina’s full hatred for the Nazi Germans. This is what Bondanella called “improvisation”, which leads as to understand Pina’s inside world.
Bondanella describes Rosellini as "hybrid" filmmaking style (Peter Bondanella [1993] p.50). It is clear that in this quote many things linked with Rosellini's films can be discovered. In a extract from one of his films, Roma, Citta Aperta, this can be understood. The extract starts with an expositional shot and moves to the action shot. The arrival of the Nazi Germans is shown by this expositional shot. The Nazi leader, Major Bergmann, orders the Italian brigadier to stay where he wants him to, which means that the power is under the Nazi Germans’ command. This shot reminds the viewers that it is the time of Nazi German occupation of Italy and the fact that Rossellini finds a new way of representing the time and space. The action shot presents a little girl running into a church shouting out Marcello’s name. This also alerts the viewers the Nazi Germans’ arrival.
The next scene explores the perspective through the antagonist forces. It can be seen clearly when the Nazi Germans order everyone, even the sick to empty the building, where they were searching for the partisans and arms. Another point, which leads to the reality, is Rossellini’s attempt of creating the idea that ordinary people help the partisans to escape, while the Fascists troops are represented as characters that are more interested in looking at women’s legs than capturing the partisans. Bazin said of Rossellini’s way of filmmaking: “fragments of raw reality, multiple and equivocal in themselves, between which the mind is able to see relations” (Bazin, 1976:132).
The repetitive wide shots of women in front of the building while the Nazi Germans and Fascists were emptying more people, is focused on the judgment that the brutality is not such a simple representation, but the fact of the perspective that helped to create the sense of reality about the solidarity between them. It gave the viewer freedom to look at different parts of the shot and provided greater freedom for interpretation. The next step forward this perspective is the representation of other realities linked to the sequence where the main protagonist, Pina, is in centre of the crowded people, while her husband, Francesco appears and disappears during his escape, until his final debut in the extract, showing him arrested in a car by Nazi Germans. The Catholic priest Don Pietro and Marcello are part of this reality. They both are protagonists of the scene, which helped to convert the tragic situation into comic situation, by using the well-known filmmaking elements of slapstick. The scene when Pina’s father is lying on the bed, Don Pietro and Marcello, use the spiritual element to trick the Fascists troops. It is what Bazin called “the presence of the spiritual” is expressed with “breath-taking obviousness” (Bazin, 1976:132). These shots illustrate a purely spiritual reality and the notion of community alternates throughout the extract with its opposite, isolation.
Lurking beneath, through the treatment of characters and landscape, the extract is projected as a “hybrid” for intervening in and altering the critical situation during the Nazi Germans control (Bondanella, 1993:50). The camera moves from interior to exterior and vice versa to clarify this critical situation and to focus on the reality from different angles. Rossellini is the first director to discover the camera as an “instrument of investigation and reflection” (Forgacs, 2000:10). At this point this extract provides a vision of reality dependent on the spirit of human common sense conjoined to a well known typical treatment of the death of protagonist, Pina.
The female characters are represented not simply as mothers, but protagonists of the whole scenery. They helped Francesco and the other partisans to escape, and they are in the centre of our attention when carrying out the humane jobs, such us caring for the sick. From Pina’s point of view and from her body language Rossellini carefully creates the reality that surrounded all the female characters. When the German soldier pushes the old women in front of Pina, her body language is clear to understand that she hates the Nazi Germans. Later when the Nazi major strokes Pina in her arm, while the women next to her is crying Rossellini finds the pretexts to explore Pina’s full hatred for the Nazi Germans. This is what Bondanella called “improvisation”, which leads as to understand Pina’s inside world. However, it is the point when she snaps and using all her strength gets free from the Nazi major and goes through a whole crowd of people to run after the car where Francesco is being taken away in (Bondanella, 1993:52).
The hate for the Nazi Germans is presented through simplicity at high level, through “very real ideological and historical tensions”, even though the children are part of this (Bondanella, 1993:52). The adult world of the partisan resistance is juxtaposed with that of the children who form their own group of resistance. The children in this extract build up their supply of contraband and are messengers for the news that the Germans have come. Marcello’s crippled friend, Romoletto, is armed with a gun and wants to shoot at the Nazi Germans. For Bondanella “Romoletto represents a mirror image of the partisans but in comic key…” (Bondanella, 1993:56). Behind these realities stands the whole force of Rossellini’s aesthetics natural versus artificial, hate versus comic.
As Bondanella finds, this film “contains a great deal of authentic humour”, the extract is rich in comic situations (Bondanella, 1993:53). These can be seen when Pina’s father wakes up and is surprised by the presence of the priest and his grandson both dressed in a formal church clothes. Rossellini has created Pina’s father’s character in the way that his physical appearance only can make the viewers laugh. All the situations in this scene are well crafted and centred around the sense of humour. We do not see the moment when the priest hits Pina’s father with a skillet on the head, to make him silent when the Fascist troops are coming, but we find out afterwards from Marcello, who laughs aloud. This sense of humour juxtaposes the comic situations with tragic events. As Bondanella said Rossellini is adept to the “shifting of perspectives from a comic to tragic tone” (Bondanella, 1993:55).
On the other hand, in the scene when the Fascist troops climb up the stairs to look for the dying man, while the priest and Marcello climb down the music adds to the dramatic effect. Don Pietro’s face thus framed in a poor light under the shadow of the handrails recalls the chiaroscuro of the climbing scene when he and Marcello are running to find Romoletto. At this point the music helps to create importance and suspense. The suspense is present in the whole of this scene. Don Pietro hides the weapons first under the bed, but then retrieves them and puts them under the blanket. Bondanella said, “here [Rossellini] skilfully builds suspense” (Bondanella, 1993:56).
However, through the dialogue and action the extract explores that it is kind of coming together; even the brigadier who is part of the Fascist Administration is presented by Rossellini as a character who helps the ordinary people to defy the Nazi Germans and the Fascists. This occurs when he plays along with Don Pietro’s story to allow him to fool the Fascists that he really is going to comfort the dying man.
There’s no doubting Rossellini’s bravura skill in crafting individual scenes such as the scene after, the final of this extract, which highlights all the main issue of this extract and “manipulates audiences emotions” (Bondanella, 1993:52). For Bondanella “as Francesco escapes ... Pina’s death was completely meaningless” (Bondanella, 1993:57). It is what Liehm called “[a film] about death and an awareness of the tragic in ordinary life” (Liehm, 1984:63). Rossellini creates this scene by using the high angle camera to give the emotional distress, when she was shot dead by the Nazi Germans, in front of everyone. Further, he carefully crafted the moment when Pina’s son is crying over her body. “Pina’s death would become the single most dramatic moment of the film” (Bondanella, 1993:52). According to Bondanella, “Rossellini’s camera shifts to the interior of the truck to capture the scene from Francesco’s point of view, and the fact that we share it increases the dramatic impact of the scene” (Bondanella, 1993:57).
At last, everything is the suggestion of an antagonist universe in which all of this makes sense in the same way that a protagonist’s, Pina’s position in the extract makes sense. The extract provides attention to the theme that explores the reality and causes of war effects on ordinary people. The way that Rossellini chooses to represent these realities are part of our attention as invisible observer. Children are ever-present in this extract. By this Rossellini is trying to put across that these children are Italy’s future. There is certain jauntiness in the way this squad of Nazi Germans and Fascists shot the innocent female, Pina. The presence of Don Pietro, who picks up her body and of the Italian brigadier who holds her crying son, is shown by Rossellini in the way that Bondanella called “contrary to the traditional belief that sets are of little importance in neorealist films” (Bondanella, 1993:57). What is obvious in this extract is that Rossellini has avoided close-ups and preferred to shoot in location.
The next scene explores the perspective through the antagonist forces. It can be seen clearly when the Nazi Germans order everyone, even the sick to empty the building, where they were searching for the partisans and arms. Another point, which leads to the reality, is Rossellini’s attempt of creating the idea that ordinary people help the partisans to escape, while the Fascists troops are represented as characters that are more interested in looking at women’s legs than capturing the partisans. Bazin said of Rossellini’s way of filmmaking: “fragments of raw reality, multiple and equivocal in themselves, between which the mind is able to see relations” (Bazin, 1976:132).
The repetitive wide shots of women in front of the building while the Nazi Germans and Fascists were emptying more people, is focused on the judgment that the brutality is not such a simple representation, but the fact of the perspective that helped to create the sense of reality about the solidarity between them. It gave the viewer freedom to look at different parts of the shot and provided greater freedom for interpretation. The next step forward this perspective is the representation of other realities linked to the sequence where the main protagonist, Pina, is in centre of the crowded people, while her husband, Francesco appears and disappears during his escape, until his final debut in the extract, showing him arrested in a car by Nazi Germans. The Catholic priest Don Pietro and Marcello are part of this reality. They both are protagonists of the scene, which helped to convert the tragic situation into comic situation, by using the well-known filmmaking elements of slapstick. The scene when Pina’s father is lying on the bed, Don Pietro and Marcello, use the spiritual element to trick the Fascists troops. It is what Bazin called “the presence of the spiritual” is expressed with “breath-taking obviousness” (Bazin, 1976:132). These shots illustrate a purely spiritual reality and the notion of community alternates throughout the extract with its opposite, isolation.
Lurking beneath, through the treatment of characters and landscape, the extract is projected as a “hybrid” for intervening in and altering the critical situation during the Nazi Germans control (Bondanella, 1993:50). The camera moves from interior to exterior and vice versa to clarify this critical situation and to focus on the reality from different angles. Rossellini is the first director to discover the camera as an “instrument of investigation and reflection” (Forgacs, 2000:10). At this point this extract provides a vision of reality dependent on the spirit of human common sense conjoined to a well known typical treatment of the death of protagonist, Pina.
The female characters are represented not simply as mothers, but protagonists of the whole scenery. They helped Francesco and the other partisans to escape, and they are in the centre of our attention when carrying out the humane jobs, such us caring for the sick. From Pina’s point of view and from her body language Rossellini carefully creates the reality that surrounded all the female characters. When the German soldier pushes the old women in front of Pina, her body language is clear to understand that she hates the Nazi Germans. Later when the Nazi major strokes Pina in her arm, while the women next to her is crying Rossellini finds the pretexts to explore Pina’s full hatred for the Nazi Germans. This is what Bondanella called “improvisation”, which leads as to understand Pina’s inside world. However, it is the point when she snaps and using all her strength gets free from the Nazi major and goes through a whole crowd of people to run after the car where Francesco is being taken away in (Bondanella, 1993:52).
The hate for the Nazi Germans is presented through simplicity at high level, through “very real ideological and historical tensions”, even though the children are part of this (Bondanella, 1993:52). The adult world of the partisan resistance is juxtaposed with that of the children who form their own group of resistance. The children in this extract build up their supply of contraband and are messengers for the news that the Germans have come. Marcello’s crippled friend, Romoletto, is armed with a gun and wants to shoot at the Nazi Germans. For Bondanella “Romoletto represents a mirror image of the partisans but in comic key…” (Bondanella, 1993:56). Behind these realities stands the whole force of Rossellini’s aesthetics natural versus artificial, hate versus comic.
As Bondanella finds, this film “contains a great deal of authentic humour”, the extract is rich in comic situations (Bondanella, 1993:53). These can be seen when Pina’s father wakes up and is surprised by the presence of the priest and his grandson both dressed in a formal church clothes. Rossellini has created Pina’s father’s character in the way that his physical appearance only can make the viewers laugh. All the situations in this scene are well crafted and centred around the sense of humour. We do not see the moment when the priest hits Pina’s father with a skillet on the head, to make him silent when the Fascist troops are coming, but we find out afterwards from Marcello, who laughs aloud. This sense of humour juxtaposes the comic situations with tragic events. As Bondanella said Rossellini is adept to the “shifting of perspectives from a comic to tragic tone” (Bondanella, 1993:55).
On the other hand, in the scene when the Fascist troops climb up the stairs to look for the dying man, while the priest and Marcello climb down the music adds to the dramatic effect. Don Pietro’s face thus framed in a poor light under the shadow of the handrails recalls the chiaroscuro of the climbing scene when he and Marcello are running to find Romoletto. At this point the music helps to create importance and suspense. The suspense is present in the whole of this scene. Don Pietro hides the weapons first under the bed, but then retrieves them and puts them under the blanket. Bondanella said, “here [Rossellini] skilfully builds suspense” (Bondanella, 1993:56).
However, through the dialogue and action the extract explores that it is kind of coming together; even the brigadier who is part of the Fascist Administration is presented by Rossellini as a character who helps the ordinary people to defy the Nazi Germans and the Fascists. This occurs when he plays along with Don Pietro’s story to allow him to fool the Fascists that he really is going to comfort the dying man.
There’s no doubting Rossellini’s bravura skill in crafting individual scenes such as the scene after, the final of this extract, which highlights all the main issue of this extract and “manipulates audiences emotions” (Bondanella, 1993:52). For Bondanella “as Francesco escapes ... Pina’s death was completely meaningless” (Bondanella, 1993:57). It is what Liehm called “[a film] about death and an awareness of the tragic in ordinary life” (Liehm, 1984:63). Rossellini creates this scene by using the high angle camera to give the emotional distress, when she was shot dead by the Nazi Germans, in front of everyone. Further, he carefully crafted the moment when Pina’s son is crying over her body. “Pina’s death would become the single most dramatic moment of the film” (Bondanella, 1993:52). According to Bondanella, “Rossellini’s camera shifts to the interior of the truck to capture the scene from Francesco’s point of view, and the fact that we share it increases the dramatic impact of the scene” (Bondanella, 1993:57).
At last, everything is the suggestion of an antagonist universe in which all of this makes sense in the same way that a protagonist’s, Pina’s position in the extract makes sense. The extract provides attention to the theme that explores the reality and causes of war effects on ordinary people. The way that Rossellini chooses to represent these realities are part of our attention as invisible observer. Children are ever-present in this extract. By this Rossellini is trying to put across that these children are Italy’s future. There is certain jauntiness in the way this squad of Nazi Germans and Fascists shot the innocent female, Pina. The presence of Don Pietro, who picks up her body and of the Italian brigadier who holds her crying son, is shown by Rossellini in the way that Bondanella called “contrary to the traditional belief that sets are of little importance in neorealist films” (Bondanella, 1993:57). What is obvious in this extract is that Rossellini has avoided close-ups and preferred to shoot in location.
Reference:
Bazin, Andre (1976) quoted in Eric Rhode’s ED A History of the Cinema From its Origins to 1970, 1st ED London: Penguin, p. 132.
Bondanella, Peter (1993) The Films of Roberto Rossellini 1st ED Cambridge & New York, pp. 52-58.
Forgacs, David (2000) Rome Open City (Roma Citta Aperta) 1st ED London: BFI, p.10.
Liehm, Mira (1984) Passion and Defiance Film in Italy From 1942 to the Present 1st ED London & Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 63.
Filmography:
Roma, Citta Aperta (Roma, Open City, Roberto Rossellini, 1945, Italy)
Bazin, Andre (1976) quoted in Eric Rhode’s ED A History of the Cinema From its Origins to 1970, 1st ED London: Penguin, p. 132.
Bondanella, Peter (1993) The Films of Roberto Rossellini 1st ED Cambridge & New York, pp. 52-58.
Forgacs, David (2000) Rome Open City (Roma Citta Aperta) 1st ED London: BFI, p.10.
Liehm, Mira (1984) Passion and Defiance Film in Italy From 1942 to the Present 1st ED London & Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 63.
Filmography:
Roma, Citta Aperta (Roma, Open City, Roberto Rossellini, 1945, Italy)
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