roberto rossellini

Europa ’51

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Ingrid Bergman in dark coat

Often described as a neorealist film, Roberto Rossellini’s second collaboration with Ingrid Bergman, Europa ’51, is actually more a Hollywood melodrama with one breakaway neorealist moment. But more than that it’s a vehicle designed to rehabilitate Bergman by getting her to do what she was best at on screen – suffer. It’s the story of a high society woman who’s too busy drinking cocktails and exchanging chintzy chit-chat with her friends to notice that her son is in need of some love and affection. At a drinks party one night, son Michele attempts suicide by throwing himself down the stairs. He survives, only to die later of a complication. Irene (Bergman) is thrown … Read more

Rome, Open City

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Anna Magnani runs after her fiancee in Rome, Open City

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 2 June The sack of Rome, AD455 On this day in the 455th year of the Christian or Common Era, Rome was sacked. Actually, this is a touch ambiguous, because Rome had already been pillaged twice before, in 390BC by the Gauls fighting the Roman in the Battle of the Allia; and in AD410, in the attack of the Visigoths led by Alaric. In AD455 it was the Vandal king Genseric who marched on Rome, claiming a peace treaty between himself and Emperor Valentinian III had been violated when Emperor Petronius Maximus had usurped Valentinian and seized the throne. Out of … Read more